Between 265 & 485 SQ/FT The 12-Gauge Garage

[TwoBytes]

One more thing...

You mentioned a long time ago that your backyard looked like something out of Steptoe and Son, which struck a chord with me!

I also had a huge problem with accumulating junk.

One think that helped a lot was putting an attic ladder in my garage ceiling.

I'm not sure what sort of roof you've got on your garage, but my pitched tile roof has a surprising amount of space in the ceiling. My garage is attached to the house and the roof above the garage continues up to he second story roofline, so there is 10'+ of headroom at the back of the garage above where I've put the ladder.

I've put a floor down up there, which has given me tons of space. This has enabled me to get rid of (that is "hide") heaps of stuff that was cluttering up the place.

Mat.

 

[Jack Olsen]

Thanks very much, TwoBytes. My garage project doesn't hold a candle to the house that LLWillyFan is building -- just a completely different animal. But I appreciate the dedication it takes to wade through this thread.

And yes, my tiny back yard slowly sank into chaos as the garage got cleaner.

A little over a year ago, I finally got all the junk out and decided to cover the whole area with a deck. I'm proud of it, if only for the fact that everything except the furniture was built by me.

Like your rafter space, the essential piece of keeping storage-type stuff out of the way for me has been a small shed:

 

[WarrenJ]

Great video and music!

 

[Squankum]

You mentioned a long time ago that your backyard looked like something out of Steptoe and Son, which struck a chord with me!

TwoBytes:
I thought you made a typo there, then I saw you were Down Under, and I wondered... was there a different version of Sanford and Son?

I checked the wikipedia. Ah, Sanford and Son was a remake of that.

"Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about a father-and-son rag-and-bone business. They live on Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old Ned", was composed by Ron Grainer.[1] The series was voted 15th in a 2004 BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom.[2] It was remade in the US as Sanford and Son, in Sweden as Albert & Herbert and in the Netherlands as Stiefbeen en zoon."


That being said, ours had fantastic theme music by Quincy Jones.

 

[bazzateer]

That being said, ours had fantastic theme music by Quincy Jones.

I thought Presidential order number 278561 dictated that all US TV shows had to have theme tunes by QJ?

 

[TwoBytes]

Hey Squankum,

Yep, no typo, I hadn't even realised that I had referred to a different show... I guess when I read "Sanford and Son", I just heard "Steptoe and Son" in my head. Haha.

Mat.

 

[TwoBytes]

Jack,

Quick question, have you removed some of your old photos? I'm up to page 102 and heaps of your posts from around then refer to pictures that aren't there anymore.

No dramas if you have removed them, I just love looking at your pics, so it's a bit disappointing when your talking about a pic that isn't there!

Mat.

 

[Jack Olsen]

Thanks for mentioning that, Mat. Imageshack stopped being free, and I think I might have had two accounts with them. So I'm looking into how I can get both accounts merged into one without having the links change.

Edit: For now, the links should be working again.

 

[TwoBytes]

Thanks for fixing those old pics Jack, I just spent another embarrassingly large chunk of time going back through dozens of pages looking for pics I'd missed. I'm at page 110, still got a long way to go...

I'm so glad I haven't been keeping an accurate account of the hours I've spent reading this thread!

 

[TwoBytes]

Had a nice half hour with my son in the garage today. He wanted to remove the wooden train tracks we'd affixed to a table in his room. So I set the lift to a height that I thought would be a good height for him. As it worked out, he wanted to be on the bench. But he likes using the electric drill to remove screws. As the ear protection attests, he doesn't care for the sound of the impact driver when it's ratcheting (hammering?). Or maybe he just enjoys wearing safety gear. Either way, I'm not going to argue.

Apologies if replying to 2 year old posts is not the done thing, I've still got a bit of catching up to do!

My son seems to enjoy wearing protective gear too, but I think it's because it means he gets to hang out with his Dad. I'm pretty happy about that, but it does mean everything takes a lot longer...

 

[E12-535iTurbo]

My son seems to enjoy wearing protective gear too, but I think it's because it means he gets to hang out with his Dad. I'm pretty happy about that, but it does mean everything takes a lot longer...

