Scrapping a car piece by piece - GIF

[hemmjo]

I worked in an auto salvage yard in the early 70's. They used to have "burners", just guys with LONG handled cutting torches to do that kind of work. After all the good parts had been sold off a vehicle, the burners would cutting the remaining "heavy iron", brass radiators, and aluminum stuff out. Leaving just a shell, and piles of various types of mat

They had a big articulated wheel loader fitted with forks for moving cars around and stacking the stripped bodies until the cost of scrap went up.

Toward the end of my time there. They bought an adapter for that big loader. It had to be the "great grandfather" of that machine in the video. It was just like a thumb and forefinger. The operator would pop the hood open with a fork. The pin the car down with the forks on the front fenders. Reach into the engine compartment with the fingers and just rip the engine/transmission out. Then lift the engine/transmission pretty high and drop it on the concrete pad to break the two apart. Put them in separate piles. Then flip the car over and rip out the rear axle, and the front controls arms etc.

Interesting this is, now there are machines that shred the WHOLE vehicle. Then separate the materials after.