boxybutgood.us

We got more than just candy as treats on Halloween morning.  The local junkyard was holding an All-You-Can-Carry for $75 event, and we scored large.  You just have to carry everything off the ground for about 50ft.  Our very own Incredible Hulk, Keith carried a lot of heavy parts across the finish line.  I’m still amazed he did it.

In the picture above, he had a bag on his back that had a pair of wagon rear springs, and a turbo and cast iron exhaust manifold (not light), and then he bent down and heaved this entire rear axle, with differential, trailing arms, and shocks still attached, and walked it from start to finish.  We’ll have to weigh the whole bounty at some point, but it was easily 200+ lbs total.  Click the pic above for a closer view to see his veins about to burst out of his arms.  Just remember not to make Keith angry because you won’t like him when he’s angry.  Grrr….

In short, we ended up with the following for $80 after tax:

• Rear axle with ALD (automatic locking differential) from a ’93 940 Wagon – vast improvement over our current open diff.
• Trailing arms with rubber bits that are in better shape than what we currently have.
• Wagon rear springs
• New-ish rear shocks to replace the OEM ones that were put on our car at the factory 240,000 mi. ago.
• Turbo and manifold from a ’92 940 Turbo w/ 99,960 mi.  (it’s a smaller turbo, but will work as a backup)
• Gauge cluster from an ’88 740 Turbo wagon.
• An extra 740 turbo black grille in case ours gets busted some day at the track…hey it was light.

These was our donor car for the rear-end parts.  Apparently the previous owner was a witch, and had it set up to run on broom power.

The place was mobbed on Saturday morning, though.  There was even a line of cars waiting to get in the gates for the 7:00am opening.  I had some guys ready to fight me to the death over a set of smoked VW taillights, and there was another guy who kept flinching every time I walked near his pile of VW grilles.  It was fierce.

Luckily, we were smart.  For the Volvo parts, Chuck, Keith, and I went the day before to scope the place, and liberate the parts from their donor cars.  After a couple hours of battling the rusty bolt demons, we hid the emancipated parts in the back of a completely unrelated car that would almost certainly garner zero attention on Grab Day…a rusty 1992 Subaru Loyale Wagon whose trunk wouldn’t open from the outside.

We threw the axle, springs, and turbo in the back of this lonely Loyale, and covered our treasure with various door panels and radiators to make it look like just a pile of random crap instead of junkyard-pirate booty.

The next morning it was all still there, and after Keith spent a bit over an hour getting some VW parts he needed, we flew our Jolly Roger as we dug out our treasure, and lugged it up to the carry zone.  Then I taunted Keith, telling him that his yellow wheels looked gay, and that his mamma’s hairy armpits smelled worse than his TDI’s smoky exhaust.  That made him angry, so out came the Hulk, and we got all the parts on our wishlist for $80.

Happy LeMons,

Brice