Voted Best Junkyard

Best of Baltimore, 2001

                        Photo By Michelle Gienow

We are open 7 days a week. 8:00 am to 5:00 pm.

No One Admitted After 4:30 P.M.

Must 18 years or older to enter the yard

  CITY PAPER 2001

September 19-September 25, 2001 Edition

Crazy Ray's

6201 Erdman Ave., Baltimore (410) 488-6650

8125 Washington Blvd., Jessup, (410) 799-6630

2801 Hawkins Point Rd., Baltimore (410) 354-4800

3923 Twin Arch Rd., Mt. Airy, (410) 795-9830

NEW   1706 Pulaski Highway Edgewood, MD 410-671-7200 

A car-enthusiast friend once said, "It's a parts garden, not a junkyard." Graceful words for an auto scrap yard. But as anyone who's called a dealership for a replacement window or radiator can attest, car parts are mighty pricey. And if you're cheap and drive old cars, like we do, salvage yards are the places to go. That in mind, the best parts garden around is Crazy Ray's, the kind of scrap yard you have to explore yourself--they don't log every vehicle towed into their gates. Pick a location--there's a yard off Pulaski Highway on the east side and another off Washington Boulevard southwest of town, in Jessup. You pay your buck to get in (paradise has its price), lug in your toolbox, and set out to find that radiator (all radiators, $40), windshield (all windshields, $50, and they pull it for you), or, if you're a true motorhead, a full engine ($150). Mercedes Benzes and Escorts alike are jammed together, Jaguars ignobly gutted, and an iron curtain of crushed cars surrounds the lot. It's not for the timid or those uncomfortable with grease, mud, and weeds, but Crazy Ray's is a godsend for folks who don't mind getting a little dirty to save some money. For the rest, the dealership parts counter will be glad to take your money.

The Towerlight  Feb. 21, 2008

Crazy Rays: an Eden for car parts

   I have discovered the most wonderful place on God's good green earth. It's called "Crazy Rays," and it's a "u-pick-it, u-pull it" parts garden (read: junkyard) in Jessup. There are locations in south Baltimore and Mount Airy, but I've fallen in love with this location.

   I found out about it on a tip from a fellow Toyota Supra owner, who said he had seen an old Supra just sitting at the end of a row of dead cars there. I found the web site, which has the address and the phone number.

  "It's not for the timid or those uncomfortable with grease, mud, and with weeds, but Crazy Ray's is a godsend for folks who don't mind getting a little dirty to save some money," the Web site states. I went up there with a buddy of mine on one clear, cold Wednesday morning, and we paid our dollar each to get into the yard-not many junkyards will let you wander around anymore, let alone for a buck-and signed away our lives on a clipboard on the desk.

   There are no junkyard dogs at Crazy Ray's, but are two 27-ton front-end loaders with six-foot metal tusks that could kill you. The yard is huge, and reasonably well categorized by domestic and import, car and truck, and then within each of those categories, by era. There is no record of what is in the yard, so don't ask. My buddy and I found a Garrett turbocharger in an old Saab 900' an old delivery truck just begging to be converted into the Party Bus and the Supra I had heard about.

   I pulled various parts off the Supra and paid for them at the front desk. I saved an immense amount of money by pulling my own parts at Crazy Ray's. For example - I paid $10 for the timing cover from the junked Supra. Had I ordered a replacement part from Toyota, it would have run me close to $190. 

   The straight six in the Supra, a 23-year -old engine' can get up near $1,000 on eBay and elsewhere. Complete engines (minus alternator and A/C compressor) will run you $200 at Crazy Ray's, no matter what make or model. Good deal, assuming you have a half-ton, three beefy friends and an engine hoist on hand.

   If you know what you're looking for, and you don't mind picking it, pulling it and bolting it to your car yourself, then Crazy Ray's is your kind of place. If you do find something of interest out in the yard, make sure to get everything you need from it the first time, because junked cars come and go pretty quickly. As the site states: "For the rest, the dealership parts counter will be glad to take your money."

     Ben McAllister: The Towerlight

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