[dataway]

I remember when the hard part was getting the right information, and building the car was the easy part.

Now a person can get the information easily and building the car is the hard part. I used to have to read magazines, make phone calls, look through Hemmings, searching out parts could take months and months, mailing out for parts catalogs, asking around locally.

Now a person just posts a question on a good forum and a wealth of good information flows. The hardest thing about parts now is sorting through all the available sources.

Used to be the time and money was available before the information and parts, now it's the opposite

[Hikin Mike]

I was just thinking about that recently. I can't believe we (or I) were able to find some of the stuff "back in the day" without the internet.

[Cardo]

One thing we lost in that time frame though is the junkyard. I used to love spending a day looking around for parts. I don't even know where one is around any more that has old cars.

[Simple Man]

But who do you believe?
Having transmission problems with a Ford FMX trans. Depending on which website you look at, the FMX is a decent trans, its a POS. Can't get parts, parts are easy to find, same yoke as a C6, the yoke is different from a C6.....

[92GTA]

Originally Posted by Cardo

One thing we lost in that time frame though is the junkyard. I used to love spending a day looking around for parts. I don't even know where one is around anymore that has old cars.

I agree. In the past 20 years, all good junk yards in my part of CA have vanished, the land cleaned up and reclaimed. All that is left now are places like LKQ and Pick-A-Part. Everything else is gone

There might be as few as 10 good old time junk yards in the entire state left and they charge a fortune because they know they are a dying breed. Other's have turned into speciality parts yards and they also charge crazy prices.

Swap meets all suck. Basically, if you can't find a good used part on eBay or CL, or the expensive speciality yards, you have no choice but to buy a reproduction. Very few "restore" cars anymore, most just build kit cars with all re-pop parts. The days of going to a junk yard and finding what you need are LONG gone, and with it a major part of the hobby in my opinion.

[codyyy]

One thing that, in my mind rules is the word of mouth. Sure shops and rebuilders have websites but I have found great people with a huge abundance of knowledge and talent who don't use the internet to promote it. They may not need to. I have to say the internet was popular long before I started working on cars, though.

[Hikin Mike]

Originally Posted by 92GTA

I agree. In the past 20 years, all good junk yards in my part of CA have vanished, the land cleaned up and reclaimed. All that is left now are places like LKQ and Pick-A-Part. Everything else is gone

There might be as few as 10 good old time junk yards in the entire state left and they charge a fortune because they know they are a dying breed. Other's have turned into speciality parts yards and they also charge crazy prices.

Swap meets all suck. Basically, if you can't find a good used part on eBay or CL, or the expensive speciality yards, you have no choice but to buy a reproduction. Very few "restore" cars anymore, most just build kit cars with all re-pop parts. The days of going to a junk yard and finding what you need are LONG gone, and with it a major part of the hobby in my opinion.

Yep. When I returned from the hobby after a 10-year absence, I found out my two go-to yards are no longer around.

I miss they days of going to Pick-N-Pull and finding Pontiac stuff and occasionally first-gen Firebirds too.

[A.W.Dille]

I still search the yards if I can as G-body stuff especially for a Pontiac isn't all that common to the pull-a-part yards. Plus I still find various A-body parts. One yard about an hour from me has over 6000 vehicles but has been picked through over the years. I hit the swap meets as much as I can if they are local to me. The internet has made it easier I admit but most of the parts I need are mainly most times are clear across the country and shipping costs can put the parts out of my financial range.

[Aaron65]

Originally Posted by Simple Man

But who do you believe?
Having transmission problems with a Ford FMX trans. Depending on which website you look at, the FMX is a decent trans, its a POS. Can't get parts, parts are easy to find, same yoke as a C6, the yoke is different from a C6.....

Have you tried these guys?

http://www.network54.com/Forum/260730

They helped me through some C4 stuff last year.

[goatman65]

Internet has made it easier to get info,whether right or wrong, and searching for parts much easier. But it has really kind of taken some fun out the hobby. Back in the '70s and '80s I used to love reading every page of Hemmings every month, now i'm surprised it is even still around. I have also been going to Carlisle every year since the mid '70s and it has really changed. Going to Carlisle for the weekend was like Christmas for 3 days. Now when I go I rarely buy anything and it just isn't a fun place anymore. It's easier for vendors to just stay home and put a few ads on some websites than it is to drive across country to maybe make a small profit at a swap meet.

[Ben M.]