That looks familiar. I always think that in this way I'm atleast training both arms

 

[Jack Olsen]

That photo is great!

It makes me think about how my son was born right about the same time I started on the garage. With a little digging, I could probably track him from birth to age 6 with pictures in the shop.

However -- and not related in any way -- here's a cryptic video of what I was working on this evening:



Click on the picture to see the video.

 

[Outlawmws]

Nothing cryptic about that to me: Jack is going to try an air brake on that back wing!

That will be a lot more stress on the support struts...

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Thanks for mentioning that, Mat. Imageshack stopped being free, and I think I might have had two accounts with them. So I'm looking into how I can get both accounts merged into one without having the links change.

Edit: For now, the links should be working again.

The very best thing one can do on a forum is upload the pics to the forum. They will NEVER get lost of the links broken that way. Some forums REQUIRE that all pics be uploaded. I frequently link to pics I find on Google images or elsewhere to illustrate something, but if I took the pic, its uploaded to the thread. I frequently go back to the Attachments list in the Control Panel and search for an old pic and link to it. I did that on another forum that requires you to upload all pics, and I even explained that the pics were uploaded, just in a different thread. Wasn't good enough, they wanted me to RE-upload them for every thread I use them in. I think that is a stretch too much.

Anyhow, always have enjoyed Jack's thread(s). Keep it up (Youtube videos too!)

Charles

 

[Squankum]

Nothing cryptic about that to me: Jack is going to try an air brake on that back wing!

Well, I hope so. Because I was afraid he'd been watching Taxi Driver repeatedly.

So, is it hooked up to a relay that's hooked up to a full throttle microswitch? Or the brake light circuit?

You could drive to the track with less mpg penalty, too.

Now, those are obvious strageties. But how about an inertial sensor measuring lateral G's being what engages it? Well, that and/or braking. But not on fast straights. Well, few straights are straight. But the gentler curving straights. Which would be the fastest, and you'd still need some downforce to keep that peculiar car going straight.

Full throttle would be a good indicator of fairly straight and not so much cornering, and less drag being desired.

 

[Outlawmws]

Jim Mclaren, that's the name I was trying to remember... He did it first on one of his cars

 

[Jack Olsen]

Well, you guys made it look easy.

Although in my case, it's not actually an air brake. The two ways you can go with active aero are to either increase the drag when you're braking or reduce drag on the straights. Partly because of the particular characteristics of my local track, I opted for drag reduction as the only alternate position for the wing. So when I go into 5th gear, there will be a pedal by my dead pedal that I can push down to raise the front of the wing and reduce its angle of attack -- which will reduce both downforce and drag, both of which I do not need on a long straight.

Most applications of this sort of thing raise and lower the trailing end of the wing, which I'm not crazy about. And then (like you mention) they use microprocessors or multiple inputs to control the thing -- all of which invites a malfunction (in my opinion). The thing I like about mine is that it has a dead-man bias. The air is pushing down on the wing, so if there is a control failure, it should return to the high-downforce position (as opposed to failing to a low-downforce position). And in terms of controller error, as soon as I let off the pedal (to panic brake, or whatever), the wing returns to its high-downforce home position. So it's slightly more idiot-proof than the other approaches I've seen. Not that something still couldn't (or won't) go wrong. But computer failure, operator failure or even cable failure will not be the cause of the problem.

I hope.

 

[Modern Jess]

The very best thing one can do on a forum is upload the pics to the forum. They will NEVER get lost of the links broken that way.

As an owner and admin of another forum, I wholeheartedly agree.

That said, for reasons that are lost on me, the image presentation used here on GJ is -- to be blunt -- just plain user-hostile. Presenting uploaded images as a thumbnail that must be individually clicked is awful. Using slow-*** javascript to present it -- which makes the image take forever to load -- is even worse. Making the image disappear as soon as you accidentally scroll the image is horrendous. Ever try to look at an image uploaded to GJ on an iPad? It's really, really painful. Accidentally touch the screen and the image disappears. Gah!

It's as if Ryan was trying to make the site deliberately awful for image uploads. I just don't get it, and so I mostly refrain from uploading photos directly to GJ despite strongly agreeing with the concept in principal. And I'm not the only one -- there's a reason that so many people use off-site image hosting for their images -- even Jack, a moderator and hugely influential member here. It's absolutely a function of how awful GJ's image handling is.

