Hot Chop shop
Well-known member
So instead of high jacking others threads I thought is was time to start my own garage thread…
About me:
Growing up my dad was a semi-mechanic, he was never trained and he figured it out as he went… for a while he would buy and sell cars… usually cars with a broken time chain or other disaster… He would always throw way more money into a car than he ever got out, so at some point my mom put an end to that hobby of his. I spent a lot of weekends in junk yards helping him look for parts and my Pops knew the name of every employee at NAPA auto parts store, cause he was in there daily… So I learned a lot from him growing up good and bad… I never saw him use a torque wrench and he fell in love the day he found J&B weld and used it to hold many cars together. So that was my training. I unfortunately never took shop class and really enjoyed becoming a DIY’er all of my education comes from reading threads and Youtube videos and even some books here and there.
What made me begin my garage build started while I was looking at another website reading about all the modifications people were doing to their 4runners to make them more capable off road vehicles. (((and even some to prepare for the zombie apocalypse
))) Through my readings on that site I decided to lift my truck but in order to justify the cost of doing that I decided I would do it myself to save on the install cost… So I read lots of threads and began buying all the specialized tools for the job and treated it like studying for an exam… When it came time to do the job I encountered several problems…. one of the spacers was machined with a high lip so that was easily corrected with a round file that I didn't have… so I ran out to get one… then I needed to drill holes into the frame for the shock reservoirs and my little royal cordless drill couldn’t come close to making the holes so I had to run out and borrow a corded drill… So I finished the lift after several trips to the store and a few to my friends house… So long story longer I expanded my prefabricated Cressent tool box into a hand me down craftsman rolling chest… then a nice bench from sam’s club with a nice matching rolling cart and stool… Completing that project was so satisfying to do it on my own and I decided to continue down the addicting road of modification on my truck… and with each modification I needed to learn a few new skills and with that skill comes the needed tools… and as I began to collect more tools I search the web for methods to organize those tools I found this website and have been hooked ever since…
So here is some pics of how it began....
First rolling tool box hand-me-down...
A little sanding and painting...
Then came the bench
all together...
A little paint to match the craftsman theme...
gotta have a vise... If only I had found the thread on vintage vises first.. but I still like it....
and then I was done... so I thought...
cont...
About me:
Growing up my dad was a semi-mechanic, he was never trained and he figured it out as he went… for a while he would buy and sell cars… usually cars with a broken time chain or other disaster… He would always throw way more money into a car than he ever got out, so at some point my mom put an end to that hobby of his. I spent a lot of weekends in junk yards helping him look for parts and my Pops knew the name of every employee at NAPA auto parts store, cause he was in there daily… So I learned a lot from him growing up good and bad… I never saw him use a torque wrench and he fell in love the day he found J&B weld and used it to hold many cars together. So that was my training. I unfortunately never took shop class and really enjoyed becoming a DIY’er all of my education comes from reading threads and Youtube videos and even some books here and there.
What made me begin my garage build started while I was looking at another website reading about all the modifications people were doing to their 4runners to make them more capable off road vehicles. (((and even some to prepare for the zombie apocalypse
))) Through my readings on that site I decided to lift my truck but in order to justify the cost of doing that I decided I would do it myself to save on the install cost… So I read lots of threads and began buying all the specialized tools for the job and treated it like studying for an exam… When it came time to do the job I encountered several problems…. one of the spacers was machined with a high lip so that was easily corrected with a round file that I didn't have… so I ran out to get one… then I needed to drill holes into the frame for the shock reservoirs and my little royal cordless drill couldn’t come close to making the holes so I had to run out and borrow a corded drill… So I finished the lift after several trips to the store and a few to my friends house… So long story longer I expanded my prefabricated Cressent tool box into a hand me down craftsman rolling chest… then a nice bench from sam’s club with a nice matching rolling cart and stool… Completing that project was so satisfying to do it on my own and I decided to continue down the addicting road of modification on my truck… and with each modification I needed to learn a few new skills and with that skill comes the needed tools… and as I began to collect more tools I search the web for methods to organize those tools I found this website and have been hooked ever since… So here is some pics of how it began....
First rolling tool box hand-me-down...
A little sanding and painting...
Then came the bench
all together...
A little paint to match the craftsman theme...
gotta have a vise... If only I had found the thread on vintage vises first.. but I still like it....
and then I was done... so I thought...
cont...
Last edited:
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!!!))) so the big issue was that I had to be able to move it in the future.
