This thread is for tips and tricks to use at a junk yard. Im sure I will not cover them all so feel free to add things that make your trip to the bone yard eaiser.

Rules:

-If you have an Idea that you think could help somebody at a junk yard post it up. (with as much detail as possible)

-If you don't like someone else's idea keep it to your self on this one. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it wont help someone else.

-Cherokee fourm rules apply. Do not endorse theft of any parts from a junk yard. Thats not a tip or trick that is illegal.

Examples of good ideas. How to test a certain parts at the junk yard. How to pull off a certain part that could normally be difficult without your garage or all of your tools. Even how to Identify certain parts. IE year of a jeep with missing doors.

If mods think this thread would be better at another location I understand. This one didn't seem to fit in a specific category to me.

Testing Electronics
 

.There many different ways to test electronics. I use a small 12 volt 4 wheeler battery for testing electronics.
2 -Leads on the positive side.
A. Has a jumper clamp.
B. Has an actual fuse soldered to both sides of the fuse. This will hot wire everything that I use it for but shouldn’t hurt anything for testing purposes.
1- Lead on ground with a jumper clamp.

Let’s say I wanted to test the power seats.
I would plug the wired fuse into the fuse block location and then ground out the negative side. Brake pedal seems to be a popular location for me.
At that point if the connections are good and the seat motors are good they should work from there switches.

That same basic concept is used for many different parts. A popular thing to test is the power window motors.

A small 12 volt battery from your drill could be used for a lot of the same purpose.

A power window motor could roll up and down slower on a smaller battery but at least you would know if the item was working or not.

Another popular thing to test with either of these options are fuel injectors. You want hear the action of an injector when power is applied to the prongs the injector will (if working) click. Should click again when power is removed.

This is also a good way to check the mileage on the newer digital models. plug into the cluster fuse and bam. I have heard of some people using 18 volt batteries. I would stay away from them if possible. The reason smaller stuff could easlily be fried. small bulbs could be blown.

Engines
 

Picking junkyard engines

A self service junkyard will generally charge far less than a full service junkyard. This is due to the cost of extra labor involved in pulling and testing the engine on behalf of the junkyard. 4.0’s generally cost $ 100-400 in a self service junkyard.

The two major downsides that result in this price is the effort required in determining if an engine good and retrieving it. Even though most junkyards provide a warranty, nobody wants to lose time picking a bad engine. Every car that does end up in the junkyard made it there either due to fire, bad transmission, bad engine, collision, or a combination of. With the following list of areas to check, one can increase the chances of choosing a good engine.

 Mileage: If the Jeep has had it's instrument cluster ripped out chances are it is lower in miles than other vehicles at the junkyard, and someone bought it to commit fraud by switching odometers to lower mileage. This happens more frequently than generally thought. If the odometer is digital, 97+ and the jeep has keys present, it can be powered with a battery to get an odometer readout. Most junkyards will not have any issues with allowing batteries to be brought inside, so long as they are marked during entrance. (If they do use the drill battery trick stated above in testing electronics)

 If you see a jeep that has been wrecked, the engine looks spotless upon taking off the oil cap, and everything is just perfect yet the odometer reads 200+ k miles, don't be fooled. Although not too frequent, occasionally someone will try to save an engine for themselves by being wise and switching odometers from other higher mileage jeep in an attempt to reserve the great find for themselves. Be highly skeptical of unusual states, if a jeep you found shows 200+ k miles yet it looks cleaner than any car with less than 100 k miles, pull the instrument cluster out and compare the date on the back of the printed circuit board to the date the vehicle was manufactured.

 Orange rust deposits: Covering a large portion of the engine bay, are a good indicator that the engine overheated and part of the coolant system developed a severe leak/blowout as a result. Jeeps this is very common.

