Every gearhead has had the urge to fill their yard with old project cars at one time or another. It's an itch that mostly goes unscratched, but once in a while a seemingly perfect clunker shows up in the classifieds and it's just too difficult to resist. Of course, reality always sets in sooner or later and you're forced to deal with the fact that you've now got a total clunker taking up space in front of your house.
It can be tempting to just give up and decide that you've got no use at all for a car that barely runs (or that doesn't run at all), but there are plenty of ways to make the most of a junk car. These ideas might even convince you to go and grab that promising junk car that's for sale at local places like Pick-A-Part Jalopy Jungle.
Junk Cars Are Great Learning Experiences
If you've bought a junk car that's mechanically mostly intact and that is theoretically capable of running, then what you really have is a treasure trove of automotive education. One of the worst parts of wrenching on cars is the knowledge that any misstep could leave you without reliable transportation for days at a time. Most shade tree mechanics have had the unfortunate experience of working on a car all night because that car happens to be their daily driver and it absolutely has to be back in running order for the morning commute.
Junk cars sidestep all of these issues. It's likely that they were cheap to purchase, which means that there is little to lose if you happen to make a mistake under the hood. Since the car is unlikely to be your daily driver, it also doesn't matter if that quick hour-long project turns into a week-long ordeal. Purchasing a cheap junk car just to have something to work on can be a truly great learning experience.
Junker Racing
Cheap junk cars can be a phenomenal way to get involved in automotive racing without breaking the bank. Junker races such as 24 Hours of LeMons and the Gambler 500 are specifically designed around cheap, disposable vehicles. This also pairs extremely well with the idea of the junk car as a learning tool. Buying a cheap car and bringing it at least up to the standards of a junk racer is a project that is both educational and extremely fulfilling. Plus, how many projects end with getting to flog your barely functional vehicle around a racetrack?
Part It Out
When all else fails, junk cars are often worth more in pieces than they are whole. If you've bought a junk car and no longer have any use for it, it might be worthwhile to strip it down for parts before having its skeleton hauled off to the junkyard. It will rarely be worth your time to pull every last salvageable piece from an old car, but if you can identify the most valuable or in-demand parts then your efforts will almost certainly be rewarded. You may even learn a thing or two as you're pulling your old junk car apart.
Share28 December 2018
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