(Yes, I know you can upload and then inline-link the uploaded image -- but the location of the uploads has moved in the past, breaking all the inline images. Gah!)

 

[aggierailroad]

...Ever try to look at an image uploaded to GJ on an iPad? It's really, really painful. Accidentally touch the screen and the image disappears. Gah!

...there's a reason that so many people use off-site image hosting for their images...

(Yes, I know you can upload and then inline-link the uploaded image -- but the location of the uploads has moved in the past, breaking all the inline images. Gah!)

I agree, and will now stop cluttering this thread up

The active/passive aero ideas are great, want me to rip the spoiler actuators out of my Cayman for ya', Jack? I'll run that right by my wife....

 

[Charles (in GA)]

(Yes, I know you can upload and then inline-link the uploaded image -- but the location of the uploads has moved in the past, breaking all the inline images. Gah!)

I have 567 images dating back to January of '06 in my attachments list. They all work, that I know of, not sure what might have happened to yours.

I don't have any kind of tablet so I don't know what they look like on there. I assume you can open the image to a new tab, like I do on the computer or my phone, so the image will persist if I want to examine it closely.

Charles

 

[Modern Jess]

I don't have any kind of tablet so I don't know what they look like on there. I assume you can open the image to a new tab, like I do on the computer or my phone, so the image will persist if I want to examine it closely.

Not easily, no. And for browsing pictures, that's just even more work to see a picture that should have been presented at a reasonable size from the get-go. A long time ago, thumbnails were necessary to make page loads reasonable for dial-up users. Those days are long, long gone. Now thumbnails are just a way to make browsing these threads much less enjoyable.

 

[Squankum]

Making the image disappear as soon as you accidentally scroll the image is horrendous. Ever try to look at an image uploaded to GJ on an iPad? It's really, really painful. Accidentally touch the screen and the image disappears. Gah!

iPad user here: I used to suffer with this until I learned I could just open it in a new tab.

 

[Jack Olsen]

It would be nice to get the thumbnail/image thing fixed. And also video. It works in some of the forums here, but not others.

Here's the next test with the poor-man's-DRS wing. Now I've got to wait for the cables and pedal to get here.



Click on the image for the video.

 

[TwoBytes]

That photo is great!

Thanks Jack! I've got lots of photos of my son right in the middle of every job I've job I've done since he could crawl. I'd like to put a little montage video together at some stage. Maybe I'll do it for his 18th birthday, I should be able to find some spare time before then!

I have a question about this photo...

You mentioned that rain goes through the shadecloth, so what happens to the water after it goes through the gaps between the decking boards?

I can't see any obvious drainage in this pic...

I'm assuming that the black plastic is there to stop weeds growing, but does water pool in there? Not worried about mosquitoes?

I've also got a question about those aerated concrete blocks you used for your foundations. I'm building a small deck out the front of our place and considering using those, how have they held up?

Have they shifted around at all? I was wondering whether they would settle over time and make the deck surface uneven.

 

[Jack Olsen]

That photo brings back some memories. That project got me into pretty good physical shape... for a few months.

The area back there is graded to a drain that's right at the end of the yard where the photographer is staying. I don't know if it was smart, but I spent some time at the plastic stage getting the stuff set up so that water wouldn't pool. There are two sheets, one high and one low, and the high one has perforations to feed down to the low one, which feeds to the drain. I probably should have found out how it's really done, but it's worked for a year now without any issues.

The deck has stayed flat, as well. I'm sure that will change one day, with our earthquakes, but I took a long level out there a couple of months back and was happy with what I saw.

 

[TwoBytes]

That was a quick response!

Great to hear that your deck is still flat, that gives me confidence in going with those blocks.

Regarding "should have found out how it's really done"...

• Where's the fun in that!
  
• As you've repeatedly shown with your garage, thinking through a problem as it applies to your specific situation often provides a better outcome than doing it "the proper way"
  
• No two people have the same requirements, and professionals are constrained by different factors than "do it yourselfers" (ie. time and the need to generate a consistent income). If you had paid a contractor to build your garage or your deck, even if you'd explained your requirements in detail, I'm sure you would've ended up with a very different result

A few more quick questions if you don't mind...