 Coolant: If the coolant is clean and green (or orange in some cases) this is a good indication that the coolant system was functioning well. If there is no antifreeze in the coolant and it is straight water, chances are someone has overheated the engine and had to temporarily add water to get the car to it's final destination. Straight water also corrodes all of the cooling system components thus making the idea of using them less attractive. In some junkyards the hoses will be cut and the coolant will be drained, however some can still be obtained from the bottom of the radiator for analysis. Also look at freeze plugs. If they have been leaking it’s a sign that they PO used

 Body damage: A lot of jeeps that end up in junkyards are written off by insurance companies thanks to overpriced body work estimates. Even something as small as a slightly damaged combination of the hood, bumper, and fenders will result in the jeep being written off. This usually means the car will have a good engine and transmission. If the car is damaged quite badly, this is a dead giveaway. The car had to have been moving and working well in traffic in order to get into the accident to begin with.

 Transmission dipstick: Should be checked to see the color of the transmission fluid. If the color is very dark this indicates the fluid is burned and transmission failure may be the reason for the car being there, thus indicating the engine is good. On some rare occasions the transmission fluid may be milky or contain another fluid mixed in, usually the coolant.

 Oil dipstick: Due to environmental regulations junkyards have to drain the oil from all cars they receive, usually by punching a hole in the oil pan. However this is not done perfectly and you can usually still find some left in the pan after removing the oil drain plug, or a little bit deposited on the dipstick. Since the color means nothing more than how recently the oil is changed, the only thing that has to be checked is to make sure the oil appears to be normal and transparent without any milky deposits. They indicate that at one point there was a head/headgasket failure and coolant mixed with the oil.

 Oil cap: Upon removal, one can see inside the valve cover. The valve cover can also be removed for a more careful investigation, easy to re-install and only require purchasing a new gasket. If things inside appear to be clean or have a slight brown tint, this is a good indicator of a healthy engine. If everything is black and there are thick oil deposits, this indicates the engine had a lot of blow-by and oil was not changed on regular intervals, resulting in sludge buildup. Though not completely gone, the engine should only be used if no other options are available, a full rebuild with lots of cleaning may be required.

 Spark plugs: Are excellent ways to read the engine condition. Generally though if they are fairly clean or a little oily, this is normal, and no further examination is required.

 Compression test: After removing the spark plugs, a compression test can be performed to determine if the engine is healthy. However, cranking the engine by hand will not give accurate readings because the engine has to turn over fast enough to compensate for the usual slow leakage through the rings and valves. If the key is available this is a very easy task. However usually this is not the case, or sometimes the terminals have been cut off. It is possible to activate the starer manually by following these steps:
1. Connect a set of jumper cables to battery.
2. Connect the other end of the negative cable to body of the starter, or if the shape does not permit, anything else on the engine (the closer the better).
3. Connect the other end of the positive cable to the main connection on the starter.
4. Use a wire laying around or a second set of jumper cables, anything available, to provide power to the smaller connection on the starter. This will activate the starter solenoid and turn over the engine.
5. If the wires are still on the starter this task is much easier, especially when it comes to avoiding accidental shorts.
6. Crank the engine a few times and check the pressure, typically used engines will probably put out
7. Oil pan: Can be removed to check for any metallic deposits or obvious damage to the rods and crank. Reasealing it with RTV is easy to do and should not increase expenses from having to get a new gasket. If there is a little bit of water deposits in the oil pan, appearing as a milky color, it does not mean the engine is bad. This is the result of a car sitting outside with it's hood removed and often times the dipstick or oil cap, allowing rainwater to get in. As long as the amount of water is small and there is no rust damage that can be seen beneath the oil cap and on the actual crank and rods, the engine is still good. By removing as much of the water from the oil pan as possible, a quick oil change after a few miles will help clean up the rest.

 Turning over the engine: If a compression test gauge and/or battery is unavailable, the engine can be rotated by hand to feel the resistance and pressure from compression. Sounds from the compression should be heard from the exhaust manifold. It should sound like "ffoooK". If the engine turns too easy and no compression noises are heard, or the noises are not evenly spaced and only come from certain cylinders, it is likely the engine is bad.

