Antique & Classic Cars Blog

If each of us has a little Butch Cassidy, a little Jesse James, deep in our psyche yearning for a chance to “take the money and run,” that moment comes for the classic-car wrencher when you leave a salvage yard with a part so rare you spent the previous night wondering if they had it right, or if someone will realize the treasure in their stockroom and vanish with it before you arrive.

Last of the wrecking-yard 215 V8 four speeds?

I have enjoyed this feeling twice–each time I had to turn around repeatedly on the way home and make sure what I had hunted, found, cautiously approached the yard with a poker face and a pittance to buy, really was in the back of my vehicle…mine, mine, mine. The first time was when I left Rohner’s in Willmar a half dozen years ago with a 4-bbl 215-ci aluminum V8 engine that I had found and pulled myself (with a strong-backed friend) and which they sold me for 300 bucks. This morning it was a four-speed manual transmission for the same motor, scooped up from Elmer’s, a wrecking yard in Fountain City, Wisconsin.

Shifter and linkage still in place four decades on. Nice.

Manual transmissions were rare on the Buick Special/Skylark (and same-motor-sharing Olds F85) and most were 3-speeds. The 4-speed was an option that only a few performance enthusiasts threw down for. The number of those transmissions remaining in salvage yards 45 years later is very, very–VERY–small.

The bellhousing I sourced with a hunt of its own is really for a 3-speed….

Driving to the yard I had three hopes of varying improbability. Level one was that this really was what they thought it was and not a three-speed mis-identified. My second, less likely, wish was that it wasn’t a bare transmission but included the shifter with linkage. Third–the dream-on, get real, what have you been smoking–level was that, on top of the shifter and linkage, it would also have the bellhousing.

While the bellhousing sits in place properly, the 3-speed holes are too narrow for the 4-speed flange.

Fountain city nestles in a beautiful stretch of western Wisconsin between the mighty Mississippi and hills a few degrees shy of cliffs. Entering town I wondered where between the water and the raucous incline they were storing thousands of old cars. The answer is that the yard lies above town in a comparatively flat stretch of rolling hills and farmland. In fact, on climbing the hill you get the impression all of Wisconsin sits hundreds of feet above sea level except for the narrow ribbon of shoreline carved down by the Mississippi.

Should be possible with a Sharpie, hacksaw, die grinder and some aluminum stock to make the missing pieces and weld them in place, then drill and tap for bolts from the transmission. You need a few challenges to keep things interesting.

There I found the stuff of dreams–hundreds of cars slumbering in the grass, waiting to connect their unplucked treasures with the shade-tree and classics mechanics seeking the out-of-stock, out-of-production, seldom-seen, and totally rare items essential to somebody’s project.

Inside, successful yards have a modern, computerized, Office-Deport-furnished feel at odds with the throwback vehicles that weather the elements outdoors. I casually told the man up front what I had come for, “a 4-speed transmission for a 1963 Buick Special.” I tried to say it exactly as I’d say, “an alternator for a Dodge Neon.” He was the man I had spoken to and he treated the request as any other. I handed him a credit card and went back for a look.

Yeah, baby! The bellhousing bolt holes on the four-speed are wider than a three-speed’s and this was the genuine article. It bore no bellhousing, but the shifter and linkage were more important because I had a bellhousing already and they, to my good fortune, were attached and complete. I tried my best to eye the part with disdain as though maybe they should knock off a few bucks, but inside I just wanted to close the deal before somebody realized I was getting out the door with the rarest part in their inventory.

Back at the desk, I signed off for $110, then went out to the lot and backed up to the bay where I’d eyed my prize. A yard hand set it in the car and I drove off.

No one chased me. No manager came squealing behind to tell me there’d been a big mistake. It was mine. And I was gone.

Looking at it here, you may think I’ve inhaled too much gas or old oil, but if that’s the case you’ve stumbled upon the classics car blog by mistake. A real fan will understand that driving away with your rare old part, the salvage yard shrinking in your rearview mirror, is just like galloping from a Wild West holdup, hoping the marshal has a slow horse and lousy aim.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Car parts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.