Scrapping NON usable parts question?

[gkeeton@zbzoom.net]

I have a bunch of internal tranny parts that have various teeth missing, and such, and was wondering about how to go about taking them to the local metal recycling yard. Someone once told me that stuff, such as crankshafts, and gears, are a higher grade steel, and are usually worth more per pound. Is there any truth to this, and if so what do I tell them at the recycling yard?

[Bruce Tweddle]

The gears and shafts are made from a higher grade of steel.

I don't know if you'll get more for them though.

[S/P4884]

 My buddy is a big "scraper" and as far as I know they look at it all as just steel. They don't have any way of determining what grade of steel it is. It all gets ground up and sent to China so we can buy it back later. If you don't have hundreds of pounds to take it's not worth your time and gas to take it there.

[HUMBUG]

If you can throw it up in a old car headed to the crusher it will bring more.  If you take it separate it goes in what they call a torch pile and its 3 to 4 cent cheaper than cars. I loaded a Mazda RX7 with junk VW parts and it weighed 4,760.  It also depends on where you take it.

[gkeeton@zbzoom.net]

If you don't have hundreds of pounds to take it's not worth your time and gas to take it there.

I have maybe a couple hundred pounds, and I drive past the yard on the way to work. I'm not looking to get rich, it's just I'm tired of walking around the containers on the floor, and I need to do some garage cleaning. A friend looking at a car to buy for parts a couple of days ago was told by the owner scrap was up to $12 per 100 pounds. I think he's full of crap. In the dead of Winter it usually drops to around $2-$3 per 100. If it truely is up to $12 now, that means very bad things for classic cars in the upcomming Summer in my neck of the woods. The shop I work at has a yearly car show, and swap meet. There allready has been people buying VW parts at the swap meet, litterally to take to the scrap yard. Thanks to all for the info.

[Bruce Tweddle]

It's hard to imagine being able to buy a VW part, then selling it for a profit at even $12/100lbs.

[Ian M]

I have maybe a couple hundred pounds, and I drive past the yard on the way to work. I'm not looking to get rich, it's just I'm tired of walking around the containers on the floor, and I need to do some garage cleaning. A friend looking at a car to buy for parts a couple of days ago was told by the owner scrap was up to $12 per 100 pounds. I think he's full of crap. In the dead of Winter it usually drops to around $2-$3 per 100. If it truely is up to $12 now, that means very bad things for classic cars in the upcomming Summer in my neck of the woods. The shop I work at has a yearly car show, and swap meet. There allready has been people buying VW parts at the swap meet, litterally to take to the scrap yard. Thanks to all for the info.

We scrapped a few cars at my work recently,it was $10 per 100 then,so he might not be too far off...It seems prices can vary pretty wildly from week to week though. It's actually not the highest it's been,it was around $15 maybe a 1 1/2 to 2yrs ago. Hell,a aluminum wheel was around $20 each. Cats were $30 on up to over $100. Cut the cat off,remove the wheels,and that's a tidy little profit on a junker!

I scrapped a few cars back during the last boom,and the line of rollbacks and trailers with junk cars rolling in was crazy. You hardly ever see a junk car around here anymore.

You are right about potential parts cars being worth more as scrap than whole. . Some guy was unloading a complete rough but what looked to be a restoreable '64 Tempest (think GTO) right beside me when i was there,I'm sure someone would have wanted it for parts at least. I've seen more than one rollback or trailer with a 50s/60s/70s car rolling that way on the road leading to the junkyard. A few friends of mine who scrap a lot have told me of some other sad stuff they have seen.


Values dropped like a rock and stayed that way a while but it seems to be climbing again.  

[gkeeton@zbzoom.net]

It's hard to imagine being able to buy a VW part, then selling it for a profit at even $12/100lbs.

Like Ian M mentioned, they were aluminum wheels. The person selling them was told they were "goofy 4 bolt Porsche Wheels", and wanted rid of them. The buyer got all four of them for $40, and was taking them to the scrap yard on Monday to get his $20 a wheel. I spoke to the seller after the show was dying down, and asked him a few questions about his wheels. It turned out they were a five spoke 4 x 130 ATS Porsche Wheel. One of my 914 acquaintances said they usually go for around $75-$100 a wheel at the Porsche swaps. So, technically they were porsche parts, but guy did get a couple cases of beer for his $40 profit though.

[gkeeton@zbzoom.net]

Some guy was unloading a complete rough but what looked to be a restoreable '64 Tempest (think GTO) right beside me when i was there,I'm sure someone would have wanted it for parts at least.

Funny you should mention a Tempest. Just a North of me in Michigan, a person got the usual "so and so" passed away, and he had this car. The car he ended up getting turned out to be an early 60's Tempest, and this new owner thought, "I should try and stick this on ebay before I scrap it."

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/10/ebay-find-of-the-day-1963-lemans-tempest-sells-for-226-521/?icid=100214839x1212978251x1200853097

People around me are so ignorant, they would scrap a numbers matching Hemi Cuda Convertible because the $300 they would get, would make two months trailer payments, and have enough left over for a keg of beer.
Thanks for the info, I really should shut up now before this thread gets into a really bad "pet peeves I have about scrappers" tangent.

[Ian M]

Yeah,I was thinking about that Tempest myself,I remember when it was on EBAY. I love those cars,and if i found it i would think it was neat and worth saving-but never would have guessed what it actually was!

A factory lightweights book I've had mentions that car (before it was found) ,it had a 3spd stick with the conventional style rear (instead of the 4spd automatic transaxle they came with) and went high 11's @12x as I recall.

Crazy to think it survived all these years,just to come very close to being scrapped,and recently at that. Makes you wonder what else is out there,or was unknowingly trashed AFTER it became valuable.

[Sam]

If you can throw it up in a old car headed to the crusher it will bring more.  If you take it separate it goes in what they call a torch pile and its 3 to 4 cent cheaper than cars. I loaded a Mazda RX7 with junk VW parts and it weighed 4,760.  It also depends on where you take it.

Most scrap yards pay based on a few things,  is it iron or tin, a car is tin and usually is what they pay the least for, due to all the plastic, ect in them.
They grade Iron on several levels , pretty much based on size, lengths less than 3 foot (called short iron) usually bring the most.

I was a "professional scrapper" in ,high school. I usually had a load to haul every saturday morning, it only brought 2.50/100 for cars and 4/100 for short iron at that time. Makes me sick to see the prices now!!  I passed lots of magnesium VW engine cases and tranny cases off as aluminum, just pull all the studs out, because if you leave them in they will call it "dirty aluminum" and that knocks the price down 75% or more.