Did you sit the concrete blocks on gravel, or just straight on the dirt?

Did you compact the ground before you put them down?

What was the reason for the second plastic sheet on top of the blocks? I was just going to use one on the ground. What benefit does the top sheet provide?

 

[DEnd]

A small milestone, today. I was swapping in a replacement master cylinder for the long-suffering Jeep, and my 5-year-old son was actually able to help -- pumping the brake pedal for the final bleeding.

Not a miracle for most kids, I know. But THIS kid is kind of headstrong, like his old man. He's always willing to come out and bang on stuff -- but this was something where he had to listen to instructions and follow them. I wouldn't have been able to finish the job without his foot.

It only got out of control when he learned he could honk the horn -- which he thought was hilarious. But thankfully, we were done by then.

To bring this back up:

Whenever you are working on vehicles, and especially when there are children "helping", you should always disconnect the battery first.

 

[Jack Olsen]

That was a quick response!

Great to hear that your deck is still flat, that gives me confidence in going with those blocks.

Regarding "should have found out how it's really done"...

• Where's the fun in that!
  
• As you've repeatedly shown with your garage, thinking through a problem as it applies to your specific situation often provides a better outcome than doing it "the proper way"
  
• No two people have the same requirements, and professionals are constrained by different factors than "do it yourselfers" (ie. time and the need to generate a consistent income). If you had paid a contractor to build your garage or your deck, even if you'd explained your requirements in detail, I'm sure you would've ended up with a very different result

A few more quick questions if you don't mind...

Did you sit the concrete blocks on gravel, or just straight on the dirt?

Did you compact the ground before you put them down?

What was the reason for the second plastic sheet on top of the blocks? I was just going to use one on the ground. What benefit does the top sheet provide?

I agree that there's opportunity when you're not trying to find a solution that will work for everyone, but is custom-fit to your own needs.

But then, there's also something to be said for knowing what you're doing.

The soil in the back yard had been undisturbed for at least a decade when I went to work on it. And I knew I'd be using the plastic sheeting to drain it, which meant virtually no water flow over or through the soil that the blocks would be resting on. I used some gravel, and replaced blocks with poured concrete in the lowest sections. But many of them are sitting on top of dirt that was simply skimmed down to the right level. I did not compact anything I hadn't disturbed, and so far it's remained perfectly stationary.

But time will tell...

To bring this back up:

Whenever you are working on vehicles, and especially when there are children "helping", you should always disconnect the battery first.

I agree with you. My son, however, sees the hot line to the horn as a great decision.

 

[Jack Olsen]

No real time to work this weekend, but I did put together a pedal assembly for the drag-reduction mechanism. The black thing with the holes is the aluminum dead pedal, which gets mounted to the left of the clutch pedal.

The last trick is going to be running a Bowden cable from this pedal to the back of the car, splitting to two cables at one point so it can run up the two wing uprights. The extra trick is that there needs to be a dissassembly point for the cable(s) somewhere near the rear decklid so that I can remove the wing at the end of a track day without having to remove too much else.

 

[Brian R]

No real time to work this weekend, but I did put together a pedal assembly for the drag-reduction mechanism. The black thing with the holes is the aluminum dead pedal, which gets mounted to the left of the clutch pedal.

The last trick is going to be running a Bowden cable from this pedal to the back of the car, splitting to two cables at one point so it can run up the two wing uprights. The extra trick is that there needs to be a dissassembly point for the cable(s) somewhere near the rear decklid so that I can remove the wing at the end of a track day without having to remove too much else.

Excuse my ignorance - i understand the idea of having an adjustable wing but how to operate? Right foot for gas & brake and left foot for clutch ---what operates this aluminum dead pedal mounted to the left of the clutch pedal?

Is it only operated by left foot when clutch is not engaged?

Thanks.

 

[Jack Olsen]

Yes, I will not be able to go to a low-drag setting when I use the clutch. There is some trade-off with this, of course. But it was a deliberate decision.