 Water pump: Spinning the water pump to make sure it turns freely is important. Certain engines will have a ceased water pump which may have resulted in overheating..

 Cylinder head: Can always be removed and inspected for cracks and bad valves, or damage in the cylinder walls. This procedure should only be a last resort because usually resurfacing the head, buying a new headgasket set, and buying new head bolts will cost as much as the whole engine at the junkyard. However if the head is removed, rubbing alcohol, acetone, mineral spirits, or other solvents can be poured in to the individual ports when the valves are closed to check how well they seal. Very minor leakage is to be expected from a typical used engine.

When I'm getting doors from the jy instead of unbolting them I take a sawzall and cut the body side hinge. Leaves the hinge to make it doorless moded and takes no time. You just need a buddy to hold/ catch it for you.
I always take many more tools than I expect to use and I take the junkyest ones

Saving Time and Money
 

Edited: Added a few others:


Read people. At most U-pull-it type locations the prices are set. If you read the person you can possible save yourself a little money.

I.E. I got a fan shroud. While walking up to the gate the easiest way to carry it with my tools and other parts I had gotten. Was to put it around my neck. The employee chuckled at me a little bit. I then decided to just say "hey is this cheaper as a fan shroud or necklace"? He laughed and said necklace. He charged me $2 for mics instead of for the shroud for $12.

Always know how much an item is before you pull it if you do not have a clue. You can be surprised sometimes at what certain things actually cost. Why do all the work of pulling something off when you are not going to buy the item.

At a full service junk yard. Always try to haggle. If you just accept their price then you choosing to pay more than its worth. Ninety percent of those jy's have padded their prices a little bit.

Learn how to decode a vin # Its really not that hard. If you need to know the year of a jeep and the doors are gone. If you can decode a vin # it will only take you seconds to find the year of the rig.

Know at least several of the items that your are looking for. If you have never taken that type of part off do a little research on how to remove first. It gets hectic at no service jy's and you could miss out on other parts because you were taking to long pulling something else.

Edited: Added a few others:

Have a good charge on your cell phone. They are handy to look things up. Example, you call to find out if the 96 whatever is the same as the 97 whatever. Use of places like Rockauto.com can confirm part number interchangeability. See if the part from the 98 fits the 99 that way.

They seldom can answer any technical questions at self pull places.(Mainly because they don’t know)
If it is even slightly sunny, wear a hat. It gets HOT in wrecking yards. (def in the south) Black surface, no wind circulation, lots of reflective surfaces. I mean HOT.

9 volt battery will allow you to test some devices.

Know what tools you are taking in so that you can inventory them before leaving the yard. Best actually to inventory them before you move to the next car. It sucks to find out you are missing 50 or a hundred dollars worth of tools and have to go looking.
At the same time keep and eye out for tools left behind by others. Finding items in a car that are not actual parts wouldn't be considered theft. Something that was left that was a personal item most jy’s will not charge you for (when in doubt always ask, better to be moral) You could ask before walking in about non-part personal items. We play a game that whoever finds tools there, gets to buy lunch for everyone. Dumb game, but finding a 1/2" drive Snap On ratchet is cool ($150+)? That day Tim bought taco bell.

Use an older external frame backpack to carry your tools in the yard. There is enough room in the pack for smaller parts (carrying only, please do not steal form the yards, It only causes them to raise there prices). These backpacks are usually really cheap as just about everybody wants internal frame packs now. They have a bunch of different pockets for your gear. I have been using one for a couple of years now. They hold up really well as they were designed to carry 30 to 40+ lbs of gear over mountain terrain. I always make sure to bring a snack and a drink or two with me. I normally carry a bottle of water in my pack. Latex gloves can be very nice to have as well. I have a friend of mine that normally goes with me and he carries a pack as well. This works out really well because we can carry a 1/2 load each. IE I carry a full set of standard sockets and he carries a full set of metric.

