By Dennis Oda, Star-BulletinAlfredo Majlasani retrieves tires from old cars.
The tires will be shredded for recycling.
Junkyard junket
Car junkies get their fix of old parts at
By Burl Burlingame
Abe's in Pearl City, where the city casts
derelict cars for recycling
Star-BulletinRafael Pedro holds his '77 Thunderbird in high esteem. "They don't make 'em like that any more," he says, and it's the sort of thing car lovers always say, but Pedro is serious, not nostalgic. His baby needs a new light-switch housing, and Ford stopped making Thunderbird light-switch housings back when gasoline still had lead in it.
Pedro, a Waipahu carpenter, is seeking his switch at Abe's Auto Recyclers, hidden inside the Pearl City industrial valley. Abe's is something of a surprise to anyone expecting a traditional junkyard. For one thing, don't use the j-word. And there's no barbed wire, no mean dogs, no piles of rusting parts hoping someone will need them someday.
The emphasis is on "recycling," and Abe's has the city contract to claim abandoned cars. Every day, 20 to 30 derelict vehicles are towed into the yard, their noxious fluids drained, their batteries and tires removed, cleaned out of anything that doesn't have to do with car parts. And every day, 20 to 30 cars leave Abe's, on their way to a steel shredder.
Which means that the population of roughly 2,500 derelict cars at Abe's stays pretty constant. And if your image of a junkyard -- sorry, auto recycler -- consists mostly of junked cars, then Abe's is pretty traditional.
Which is what attracts Pedro. "It's fun working on cars, but it's hard to get parts this old. I like cars built in the '70s -- not so many electronics," he says. "So Abe's or another yard is about my only choice."
By Dennis Oda, Star-BulletinCovered shoes are a must at Abe's Auto Recyclers.
Above, old shoes await any customer who shows up in slippers.
Security is tight at Abe's, and they have a system for retrieving parts, and Pedro must run the drill. The lot is scattered along the banks of the Waiawa Stream flood plain, and there's only one entrance, which is guarded by an office with counter window and large lanai out front."I need a headlight switch housing, Thunderbird, 1977," Pedro tells one of the guys behind the counter.
"We have a '79 or '78," says the counter guy, consulting a computer. "The part is the same."
"Let's go," says Pedro, and he waits for a runner to drive him down.
People looking for parts are driven to the potential car, where they take a look, and if they like what they see, the driver removes it for them, and they take it back to the counter and pay for it.
Covered shoes are required. If you don't have any, there's a stack of old boots on the bench, used the same way fine restaurants have neckties and jackets under the counter. A trio of Samoan kids from Waipahu are profoundly embarrassed to put on someone else's shoes, but they do it anyway; there's a 1988 Sentra down in the yard with transmission parts they need.
And don't ask for Abe. There is no Abe. The name was chosen because it comes early when alphabetized in the phone book.
Roberto and Linda Alvarez are looking for a Nissan Stanza air-conditioner pulley. "Costs $210 from a dealer," huffs Roberto, who's stationed at Schofield Barracks. But Abe's has a used one, $25. "Yes!" says Roberto. "That's why I'm here."
Roberto and Linda cool their heels on the lanai and let the driver fetch the pulley for them. When Betty "BJ" Verece returns, she's bearing the part on a Nissan hubcap, which is as close as you get here to a silver platter.
By Dennis Oda, Star-BulletinAbe's employee B.J. Verece removes parts
for a customer, Gerry Autry.
Verece is a grandmotherly type in faded dungarees and a pocket full of tools. "I love cars," she says. "Everything about cars. They're kind of like puzzles, you know? It's fun figuring out how they go together, and come apart, and what makes them run. You practically have to be a scientist. I started out driving fork lifts on Sand Island in 1964 so I could be near cars. Not too many ladies driving fork lifts those days."Indeed. Car yards are generally a male preserve -- Linda Alvarez looked faintly dismayed the entire time she was at Abe's -- and there a specific male type; shaggy, a little distracted, shirts that never see collars, permanent black lines marking their cuticles, a cleaning rag in the rear pocket (not for hands, for parts), and they're slightly hunched from years of bending under a raised car hood, staring down on engines either with joy or puzzlement.
But manager Derek Durbin doesn't fit the prototype either. He's more of an accountant/salesman type, neatly pressed. Only his voice, a kind of careful, cave-bear whisper, gives him away.
"We've got everything from lug nuts to engines, and we keep it on the car because we don't have a warehouse," he said, driving a delivery car that has to be started by jamming a crowbar into the steering column.
Dusty cars huddle in groups. It's windy, it's hot, the cars baking like brownies under the sun. There are codes in yellow paint on the front fenders: TO means "turned over," an artifact from a financial arrangement gone sour; CC means "City & County," meaning it was removed for some reason from a city street. They're generally abandoned.
Durbin shrugs. "Some are in good shape," he says. "Most aren't. But they all have usable parts.
All talk about the meanness of junkyard dogs aside, citizens needing a good used car part should know a few things before visiting an auto recycling yard. Scoping the yards
Call first. Most yards know almost exactly what kind of cars they have in stock, and if they don't have it, you've saved a trip. And keep calling. "New" cars are added to the inventory all the time.
"Cars that wind up here are roughly about 10 years old. Abandoned, junked, foreclosed on, whatever. And there seems to be no make that's better or worse than any other make. Whatever the percentage is out there on the road, that's what you'll find in here. If Toyotas are 10 percent of the licensed cars, then we're about 10 percent Toyota."
There's a shelf life for these cars, too. The only older cars they keep are classics like Mustangs and VW bugs. "Oh, we have guys who come in here every paycheck and buy one part," said Durbin. "They're building old cars from the ground up."
They're almost all coupes. Pickups and vans are rare. "That's because people with pickups and vans try to keep them running forever," said Durbin. "We had one good Aerostar in here, and the whole thing sold in two days!"
Kevin Sullivan, who uses a 1979 Chevy van for his vertical-blind company, needs a hood, and is thrilled when Abe's offers him a selection. "This one matches the best," he said. "I'll have to fix it, and paint it, but for fifty bucks, it's worth it."
Business is slow these days, surprising, wonders Durbin, because in a depressed economy, recyclers do well. "Maybe nobody has their tax return yet," he laughs.
Allen Todd, who's in the Navy, doesn't quite fit the backyard mechanic profile either, he's as buttoned-down as Durbin. But it turns out he won't be installing the power brake booster himself in his 1986 Volkswagen Cabriolet. "Oh, I have a friend who'll do it for me," he says. "I was here last week for another part, and I came back because they were friendly and efficient. They tell you over the phone if they have the part or not, and we set the price before they pull it off. And there's a 90-day warranty on the parts."
Gerry Autry, a counselor at Kuhio Park Terrace, needs a right-rear-inside door handle for his 1988 Buick. Autry, who used to work at a gas station in his youth, can barely keep from helping Verece get the part off. It turns out that Buicks have lots of hidden screws and fasteners, and right where you expect a screw, there will be a rivet.
"Man, after I came home from Vietnam, 1969, cars were completely changed. They didn't make sense any more, they weren't solid. They were ... weird! It was very disappointing," moaned Autry.
Verece unsnags the balky handle apparatus and holds it up for Autry to inspect. There are dust devils spinning between the resting cars, putting grit in your eye.
"That's it," he says, squinting. "Just what I'm looking for. I'll take it."
