Actually I’m fairly certain that it was the block they were after since that’s the big obvious part I can’t see anywhere. Still, that’s a ton of work to remove everything to get to a bare block right there in the dirt in front of the donor vehicle.
Most of the junkyards I periodically visit around here on your behalf, dear reader, are actually fairly clean (yes it’s a junkyard, the bar is low) and decently organized. While over time random cast-off parts, especially wheels and tires, hoods, bumpers and sometimes seats eventually start to fill in the space around the vehicles as purchasers get to the exact item they need, most of the yards tend to periodically pick up the detritus and jam it into the nearest car or turn the cars over so quick that it doesn’t get out of hand to begin with.
The exception, go figure, are the yards in Denver owned by a huge company with three initials, whose yards are usually tightly packed with cars, strewn with crap and whose employees are usually on the surly side or just plain rude. All the independently owned yards I’ve been to so far generally have very helpful and friendly staff, or at least they are if you are friendly to them which includes my favorite, the independent closest to my home where I found this.
In any case, while caution when walking around is always warranted, this is the first time I can recall literally stumbling across a whole engine’s worth of innards. As far as I can tell, what they wanted (and took) is the block itself. The obvious reason is cost; while at this yard a whole V8 engine (carbureted) would cost $150 plus a $50 core charge for the entire thing and everything remotely connected to it EXCEPT the carburetor, the same engine in long block form would still cost $150 but only command a $37 core charge, BUT if you opted for the short block only, then it would cost $100 plus a core charge of $25. So by disassembling the entire thing right there, the buyer saved $50 plus $25 of core charge.
I don’t know, it seems like a TON of work to take it all apart right there but I suppose if you can just let everything drop in situ as it comes off, that makes it easier. Still, I realize $75 is $75 and I recognize that it’s a lot of money to more people that I’d like to think it is.
The non-sensical part is that the yard gets nothing out of it, it’s not like someone is now going to see a piston or crankshaft laying on the ground and realize it’s just what they wanted, more likely (or surely) that stuff will just get scooped up in the next few weeks and get put in the crusher/grinder with the car body. Of course the steel is what the yards all trade in, hence the reason for the core charge etc and no need to let extra steel walk out the door. Still, pretty wild (to me anyway).
Here’s the truck the engine appears to have come out of, a well worn 1979 Chevy with a large flatbed. I’m guessing the color is Holly Green, as the only other green that year was Shamrock Green Metallic which seems much lighter than this color.
As a Custom Deluxe, one would think that’d be a fairly fancy trim level but no. That’s the starting point with Cheyenne, Scottsdale, and Silverado all being above it in that order. As an aside I’m amazed that Plymouth actually had a “Miser” trim level in some of its ’80’s cars. If this truck was a Plymouth, it’d probably be the Cheap Bastard or something like that. Custom Deluxe sounds better when you tell the in-laws what you bought. No wonder Plymouth is gone.
There’s the flatbed along with the dashpad/cover laying on it. Whatever this truck was used for, it doesn’t seem to have been just for going to the saloon and back, it likely did some real work.
Imagine the dashpad that’s laying on the flatbed in place and this wasn’t a terrible place to be at all. I must say I did not used to be a fan of this era of Chevy trucks but I have come around on that viewpoint completely and now find them to be extremely attractive inside and out.
There’s still some seat fabric left but that’s nothing that a saddle blanket cover (in green) wouldn’t take care of right now. If this had a red interior it would be in pristine condition if my current theory regarding interior colors holds water.
Here’s the page (above) from the 1979 Chevy Truck interior discussing the Custom Deluxe trim, although the interior of our actual truck seems to look a little different (this is embossed vinyl, the seat cover material in the actual truck looks different to me).
The 1978 looks very different inside to me but the 1977 brochure (above) seems to have seat material that looks more correct as well as wood grain on the dashboard as this one has along with the steering wheel shape but the door panels are completely different. Suffice it to say that I am not positive it really is a 1979 model but that’s what was marked on the side of the truck in grease pen so I’m sticking with it for now. Yes I should have checked the tag; oh well, I am humbled to admit that I have failed at one other thing in my life as well.
Anyway, this started out as a little post at my astonishment that someone would disassemble a V8 engine right there in the lot but now here we are much further down the page than I anticipated contemplating the year of the truck. Someone will undoubtedly know for sure.
That is a little odd. I wonder if the block was in some way desirable like 400cid one. Not like generic 350 blocks would be hard to find elsewhere for cheap with all the hard work already done.
