Going to the Junk Yards with Matt, Sunday 07-26-2026.

 
We got some good stuff for Matt's "new" car; three wheels, a windshield washer fluid container, and a fender!

So, this little blog post will be about my fascination with junk yards, and how that fascination has apparently continued with our son Matthew (genetics matter, I suppose).  I remember being about ten years old, and going to the Skarpnäck dump close to Hökarängen outside Stockholm where I found an old motorcycle gas tank that I brought home (at least that’s my memory; doing a Google search did not reveal a dump in Skarpnäck, so it is possible that my memory is of another dump close to Hökarängen around 1965; maybe you can help me…  However, there is historical records of a Romani encampment in Skarpnäck in the mid-1960s, but my memory is of large mounds of garbage and trash, which I doubt could have accumulated by a relatively small Romani encampment.  Also, the report “SKARPNÄCKSLÄGRET ARKEOLOGISK UNDERSÖKNING AV EN SVENSK-ROMSK LÄGERPLATS VID FLATENVÄGEN I SKARPNÄCK” (https://shm.se/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Skarpnackslagret_FoU-rapport-17.pdf) does not show this to be a large encampment, so my “memory” from 60 years ago is probably wrong…).

Nevertheless, I digress as usual, so let’s get back to the 21^st century!  My current junk yard fascination (and that of Matt’s) kinda began anew in 2017, when Matt bought his old Pontiac Firebird, and Kathy and I bought our old Jeep Grand Wagoneer.  In order to source inexpensive parts for the Pontiac Firebird, and source hard-to-find parts for the Grand Wagoneer (not that many of them left), we started to hit up our local Pick Your Part auto parts dismantlers in our Orange County, San Diego and LA areas.  Pick Your Part is really cool; they have a bunch of California locations:

Anaheim, Bakersfield, Bloomington, Chula Vista, Fontana, Hesperia, Ontario, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Fe Springs, Sun Valley, Victorville and Wilmington. 

It is a really interesting and well-run operation; you go to the website and set your store (in the picture below it is set to Anaheim), and click on the “View Our Inventory” and you can search for your car, and see if they have any in their ever-changing inventory:

The Pick Your Part homepage.

 

Find your car, get your tools, and head to the junk yard, and with any bit of luck you will find your part!

And, if they have your car, you pack up your truck with tools, and head to the Pick Your Part!  Pick Your Part’s business model is that (for the most part), the customer will remove the needed parts, using their own tools (and elbow grease), and when the car is pretty much picked over, they will crush the car carcass and sell the scrap metal to metal processors and/or regional collection facilities.  Also, the Pick Your Parts locations have an entrance fee; for the “pleasure” of hunting for parts, you pay $3.00 (three dollars) just to get into the yard, so the house always wins, whether or not you find your  part!  Over the last five years or so, Matt and I have visited many of the local Pick Your Part yards, hunting for inexpensive parts for the Firebird and the Grand Waggie, and we were usually pretty successful.  The junked cars are numbered and stored in the yard in neat rows, so they are pretty easy to find.  Nevertheless, if you are planning to visit a local Pick Your Part, wear old clothes and sturdy shoes, and in the summer, bring lots of drinking water, because it gets hot, especially if you are laying underneath an old car wrestling with an old rusted-in-place bolt!!!!!  Also, bring as many tools as you can, because you never know what you might need!    

However, when Matt and I went to Pick Your Part on Sunday the 26^th of 2026, it was not to hunt for parts for the Firebird or the Grand Waggie (which Kathy and I sold in 2023; if you are interested in that story, you can check out my blog post “The Grand Wagoneer Story; a crazy and costly adventure, version number Two!”).  Instead, we were on the hunt for parts for Matt’s new car, a 2013 Nissan Sentra, that he got from his brother Michael (don’t worry, Matt still has his old Firebird, probably won’t get rid of it anytime soon).  Since Michael is moving to Sweden to go to school at Linköping University, he don’t have any use for his car (he is already bought a bicycle to ride around bicycle-friendly Linköping; good for him!), so he transferred the ownership of the Nissan to Matt; what a great deal!  And since the Nissan just got a new transmission, it should run pretty much forever!  Nevertheless, Matt wanted some new wheels, a windshield washer fluid container and a fender, so off we went.  We started off at the Pick Your Part in Santa Fe Springs:

Pick Your Part, Santa Fe Springs:  13780 Imperial Hwy., Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670.  Outside you can buy food, tools and even clothing, so that if you are going to spend the day, you won’t starve, and if you get your clothes all dirty, you can buy new old clothes right there!

 

The impromptu used work clothing store outside the Pick Your Part Santa Fe Springs location:  Shirts, $10.00 for two; Pants, $10.00 for two pairs; Jackets and Overalls, $20.00 each.  What excellent bargains!

 

The entrance to Pick Your Part, Santa Fe Springs:  Welcome / Bienvenidos, Customers are #1 / Clientes son #1.

 

No Junk Yard Dogs here; instead, they have two Junk Yard Cats!  They look pretty healthy, so I’m sure they are well taken care of, and they probably keep the rodent population down!

 

Cat number two!

 

A stray engine laying around, waiting for its final destination.

 

Plenty of portable toilets and wash stations.  As would be expected, they are not the cleanest, but they get the job done…

 

Tires, tires everywhere!  As you can imagine, Pick Your Part also sells used tires.

