When I see the word "Montana" in the title of a thread on an internet ACVW forum, my ears (?) instinctively perk up. Word was there was a "complete" 1974 "Westy" in a junkyard in Arlee, not thirty miles from our front door. What an easy excuse to hop into Ludwig for a quick jaunt North.
The first old gal I spotted was this 1969 Squareback. I gave her a good going-over and got all the good turn signal assemblies off her. If I'd had more room/time/motivation I might've scored the bumpers as well. Whatever; she's not going anywhere.
This was the only interesting Beetle in sight. It's been pretty much picked clean of the little stuff but some of that metal is good, and that bumper probably is as well. If I see that prices are good on those kinds of things, I might go back for some of it. Every time I go to a junkyard I'm in danger of bringing the whole damn place home.
The object of the trip, a 1974 "Westy", that is to say, Riviera. Big difference. We're not looking for any camping parts anyway (except a child's cot), so that didn't matter.
The guy who left it at the yard was either in a big hurry or just didn't care. He left behind everything.
And I mean EVerything.
The parting shot. I took all I could think of that was worth taking. Yes, that included one of the Type IV holy grails, the thermostat. There's some other stuff left that I might go up for later. Contrary to earlier speculation (viz., the thread linked to above), this bus is a lot more project than most would want to deal with. Its bottom three inches are basically rust.
I piled my tools and the things I was buying on this old Ghia for safekeeping. Some of the metal on this thing is decent. Do I dare go back? Good thing I don't own a Sawzall.
Now that's patina.
When we were in Nebraska last time, I saw that the driver's side taillight assembly on my parents' Subaru wagon was broken. So I got one for them off of this one at the same junkyard. I was looking for the keys (to pop the tailgate) and took this picture. Notice anything weird?
post script
US 93 from Evaro to Arlee is torn up all to hell right now. A lot of the time it was like driving on a forest service road, so the sixty or so miles there and back took over an hour and-a-half. Some of the work includes installing a few prefab tunnels like this that'll eventually have dirt and flora on top. Then, goes the hope, wildlife will be able to walk over the road, not across it.
2 comments:
A right hand drive used mostly by rural Postal people. I guess it was easier to go Postal from that side of the car, the spent cartridges would end up out the window and not in the car.
That would have been a fun trip!
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