The 400 block is not in the least bit desirable, it is the crank you want from a 400 for making a 383 with your 350 block. However cheap chinese cranks have dramatically reduced the demand for those as you have a ready to go stock size unit for about the same or less than a used crank plus machining used to go for.
Many Chevy engine enthusiast find the 400 desirable. At one time 406 builds were fairly common. Finding good 400 blocks is very difficult these days though, as the supply dries up. While in stock form they weren’t the most potent engines, they do have a lot of potential. The 400 cranks require the mains to be machined down to fit a 350 block, and 3.75″ aftermarket cranks are readily available now. So finding a 400 crank isn’t really a big deal anymore.
That said, I think this probably was a 350, and was scavenged for the 4-bolt block. Most of the 350’s in trucks from this era seemed to have 4-bolt blocks. I got one from that was destined for the scrap pile at the dealership years ago, from a a late 70’s Chev truck.
I’m betting it was a 4 bolt main 350.
I was rather disgusted to find what appeared to be a 60k mile Panther than had something very similar done to it, though it appears they had taken the short block. To me it seems like they would be spending more money in the gaskets to put their components on that short block not to mention the time involved in the yard and at home. At least the person looking for a front suspension for their pickup was happy to find one without an engine in the way.
Actually looking at the heads it was a 454.
Those are small block heads, 454s have canted valves and evenly spaced exhaust/intake ports
correct in the one shot on this small screen the one head looked the plugs were angled.
I bet Scoutdude is right. 350 4 bolt block. You can rule out 400 because all 400’s were auto trans only. The crank in the pic has a clutch assembly on it. The 400 is externally balanced with a unique harmonic balancer and weighted flex plate/flywheel. I used to be able to sell every 400 I could find quickly to the dirt track racers in the 80’s I worked at a engine shop. Before cheap aftermarket cranks, they’d put 350 cranks in 400 blocks using adapter inserts in the mains making a 377 cu in screamer on the cheap. Old G30 Chevy vans, motor homes or ambulances were a good source for 4 bolt 400’s.
The guy knew what he was doing. I like how he never bothered to pull the harmonic balancer off. That means he just bent the timing cover out enough to get the cam sprocket bolts out to get the timing chain off. He probly had bout 20 min. in it. I’ll still work 20 minutes for 75 bucks.
I get it. I can transport an engine block home in the trunk of a sedan with the help of a friend or two. For a complete engine I need a pickup truck and a engine crane.
No car at a junkyard is picked totally clean before hitting the crusher/shredder so I doubt the yard actually cares that no one buys the remaining innards. At the end of the day these pull your part places are a scrap metal business that make a few bucks on the side letting people have last dibs on a few bits and pieces.
Yeah the whole reason that the 3 letter place exists is to feed the parent company’s shredders sending steel to china..
LOL, I sold a barely running with cracked subframe valiant wagon to a junkyard in Shepparton Vic, $50 mate not much demand for those old heaps now was what was offered, Irony. I was back in that same yard 12 months later hunting for a distributor drive gear for another Valiant i had and saw it picked down to a bare shell every last removeable item gone, little demand yeah right.
That anecdote is the exception to the rule, in no small part because it’s an older than normal car from a defunct brand. A typical late model is almost never picked clean unless it’s desirable, these kind of yards typically turn over their inventory far earlier than 6 months too.
Well it depends on the yard. Traditional yards and ones in remote locations don’t have a rule that the car heads to the crusher after x weeks in the yard. Several years ago on a trip back through Montana I made a detour to a yard I found on car-part.com to harvest a bunch of IH stuff off of rigs that had set in the yard for many years if not a decade.
It all depends on the yard. Mostly it has to do with space and is dependent on how many new cars come in to replace the old in a given span of time. Some of them will “reset” a car if they think it either still has a lot of meat left on the bone or would otherwise benefit to let it linger. For example the ’62 Lincoln Continental has been reset four times since I featured it here while all of the various Explorers, Focuses, Tauruses etc that were around it have come and been crushed already. But it’s not just “special” cars, it happens with much more mundane stuff too, more often in the import section if only because there aren’t already a dozen examples of the same thing sitting there. Around here 2-3 months is the norm for a car to be available, more rural areas will have much longer time spans including up to forever…
“The non-sensical part is that the yard gets nothing out of it, it’s not like someone is now going to see a piston or crankshaft laying on the ground and realize it’s just what they wanted, more likely (or surely) that stuff will just get scooped up in the next few weeks and get put in the crusher/grinder with the car body. ”
Agreed, I’d tell them take the entire engine.