Take an old blanket to lay on

Beware of bees, snakes, bats, spiders, rats and other unfriendly, domain-guarding critters

Do a little research that could yield you a profit selling an item on the internet. I.E. a Suzuki Samurai Sifter assembly cost $20 at a lot of u-pull its and you could sell online used for $120. Take the time to spot rare items on cars that you don’t own but could yield you a profit. We all know that Xj’s are very common so a lot of jeep Cherokee parts wont wield a profit. But if you do a little research on other models you could make a decent profit. Another item is injectors you can get them as cheap as $5 each at u-pull its. You can easily sell a working set on this site for $65. Again if you have the time you can almost pay for all your parts by investing in a few other parts. There is a risk of the item not working but If you stick to parts that you can test or extremely rare items. Things easy to pull cost little and sell higher are badges for certain rigs (I.E. Samurai) generally popular cars that are not in production anymore. Badges are easy to pull with just minimal time and effort and could turn a profit.

Save your back and body some time and trouble and go scout things out before lugging all your tools inside. I can't tell you how many times I've dragged 50 lbs of tools inside just to wheel them around for an hour and not find anything. It's a lot easier to find what you want then come back inside with the few tools you do need.

I had a thought about testing an alternator at the Junk yard. I will have to test this theory but could be really useful.

Required tools to test and alternator at Jy would be

Multi-meter
battery impact and sockets.
Could be done with one person but two people would make this a lot easier.

• Step 1: Find the socket that will fit on the nut that holds the pulley on

• Step 2: Turn your multi-meter to the 20 V setting.

• Step 3: Have the other person start spinning the pulley with impact gun. Make sure that the pulley is spinning in the same direction as it would on the car.

• Step 4: There are two ways to test the voltage coming from the alternator. If you have easy access to the alternator without getting your body parts / clothing / etc tangled in the spinning pulley’s, then place the positive multi-meter probe (red) and touch it to the red terminal connector coming out of the alternator. Now take the negative (black) multi-meter probe and touch it to some metal part of your car frame (like a bolt head nearby or even the negative terminal on the car battery). Don’t ground to the alternator itself. That would be potentially bad. You should now be getting a reading on your multi-meter display.

• If the alternator is working well, your multi-meter should read somewhere in the vicinity of 14 volts (typically 13.8-14.2). If it is reading excessively higher than 14 volts (greater than 15 volts) it is possible that the voltage regulator on your alternator is faulty or going bad. If it is reading lower than 13-14 volts, there are a number of possibilities as to the reason. First, it is possible that your engine idle speed is too low for the alternator to put out sufficient voltage/power. Try revving up the engine to 2000 RPM or higher and take a reading. If the voltage is still too low, check to be sure all the connectors on your alternator are tight and that the alternator belt is not slipping and is spinning on the pulley correctly. If it is still not putting out sufficient power, then the alternator’s voltage regulator could be bad or the alternator itself may need replaced.
A car alternator needs to be putting out at least 13-14 volts (ideally between 13.8 and 14.2 volts) to effectively charge a 12 volt car battery. If the alternator is putting out too much voltage (15+ volts) The could have an issue.

This theory is untested for the moment. I will test this with a known good alternator and see what type of results I get.

Make sure the counter guy see's you entering the yard, and it possible make note of the time.

Take your time pulling your parts. More often than not I find myself sitting in the yard pulling a part that would normally take 5-10 minutes (example: front driveshaft). I was in no hurry whatsoever so I spent another 30-40 minutes looking around at other things. By the time I left, I was an hour and a bit into the pick. When I got to the counter he asked me what it came out of, so I told him a cherokee. He said ok, $70...to which I responded "I can get one from another wreckers (which I called before hand) for the same price and I didn't even need to pull it myself. I spend over an hour in the mud...I'll give you $30". His response was..."an hour in the mud eh? Okay sold..$30 is fine".

