TGIF = The Grease Is Flyin'

One of the joys and banes of being a neophyte, semiuneducated, lightly experienced, intellectual wannabe motorhead such as myself is the "take it apart yourself" junkyard. For the most part, you can (as one of them advertises) "pull off your own great deal" from these kinds of places. For example, here are some recent scores - I'm not even going to bother showing the dealer prices cause, as we ALL know, dealer prices are WAY high:

• passenger window. Wholesale = 80 bucks. Junkyard = 16.99 + my own labor. Took me about 45-60 minutes to remove the window - it was a powered window, too.
• a large taillight assemby. Wholesale = 119. Junkyard = 15.00 + my own labor, which required me to disconnect one electrical plug (and I got ALL the bulbs and wiring with it!)
  
• console flap/top. Wholesale = 30-ish. Junkyard = 4.50 + 2 screws
• driver side powered seat. Wholesale = what... 300 bucks? Junkyard = 30 bucks??? Of course, I haven't finished removing it yet, so there is some more effort involved there.

Of course, don't expect any kind of warranty on electrical parts - it's all hit and miss for that stuff - and who knows how badly the last driver of this car treated his equipment... And for heavy mechanical stuff... well, you have to lug it out of there... and then you have to test it. And if doesn't work, well damn, you have to lug it back to the junkyard - so there is a large pain-in-the-ass factor you should tack on. And, of course, there's no guarantee they'll even have the make and model you need a part for, or if what they do have will fit - say you have a 93 and they have a 94 model... well, basically, you're rolling the dice and taking your chances.

Still, what a great deal? I paid 60 bucks for about 500 bucks worth of parts, all told.... and it definitely gave me large doses of "gee, lookie what I accomplished" endorphins and fed my fledgling motorhead ego with a few strokes.

And that's where the danger lies. I'm already a bit of a pack rat, according to my friends - I call myself a collector - and this place is just chock full of stuff I could score for various car projects I have at my house, not to mention the childhood dream of having my very own Fat Albert Junkyard band...

Yeah.

Danger Will Robinson indeed.