Here's why:

First off, I'm not concerned with drag when I'm in 1st, 2nd or 3rd gear. In track driving, I simply don't spend very much time in those gears -- except when I'm turning. And I'm assuming that the drag penalty the wing is bringing me is significantly less at low speeds than at high speeds. So my concerns about drag are really only when I'm on the relatively straight portions of the track -- which means being in 4th or 5th gear.

If there were a way for the low-drag position of the wing to 'lock on' between my 4th-to-5th gear change on the back straight at Willow Springs, there would be a clear advantage to it. And I originally considered a lever -- which would have had two locked-into positions, so that I could switch into and out of the low-drag position at will. But any kind of permanently-engaged, or locking-on device would also invite a potential problem. It would mean I could go into a corner with the wing disabled. The dead man aspect of this design I've come up with is that it returns the wing to the high-downforce (and high drag) position as soon as I let up on that pedal -- as soon as I stop actively making an input. So if something goes wrong -- or if I get distracted -- or a cable breaks or a pivot point collapses -- the air traveling over the wing (and also a pair of springs) return the thing to the safer of the two positions. I can't downshift without releasing it.

Since I'm home engineering this puppy, with no budget, I have to work on the assumption that it will break when I use it. So I want to do everything I can to minimize the chances of that failure sending me end over end and into a crumpled mess. Put another way, I do not want to ever go into a high speed corner with the wing's downforce-generating abilities eliminated, either by accident or intent. And of the two straights at Willow Springs, only one of them has a gear change for me. So it seemed prudent to sacrifice the benefit during that gear change in order to minimize the overall risk to me.

 

[Brian R]

That explains it perfectly, thanks.

Can't wait to see what this no budget wing alteration means to your sublime Porsche's lap times at Willow Springs - good luck.

 

[Honest Bob]

I'm having a hard time understanding how its gonna work but a video would be pretty helpful. When its done of course.

 

[Modern Jess]

Excellent set of reasoning, Jack. The engineer in me approves of your well-thought-out design.

 

[Squankum]

In theory, couldn't the cable just pull on the driver's side hinge?

 

[Jack Olsen]

I could have put a strut in the center. But I think if I just pushed up on one side, my styrofoam wing would twist.

I threaded the main cable through the chassis today, and connected it to the cable splitter. Next up is the hole drilling, which I've been putting off. But I think I'll be able to test it soon.

 

[TwoBytes]

What jumped out at me was how much the 918 needs to brake for turn 7!

Turn 7 looks basically straight, and you go through without backing off at all, all three cars go through at the same speed, but the 918 gets up so much speed beforehand it's amazing. You're not wrong when you say it's fast in a straight line!

 

[Squankum]

Jack, something to ponder. In circle track racing, they fear struck throttles and return spring failures. Before you know it, you're hitting a concrete wall. So their gas pedals have a bar for you to pull back with with the top side of your foot.

Photo is from Jeg's, and at $119, yeah, keep building your own!

 

[TwoBytes]

Hey Jack, great news (for me)... I finally caught up, I've read the whole thread. All 186 pages... 3,718 posts!

It's both a relief and a disappointment

It has been said that whatever one occupies themselves for the day better be worth it because they just traded a whole day for it.

It's taken me weeks and it was worth every minute.

I also find myself conflicted...

You have motivated me to pull my finger out and get out in the garage and do some stuff... but...

You've also motivated me to read more Garage Journal!

There's not enough time!

One more comment... I admire your "long term relationship" with your car.

After swapping cars every year or two for most of my driving life, I'm coming up for 10 years with the same car, and I intend to keep it indefinitely. It's my daily driver and I'd love to get it out on the track eventually too. You're making me think I can keep it forever.

 

[Jack Olsen]

Thanks, Mat. I agree, it's easy to get lost in some of the threads on this board. But the side-effect of the reading is usually that you end up doing something.

Squankum, that return bar is a good idea. I put a spring on the pedal today, but the pedal is one of the things I'm thinking about redesigning for my system. So that might make it in.

Here's a quick clip of the first test of the wing. Lots of little things to go over, but pretty soon I'll take it out on the freeway and see if it has a whole different feel when the car is up to speed.