Well the traditional junkyards won’t sell you anything less than a full long block, unless you are taking parts off of engines in the core area.
I’d tell you I found it already disassembled. 😉
Guaranteed if this person bought the whole engine they’d be scrapping all these remaining parts anyway, better to just leave them at the place that scraps parts, don’t you think?
Thanks to the Trump Tariffs and the weakening Chinese economy, the price of scrap metal has tanked and the Chinese are no longer buying scrap metal from the USA like they were in years past. The owner of salvage yard where I go for Alfa Romeo parts (Alfa Parts Exchange in Lodi, California) was bemoaning the fact that they make nothing on the scrap they sell once they factor in the cost of the sawzall blades needed to cut the bodies into smaller pieces so the scrap metal dealer will take it!
I’d forgotten all about those Plymouth Misers. Not really any different than a Studebaker Scotsman, though.
My first car was a Dodge Omni Miser. This was an ’81 model so the idea was probably that the car was “miserly” in its’ fuel consumption as well as equipment.
When the 1st fuel shortage tanked demand for Mazda rotaries, they introduced the “Mighty Miser” as to supplement their line. It was the only piston engine car they offered in the US for a time.
Makes me consider the potential fun of a CC meet-up taking in one or more of a locale’s “auto dismantlers.”
I do remember once pulling the engine out of a boneyard Opel Kadett, but I suppose it weighed less than half of this 350 (or whatever it was)…
“…employees are usually on the surly side or just plain rude.”
Gee, sounds like the junkyards of olden days.
Sounds like most employees everywhere, if you ask me.
The truck’s a ’75 or ’76, it has the earlier style of door trim panels. The seat plaid, variations of which were used from 1975-78, was noticeably different every year but this one is too faded to tell for sure.
This guy knew what he was doing. I like how it seems the one cylinder head was removed with one half of the intake manifold still attached to save time and provide leverage to pull the head off. Down and dirty but effective!
Actually a long block is a short block (which consists of crank, cam, rods, pistons, flywheel and oil pan) with the heads attached. So all that needed to be pulled were the heads, I only see long block and short block pricing, so stripping to a bare block would have no pricing advantage.
Looking at the price sheet this is how they have it broken down in this particular yard’s case: (Copied verbatim) You may in fact be correct but how the guys at the counter interpret things can differ too. If you ask, one guy may use your definition and another may point to “Block Only” and go with the literal interpretation. In all cases it’s better to ask than to assume…
Engine Short Block (Block Only) $100 Core $25
Engine Long Block (Block and Steel Heads) $150 Core $37
Engine Assembly (Incl Block, Heads, Intake/Exhaust Manifolds, Balancer, Waterpump, Dist,Oil Pan, Valve Covers but no Carb $150 Core $50
Asking first to be sure would be a good idea, no doubt.
I never thought a post and comments about this topic would be so interesting.
My guess was the motor was a four-bolt-main 350.
I like how the emblem has only a “1” instead of a “10” now, as if to represent how much of the truck is left.😁
The “10” designation would be correct as the the truck is a half-ton b/c there are 5 lug studs on each hub. A typical 3/4 or 1-ton would have 8, with the exception of the short-lived ’97-’99 Ford F-250 (non-HD or Super Duty) which used 7. The model lived on as an extra-payload option for the F-150 until 2003. Another misnomer would be the much more recent Nissan Titan XD (has 6 lugs), but to most truck owners (& probably truthfully) these are really just “beefed-up” half-tons.
With all that said, a 1-ton or anything heavier would be the most likely to be fitted with an aftermarket flatbed or service body later on as they would have the best payload capacity for such applications. But again there are SOME exceptions, as I’ve seen a ’98-’00 Ranger with a service body & ladder rack a few times in my state. The Chevy in this article must be another outlier.
I had a 99 Dodge Dakota that had 6 lugnuts per wheel. It’s big tough big brother, the 1500 only had 5. Sometimes the little guy has more nuts than the big guy. True!
Early Dakotas (’87-’90) still had 5. They switched to 6-lug in ’91 but went back to 5 in ’05. The newest Ram 1500 now has 6 after using 5 for virtually forever. I’ve always found it odd why they went back & forth like that.
