[XB GS 351 Coupe]

Originally Posted by commodorenutt

I was lucky enough to visit Dunkers in the mid 90s before they closed. We also had a fair few local yards that were self serve if you asked. All but one closed in the 90s to make way for commercial/retail. The remaining one won’t even let you poke your head past the roller door….. I used to like C Young’s at Casula. It’s all houses now. I wonder how many landscaping jobs unearthed nuts, bolts and other trinkets…. I used to have mates come from interstate, and we could spend 3 days scouring dozens of yards stretching from Enfield, Greenacre and Revesby/Padstow, all the way out via Austral to Penrith, and from Windsor down to Bargo. Some yards only had 40 odd cars, but they were still worth checking out.

Pick & Payless opened an indoor yard at Ingleburn around 2002/2003. It was awesome - comfortable concrete floor, roof over the top, no footwell puddles, mouldy trim, or waterlogged engines. They didn’t last long though. Probably too expensive for the limited space, and self serve doesn’t get you the turnover that a “production” wreckers on the hotline can manage.

Garry Rush had a yard in Fairfield east in the 90s, and visiting there one day chasing VC Commodore SL/E bits was when I found out they were planning the Blacktown yard. My eyes glazed over….. A few months later it opened, and I was in heaven. I couldn’t count how many times I went there over 25 odd years. I could easily waste all day wandering all makes & models, finding elusive bits that would work well in a modified car. Even just studying the burnt out wrecks to see what the chassis engineering was like. I still get **** about going there one Valentine’s Day somewhere around 97 or 98…….

We did the same, used to spend hours looking at all the cars, finding a radiator overflow bottle or washer bottle off a different car to adapt to yours.

Originally Posted by commodorenutt

Northern Wreckers on the Northern Rd around Llandilo closed a few months back, but I went past in Feb and they had a sign saying they would reopen as “one world” spares, but I’m not sure if it will remain self-serve.

Might be worth a call next time I am in Sydney.

Originally Posted by commodorenutt

Dapto pick-a-part. I’ve been there many times. It’s usually worth the drive too. You can spend half a day wandering the whole yard looking at everything. Some of the cars are so rusty (coastal life) and the old stuff has been really well picked over. Before Covid they had a handful of XD-XF era cars in there (a couple of ZJ/ZK too). Heaps of EF thru AU, and a number of BA too. They didn’t have much FG stuff in January 2020, but that’s likely to have changed now. I called in at Christmas to make sure they were still open, and they are. Didn’t have time for a look. I’ll be heading there in a few weeks for a proper look with tools and a trolley.

Forgot about this place, I had been there once a long time ago, bought a radiator support panel off them for an XB back about 12 years ago.

Might check it out one of these days.