 

Old (and many not so old) cars, neatly parked in rows.   Bring your tools and get your parts!

 

More tires and junked cars…  Fortunately, the skies were overcast, so it didn’t get too hot…  The contraption toward the right is an engine hoist that you can rent if you need to remove a whole engine, very convenient!

 

A sad old Jaguar…  I always wanted a Jaguar; fortunately, I’ve come to my senses and I haven’t bought a Jaguar, yet…  A Jaguar is like a horse; it is not the purchase price, it is the upkeep that is going to ruin your finances!

 

More cars to be picked clean; a later model Mercedes to the left…

 

Given the dent in the rear door, the Mercedes was probably in an accident, and totaled out by the insurance company, but as usual, I could be wrong…

 

A 2002 Subaru Outback.  You usually don’t see many Subarus at the junk yard; I think Subaru makes really good cars.  My neighbor and band mate Kent has a 1993 Subaru that he drives every day; still going strong…

 

Look at those mounds of scrap metal; probably on their way to China to make rebar!

 

A 1962 Sunbeam.  You don’t see many junked older cars at Pick Your Part, I think anything older than let’s say 1990 has already been picked clean, crushed and melted down…  This is an anomaly…

 

A 1960s Volvo PV544, with the B18 engine (or at least the emblem), how it made it over to California is anybody's guess.  Now this is a rare beast indeed, since most PV444 and PV544 Volvo cars in Sweden have long since rusted away and been returned to the earth…  Since we don’t get much rain here in Southern California, the body of cars will pretty much last forever, it is the drivetrain that goes out!

Well, we were pretty successful in our car parts hunt at Pick Your Part in Santa Fe Springs.  Matt found three Nissan Sentras in various stages of being dismantled, and we found three wheels, a fender and a windshield washer fluid container, to replace the leaking container in Michael’s (now Matt’s) old Nissan Sentra.  All in all, it was a good trip, and a couple of weeks later, Matt found a fourth wheel at another Pick Your Part location, so now he has all matching cool wheels!  Good for him!  Also, being that Matt has become quite the car mechanic (from working soooooo much on his old Firebird), he will replace all the parts himself and save a bunch of money, no problem!      

We were pretty successful at the Santa Fe Springs Pick Your Part; we got three wheels, a fender and a windshield washer fluid container.  To give you an idea of the bargains you can find at Pick Your Part, check out the following; Matt’s brother Michael was quoted $600 (six hundred dollars) to replace his leaking windshield washer fluid container, $300 for the container and $300 for the labor.  Matt removed the fluid container you see in the picture himself, and paid $22.00 (twenty-two dollars) for the fluid container, and we know it don’t leak, because it was halfway full with windshield washer fluid before he removed it!  The Makita bag is Matt’s where he keeps some of his tools for when we go Junk Yard Car Parts Hunting!

Since we were already up in the general vicinity, Matt had checked the Anaheim Pick Your Part location, and it showed that the Anaheim location had a couple of Nissan Sentras, so we decided to stop there on the way home to San Clemente to check and see if we could possibly find a fourth wheel.  Not a big deal, we were only about 15 minutes away from the Anaheim location, so off we went to Anaheim. 

Nice little food trailer outside the Anaheim Pick Your Part, no need to go hungry!

 

The entrance to the Anaheim Pick Your Part, 235 South Beach Blvd, Anaheim, CA 92804.

 

More cars in Anaheim, ready for the picking!

 

More cars in various stages of being dismantled at the Anaheim Pick Your Part.  We have been at this location before, and the ground is really nasty.  Originally asphalt, from years of being soaked with various car fluids (primarily oils), the asphalt has turned into a slick and slippery surface, full of embedded screws and bolts.  Don’t wear your good shoes if you are going to this location!

 

We were hunting for Nissan wheels; unfortunately, we came up empty-handed…

 

A 1953 Studebaker, one of the few “classic” cars at the junk yard.  Being a Studebaker, this makes it even more rare…

 

The Studebaker with its relatively intact V-8 engine.  Too bad nobody has claimed this for him or herself to restore…  Gotta admit, getting Studebaker parts is probably really difficult…

 

A sad 1977 Corvette…  Buu Huu!  Restored, something like this would fetch good money, but the time and effort involved would be crazy…  Better just to buy a new one!

 

A 1995-ish Camaro convertible, iconic and cool.  However, it gets to a point when pouring money into an old car is no longer worth it, so off to the junk yard it goes!

 

A late model Jeep Wrangler Rubicon and a heap of old wheels (but no Nissan wheels unfortunately).  Don’t see too many Jeep Wranglers at the junk yard, seems like most people keep their Jeeps for as long as they can (I know I’m keeping mine FOREVER!!!!).

So, our trip to the Anaheim Pick Your Part did not result in any parts or wheels, but all in all it was a good day; I got to spend some quality time with our son Matthew, hang at the junk yards, and enjoy life in general, can’t ask for more!  Fortunately for Matt, a couple of weeks later he went to another Pick Your Part, and found the fourth wheel, so it is all coming together!  As for me, if he asks me again to make a pilgrimage to any of the local Pick Your Part junk yards, I’ll be more than happy to go; I know already that it will be a good day, no matter if we find parts or not, just to hang with Matt will make it all worthwhile!