I had to go out to the only wrecking yard that still has anything older than 1990, to get some brackets for my truck. I needed the brackets that would attach my new inner fenders to the firewall. I tried to find a company that was re-popping them, but no luck.



That's right, -27c (-16f)




Ok, where were the trucks again?




Here they are! All the 67-79 Ford trucks




This was the first one I found. This is typical of what you'd find up here.




The next truck had the whole front clip in the box. I had to shovel it off before I could get to work getting those brackets. The first one was easy because the inner fender was rotten and the bracket basically fell off when I pulled on it. The bracket itself is still in decent shape.




The second one was tough. Someone had rebuilt the top of the inner fender so I had to wrestle with the bolts to get it free. I had to walk back to my truck, 1km (1/2 mile) total to get more tools.




I was able to get the two brackets, plus I found a set of stainless inner door panel trim pieces.


I figured I'd start a thread where we could tell a story about the hardships faced while acquiring those much needed parts.

 

THAT'S dedication!

That's also a nice looking Merc you have. What is that color?

 

damn , you need to move . 80 + here in California

 

Thanks for the compliment, the colour is Cayman green. It's a FORD colour from the mid 90's. If you do a Google Images search for Cayman green, you'll see everything FORD painted that colour.

 

Ya, no rust either!!!!!

You know it's cold when your fingers stop working, and your digital camera says "Are you F****N kidding me" when you try to turn it on to take more pictures. Otherwise I would've had more pictures of my adventure.

 

I grew up back east , I remember all to well .. digging my dads car out so he can try to go to work ??

 

Interesting. I Googled 'Mercury truck' and came up with a seemingly disproportionate number of Holly Green trucks. A popular color up there, it would seem. It also happens to be the color I want to paint my '68 CS.

When it comes to trucks, apparently Canadians have excellent taste.

 

'Round here I just drive our service truck around the yard to what ever vehicle I need to pick - and it's not even at Midnight Auto Salvage.

 

I could have saved you a trip. I have a set of those brackets in my parts box. No rust and very solid.

I don't know if I would have dug through the snow for those.

 

At least you did not have to watch out for wasps and snakes!

 

I recall a trip to a local wrecking yard a few years ago with forum member Fastmover to scrounge a few parts for his '71. Among other things, we found a nice grille and pulled it. Temp was about 103º that day, no shade where the truck was parked (the wrecking yard is in an old walnut orchard so there are a lot of trees scattered around but of course most of the Bumps are out in the open). There were high weeds all around the truck including Star thistle and Russian thistle which I had to hack down with a tire iron so I could reach through the wasp-infested wheel well to get to some of the bolts. The entire truck was full of wasp nests and the occupants were not to happy to see us. Managed not to get stung, but it was a very memorable wrecking yard trip. And yes, had to watch for rattlesnakes too. They warn you about that at the front office before going back into the yard, but anybody local knows that the entire county is a giant snake pit.

All in all, I think I'd rather deal with cold and snow, I hate the heat.

Our two local yards turn into giant mud pits in the winter. One of them has thick red mud that sticks to everything. You have to bring an extra pair of boots to the yard in the rainy season so you can hose them off and change them out before getting back in the car. Some of the puddles you have to wade through can get up to 18" deep. I bought a pair of rubber knee-high boots a few years back just to use when going to that yard. It really sucked when the rubber cracked and they started leaking while wading through a puddle that came almost to the tops of the boots.

 

We get bugs and snakes in the summer. No snakes that can hurt you, but still.....