In need of ca$h last week, i took in 83 Kgs of scrap Lead and got NZ149.40 @ NZ1.80/Kg.
NZ $150 was more than i was expecting & a nice lump sum. I paid $100 off on my cats vet bill + food + car part, etc.
Today i took in 95Kgs of car/truck batterys & got NZ$57 @ NZ$0.60 cents a Kg.
That sucked.
I was thinking i would be getting NZ$0.90cents+ per Kg & i know that if i waited i would find out when the 'Car battery buyer' is visiting our town & i would get much better prices.
I think hes the guy who buys the batterys from the scrapyards & takes them up North, sorts & exports them direct.
I did notice that the scrapyards Steel piles getting smaller, id never seen it as high as it was 3 weeks ago.
Since i need some of the $ for food, i wont be able to buy the car part I want untill next week. I did order some new underbody tray clips & screws for NZ$5 from China. Since a few were missing.
I need the tray, & a couple of others, fixed by a plastic welder soon too.
Its a NZ$25 inc p&p rubber engine mount & will take a week to arrive from Australia. It takes 3-6 weeks to arrive from China & 10-14 days from Germany & less than 10, mostly 4-7 from Lithuania.
I found the mount had worn completely out when i was checking to see why the engines always cold. Its a restrictive mount & dosnt bear any weight unless the engine shifts a lot, but not having it puts more stress on the other mounts, which are still good, but may have lost the fluid from inside the rubber.
I have hopefully narrowed down the cold engine problem, after swapping out the 4 pin Coolant temp sender = no change. Then used a multimeter to check the fan switch on the radiator hose = open when cold.
Found the radiator fans work when the heaters on ( weird but not 100% unexpected ) & dont work when its turned off.
I also found that the thermostat , thats the part i ordered last week, is a electric one....its a unit with a tiny heater element beside the thermostats wax (?) filled sensor. Instead of being controlled by the coolants temp, its controlled by the other Coolant Temp Sensor. This lets the computer change the engine temp depending on how its being run at the time.
Makes sense but i sorta like how i used to be able to buy a thermostat at the garage & change it in 10 minutes with only 2 bolts. But i also like the car i have and like how i am learning new stuff about it all the time.
I also found the 2 lower suspension arms, that also bear the shock absorbers pressure, are worn out & need replaced soonish @ NZ$150 i guess. Will buy new bump stops for the shocks at the same time.
Buy then it will have cost me NZ$1000 (US$650) for a 2003 German car. By then there will be nothing wrong with it at all.
A few years ago i found a near new condition, 50 yr old, iconic Japanese audio quality amplifier amongst the scrapmetal, still in its box. I hope to sell this for NZ$400 to bring in some real money before Christmas.
Theres also 70 Kgs of plastic coated wire i can sell like it is, or 'improve' its price with a little extra work.
If i can get this done, i could have enough $ to take my
escrap 700Kms to sell the lot of it. Between $1200 & $? worth.
Thats a big unknown factor atm.
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