Musings On Old Junk

A couple weeks back I found a carburetor in a junkyard.  Down in this area thats fairly rare.  It is a Carter RBS originally installed on a fairly solid example of a '73 Maverick.  A solid enough example that I started to wonder why it was in the yard.

I looked it over and didn't see much wrong with it.  Someone had destroyed the dash, but based on dust and other stuff I kind of think that happened in the yard.  Underneath was relatively clean, a few oil leaks from the transmission and engine, nothing overly heinous I could see.

I didn't get why it was there, other than the age.  Most of the necessary parts required to keep it running are pretty much readily available.  Were there body seals that were shot?  Did it leak in the rain? (I didn't see any appreciable rust, so I doubt it.)  Gas mileage is definitely a possible factor at 16MPG average, but that doesn't necessarily feel like a reason to chuck a car into a junkyard?

About the one thing I could find was on the carb.  The o-ring for the float bowl was kinked enough that it likely leaked(side note, why did Carter do such weird stuff with all of their carbs? Every one of them is weird in a different way.)

Now, fluids are drained, batteries are removed, there's not a lot of troubleshooting you can do with a car in a Tampa area junkyard.  I also can't talk to the former owners so I don't know if it was someone's grandparent's car and they passed, if it was left on a property that had been bought and was just sold to get rid of it, or some other scenario.  There are literally dozens of reasons to junk a 40 year old car.

However, out of all of those reasons, alI have to go on is this o-ring, so it's all I can point to.

I gotta say, if that is the reason it got sent off, its a bit of a shame.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

Likely the main reason is it's the anthesis of 70s butt ugly sadness 70s appliance driving experience.

With that said it is a prime Concours d'Lemons candidate. 

 Not everyone sees value in the old. Some just see cars as a way to get from point A to point B. To people like us, it IS the point. 

4 door Maverick and Comet driving experience was nothing exceptional.  I owned a light green 4 door 1974 Comet and it's only redeeming values were it's low price (bought used for $150) and it's reliable starting via screwdriver on the solenoid, a 1980s anti-theft system extraordinaire!   Drove it as a winter beater in 1989 then sold it for $150 the next summer.  

The driving experience is less what I was concerned with, Appleseed got a little bit of it.
This thing was still a car till I pulled the carb off of it.  May have needed some TLC, but it shouldn't have required much.

This isn't all of it, but one aspect of it:
I know a couple families that would have jumped for joy to have something as pedestrian and utilitarian around simply because their other stuff is so broken.  They can't afford to fix it properly so they're putting band aids on top of band aids.
And here is this car, this tool that someone could use.

Even if they didn't care for it, if they just wanted something to get them from A to B, this would have done that.

I dunno.  I'm not putting it into words well

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I get it; it's sad to see something that could have been useful go to waste.

I remember going to our local junkyard several years ago and there was an absolutely spotless 1991 Jeep Grand Wagoneer, the final year of the original big SJ Grand Wagoneer. It was white with wood side trim and a red interior and there wasn't a speck of rust, no collision damage, no wear on the interior, and it only had like 60k miles. No clue why it was there, and it absolutely depressed me seeing a pretty rare (at least around here), very nice vehicle condemned to death for no discernible reason.

Grampa died, nobody could see any value, off to the dump.

Where do you think the cars go that get donated to the numerous charities that hand out tax receipts?