Salvage yards only had our cars in them 25-30 years ago because these cars were reaching the end of life as regular transportation in that era. People used to repair their 10-15 year old Pontiac when it broke down, now if your 6-7 year old car gets wrecked people just buy another and salvage yards operate mostly to recycle engine/transmissions for repair shops. Salvage yards won't have anything that doesn't move quickly and the days of people just dumping the radiator and crankcase contents on the ground while looking for a part and moving on are over (for good reason).

Essentially, salvage yards are gone for us because our cars are gone from salvage yards. The average range of age of a car in the yard is 7-10 years, with the upper end being in the 20-25 year range. Our cars are 40+. The only yards that have cars our era either specialize in them (DVAP, Franks, etc) and thus still have parts because they are pricey because they can be or are full of junk that's not worth anything (any yard in the north/northeast).

Personally I love the internet for my car restorations. I can see pictures and videos of how other people did it (and sometimes how NOT to do it) and get ideas. My biggest complaint now vs 1995 is finding competent people to do competent work semi-locally. Engines aren't an issue and neither transmissions, its things like rear ends and paint/body work that seem to be lost/dying arts except for some big names in a few parts of the country. I'm to the point where I'm considering just doing my own shabby paint and body work because I can't get a single person to take my money and do a good job on just a simple paint job.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Ben M.

Essentially, salvage yards are gone for us because our cars are gone from salvage yards. The average range of age of a car in the yard is 7-10 years, with the upper end being in the 20-25 year range. Our cars are 40+. The only yards that have cars our era either specialize in them (DVAP, Franks, etc) and thus still have parts because they are pricey because they can be or are full of junk that's not worth anything (any yard in the north/northeast).

That's important to remember, the cars we'd be looking for in a salvage yard today would be 40 or 50 years old now...back when I started going to the yards looking for parts for my first '61 Catalina back in the late 70s, that would have been like finding a bunch of Model T Fords sitting around in the yard. There were yards back then that did keep cars that long, but they were few and far between.

[ho428]

The best and oldest yard we had around here up until the late 80's had cars from the 1920's forward. Starting at the back, row by row they got newer. Well organized.
When the owner died his kids wanted the quick buck and scrapped the entire yard, no sale, no auction, just crushed it all for scrap and sold the property. It was sad.
The irony is there's now a modern Salvage yard on the same property.

[Bob with the 66]

I remember going into a junk yard and asking "Hey do you have any Le Mans or Tempests back in the yard" and then hearing " I don't know about that, but we have a bunch of GTO's will they have what your looking for?

[Peter Serio]

Here are some photos that I took in one of the junkyards around town. These 3 photos were taken in the fall of the year 2003. It was called JC Radiator, sadly the place is now closed.

It was an awesome little junkyard with an operation going back more than 60 years.

It was not common for cars that old to be there in 2003 and I heard that these cars came from an auction; they were the cars left over that nobody bid on.

Over many years a guy had hoarded up about 100 old Pontiacs; some say he had some mental issues. A lot of the cars that were stored outdoors setting in a dirt field were wrapped in blue tarps tied down with bungee cords. The outside cars rusted away slowly. Eventually the township was forced to intervene as the property was deemed a public eyesore.

[Simple Man]

Originally Posted by Aaron65

Have you tried these guys?

http://www.network54.com/Forum/260730

They helped me through some C4 stuff last year.

Thanks for the link. I have a local shop that's going to tackle it.

[Terry M. Hunt]

I really miss crawling through the junkyards also. I did a whole lot of it in the late 70's through mid 80's. I still have copies of letters I would write to various advertisers in Hemmings, Smoke Signals, etc. to see if they had certain parts. You always had to include a self addressed, stamped envelope in order to get a reply, and I would often send the same letter to 8-10 different guys. People always replied to these letters, even if it was just to say "Sorry, don't have it". It almost seems like a quaint method of parts searching given the real time, immediate response nature of almost everything today. I sure used to get amped up when one of my return envelopes appeared in my mailbox, and I don't recall having more than 1 or 2 bad experiences in the process of buying a ton of stuff via this method. On the other hand, I have gathered a great deal of valuable info from the internet in general and these forums especially that would have taken me years to acquire any other way. You just have to learn how to spot the BS artists and self appointed experts and make your way to the honest, upstanding folks who just want to share what they know and help others rather than pumping up their egos.

[Cardo]

Times have changed my friends, but as i bemoan the loss of the junkyard, i must also mention how much i appreciate this forum, and that i have bought several parts off of fellow members here that i would have never come in contact with if it weren't for the internet and this forum. Information here is at our fingertips, and freely given, and the wealth and depth of some of our members knowledge here is priceless, and much appreciated.