I watched this happen, and I think it'* hilarious.

There'* a guy standing with bolt cutters and waiting. Some other guy driving an ENORMOUS forklift that bends in the middle to steer and has forks longer than most cars are wide drives said forklift through a car. Then, he lifts it up so that the entire car is lying on its side and about 3 feet in the air.

Boltcutter man walks up to the underbelly and starts cutting. Groaning sounds are heard from the chassis, and soon the engine smashes into the ground with some heater core tubes and cables still attached to the chassis. Then Boltcutter man takes care of those. The car has become engineless in about two minutes and is ready to be sold for scrap metal.

I think this is really unusual, but I could be wrong. How do your local junkyards take out engines? The others I've seen have large lifts like most oil change places and dealerships have, and there the engines are carefully taken out. Does an engine take damage falling on the upper intake manifold from 3 feet in the air? The ground is packed dirt.

What do you think?

Yes. Yes, absolutely. I asked that anticipating someone explaining how an engine would not take damage. Oh well.

Every wrecker in the country uses forklifts to pull engines.

Sounds about the process they use here. What intrigued me more was how they remove the fuel tanks before throwing them in the crusher.

They throw the car on its roof with the front end loader equipped with two forks, stab through the gas tank with the forks, and just rip it out with the forks. They then move the tank abruptly back and forth to make sure every single drop of gas has fallen into the soil, located just five-ish miles down the mountain from the city'* 500,000,000 gallon drinking water supply. Then they open a door or find the nearest entry point to the vehicle (including the engine bay), cram the old tank in there, and throw the car in the crusher.

I'm pretty sure this isn't EPA compliant, but I haven't yet figured out how to report it. Word has it the the owner of the junk yard just died (he was maybe in his late 40s, early 50s), and the jy has been shut down. He was always stoned out of his mind and gave AWESOME deals.

http://www.depweb.state.pa.us/dep/cw...=1177&q=479986

Sweet, thanks. I've seen several instances in which that form could come in handy.

Thanks for the info, guys! So, is it generally ok to get an engine longblock from a JY?

I wouldn't, unless I was the one pulling it. Who knows WHY that motor ended up in the yard to begin with? I'm not buying a motor unless I can check compression, the fluids, and see whats in the oilpan.

depends where you get it and what you expect. My local U-pull will list if the car has a good motor or tranny so you can check before pulling it, and they give you a 30 day money back guarentee, so I would pull one from there.

If you are going to get one from the yard you described, I'd pass.

I'm guessing what you saw is how they seperate them before crushing so they crush better.