I specialize in junk transmissions.

A few years ago a guy sold me a junk transmission for $50. I thought the price was too high, but having never had one, I bit.

Next day I took it to a competitor and asked for $200. He laughed at me because the front output splines were stripped. So, I kept it.

A year or so later I had a call for the 6 brass synchro rings in it. I bought a press, tore the transmission apart, and sold a QUARTER OF A POUND of brass for $1300!!! During the next year I sold over $1000 more out of that same transmission. Now 30 years later I still have a few pieces of it left. I really think that $50 was a very good investment.

Another time around 20 years ago I bought a junk transmission for $300. Took it 20 miles across town and tried to sell it for $600. No deal. Put it on my teardown bench that afternoon. FIRST thing the next morning the guy that TURNED ME DOWN THE DAY BEFORE paid me $600 for a FEW parts out of that transmission. Hmmm, I think he made a mistake by not buying the whole thing the day before.

No time frame on this deal, but once I found a transmission in a scrap bin and bought it for $50. A few days later, after making a dozen calls or so, I sold it for $900.

I currently have two transmissions on my bench that I bought cheap. One I tried to buy a year and a half ago for $100. No deal. One year later I bought that EXACT transmission for $50. Sooner or later someone will pay me $1000 for it. The other one I paid $25 for and sometime in the next year or so it will go for $250.



I tend to get quite a few junk transmissions that are hardly worth the effort even after dismantling them for scrap. But, every now and then I get lucky. Last Friday I picked up a free transmission at a transmission shop that I was at. Not much value there, but I might get lucky and get a couple of hundred dollars in sellable parts out of it. Then again it may be total scrap. Will find out tomorrow.

All in all just another day/month/year/decade in the life of a scrapper doing what anyone can do in whatever area of scrap he specializes in.