The longer you spend in the yard, the better chance they think it was a bugger to pull and will cut a deal instead of you leaving at the counter for them to take back out in the yard.

Getting familiar with the people that work there helps big time too in my experience. Only about 10 people work at the one by me and they all know me by name so I usually pay a lot less than I otherwise would and they tend to pull small stuff for me for free if I don't have the time to do it.

I pulled my 8.8 from a self service yard took an hour only because I had to get them to reset the explorer so I could get it unbolted without the thing falling on me and the parking brake cable was a ***** to cut . I ended up smacking it on a sharp edge with a hammer. Stainless is tough to cut with sidecutters I have in my JY tote.

this should be stickied.

when i go the the self service yard here, there is always some kind of gem hidden in a truck box or van. i've found new mufflers, decent rims and tires, t-cases, tools...never hurts to look if you have time.

and i always bring a 18V cordless recip saw...just in case.

Make friends with the employees whether a counter type yard or a you pull it yard. If they get to know you and your vehicle type they will be easier and friendlier to deal with. In doing this small parts; nuts, bolts, relays can suddenly become free. Also the older one man yards still believe in the barter system if you have parts you'll never use or need well a deal can be made(traded a 305 with a bad rod bearing for a whole front clip and wiring harness for my K5, along with some smaller items), Jokes stories and your time go a long way in these types of yards.

Junkyard jack:
most junkyards wont let you bring a jack inside, and have already gutted the jacks out of most of the vehicles. this can suck if the part you want is pinned by one of the stands they put the vehicle on, such as a skid plate. the u pull it yards near me use 2 rims welded together as their stands, and there are usually a bunch laying around in the yard. heres how you can get that skid or whatever else thats been pinned down. this will only work if your yard uses the 2 rims as stands.
grab 2 of the stands and a driveshaft, the longer the better. get one stand ready to stick under the frame rail or wherever else that will support the vehicle. with the other one, position it next to the car with the face of the wheel facing the front or back of the car, so the drop center section is perpendicular with the length of the car. take the driveshaft and slide it on the center of the stand and under the car. have a buddy stand on the other end of the driveshaft. this will usually lift the car up enough that you can put the other stand in and remove the one under the part you want to get.
Attachment 344300

Breaker Bar!
ever need to take out a real tight bolt, but you forgot your breaker bar at home? driveshafts work great. slide the slip yoke end over the end of your wrench and boom, instant breaker bar.

door panels make great pads for laying on.

if the part youre looking for isnt where it should be, search around inside the vehicle and around it. alot of times, someone will pull your part out to get to something they want, then theyll toss your part in the trunk area or even in one of the other cars near it. i needed an tcase input shaft once, but all the tcases were pulled. i was walking out and i found one of the tcases sitting in the back of a van, a few cars down from the jeep!

definately go in the yard first and scout out the parts you are looking for, than go back to your vehicle and get your tools.

ask for prices beforehand. nothing worse than spending time to pull a part only to find out you dont have enough cash for it or the price is just plain rediculous (pulled a perfect, clear headlight for my jeep, and they wanted 30 bucks for it, i can get it new for 16).

call ahead to see what their inventory is. cant even tell you how many times ive looked on their website and it showed x amount of vehicles, but when i get there, half of them are gone.

ill add more if i think of any

Over pay for some small items sometimes. Could help get a better deal on more expensive parts in the future.

PB blaster is your friend. Bring it.

Cash is king. Save these businesses credit card fees.

Gloves might be useful. Wet weather gear is nice.

Try to bundle parts together for a good deal.

Don't lowball too much. These guys need to be profitable.

Try to avoid cutting and smashing to get to your part, this may be the easier way but I have seen fights break out over cutting a wiring harness, and people banned from the yard for going after cars with a sawzall.