Full size GM light duty trucks have gone from 6 to 5 to 6 lugs in a few iterations. Drum brake 10 series were 6. Then in ’71 they went to 5 with larger diameter studs, except for the 4×4’s that remained six. 15 series stayed that way, as well as 1500 series GMT400 trucks.
Now it gets even more complicated. 2500 series without the C6P payload option also had six. 1999-2000 transition to newer trucks, when even the base trim was called “Silverado” all 1500 series got six lugs and all 2500-3500 got eight, regardless of drive or payload rating.
At least GM never went with the goofy seven of Ford.
You know what Jim? Your lead pic would have made an outstanding CD cover image for an alternative rock band circa 1999. lol
When so many band’s video’s featured raw music and junked cars 🙂
“Dirt, Oil, and Money” by The Hope Grenade at your neighborhood Tower Records!
Boy that Custom Deluxe bench seat from the 1979 Chevy brochure is just beautiful, your girl snuggled up next to you, why did these bench seats ever go away?
Probably some sort of government mandate..no airbag for the potential center passenger and some deal was made that no new vehicles could be designed with bench seats. I’ve heard that what actually doomed the Panther was the mandate for electronic stability control, they couldn’t put that on and still sell it at a profitable cost. I’ve driven Panthers for almost 200k now and never once have I felt I needed computerized stability assistance, even when a defective rear tire blew at 70 on the freeway…
“Full width bench seat”. Apparently people were getting tired of the 3/4 width.
Ah…the pick & pull….home of the “pick & pull quick mafs [sic]” (maths). To many that $75 is totally worth the work involved. I’ve witnessed it a handful of times during a few JY excursions. When I drove older daily driver beaters, (70s – 80s cars in the mid 2000s) I would get aggravated when multiple parts from a particular car were thrown around and broken in an effort to get at something deep inside. I was usually there for a one-off part that ended up being cast aside and was now useless. And it was the only car of its type in the yard. A few times, though I found what I needed inside an unrelated car next to the one I was scouring for parts, after the yard cleaned up I guess. Now that I live by the drive a beater roughly a decade older than the current year and common for my area rule, parts hunting is easier. When I go to the yard for parts for my beater Chevy Cobalts, there are 30-40 cars to choose from. Crappy GM econoboxes are super popular in Appalachia and I believe the yard will never run out of J body and Delta platform cars….
As an aside, I recently came into my first Chevy square body truck, an 86 C10 Scottsdale. After several 8th and 9th gen Fords for homeowner/yard truck duty, this truck seemed right to fit the bill after I tired of my diesel F-250. I still love the F-series trucks, but can assure that the cab is not a terrible place to be. Also envy that flat bed, miss mine as well.
Or, Mr Klein, it is the result of some noodle trying to start the deceased Chev, and finding out just why it had been wrecked. The block is now in row 11.
And in 13, and part of 22 and 24.
And the oil-covered noodle left with no parts, but with very, very large eyes, jabbering to himself in gibberish.
Wow, I have never seen anything like this either. It makes me wonder if some poor schmo bought all of the rebuild parts for his SBC only to find out when he got it into the machine shop that his block was cracked.
Or – we have all heard people say “my engine blew” – maybe this one really did. 🙂
Seeing one of these without gaping rust holes is really strange. I have a BIL who is doing a drastic refurb (it is not going to be an actual resto) on an 81 and his old bed was beyond saving. He would probably look at this one with pangs of longing.
Nowadays with many brands of high powered cordless tools, this job would be fairly simple compared to the days of basic hand tools.
IMO, some of the pricing structure at my local yards makes sense, and some is pure greed. An example of the latter is an alternator. If you take the alternator WITH the pulley, they charge you for both!
Yep pure greed. My brother hit a deer and bought a fender, hood,and headlamp bezel for a Dodge Caravan from the local pic a part. They charged a core charge on sheet metal parts. Although my brother lived 40 miles from there his route on his day job takes him close to that yard sometimes. He damn sure took the wrecked parts back for 25 bucks. He said they looked surprised anyone bothered.
That desiccated Sierra Deluxe looks like a disgraced 2nd Lieutenant after being stripped down to a lowly private, surrounded by the shards of his medals and emblems of rank.
Geez–just rip the poor truck’s guts out, why don’t you? I have a real issue with careless junkyard scroungers. More often than not, they have fouled up the very part that I’m seeking at the moment. I know it’s tough out there, but please try to be considerate of other junkyard hunters.