Between 265 & 485 SQ/FT Dr. B's Rally Shop

[Cris B]

Dr. B's UK Rally Shop

Welcome to my new garage thread, we've recently completed the purchase of a new home and with it comes a decent garage and a big shed! This follows on from my previous history and most recently a very small single.

The garage is a tandem 14'6 wide and 32' long. It was the former home workshop of a carpenter so has a lot of shelving and fixtures left in. The previous owners never took any thing out of the space out as far as I can tell, but you can never be sure. I'll be turning it into a car workshop for wrenching on rally cars so a lot of the woodshop elements that are left will be going.

The main entrance is via a 14' wide electric folding insulated door. The car has a private drive with space for four cars, but all in tandem. There is no way to park on hard standing in parallel except for a small space in front of the garage which means lots of car shuffling which drives me nuts. The evergreen hedge is Leylandii which I am not a fan off and has encroached a good foot onto the drive, but has at least been topped. It will have to go and we'll plant a species that can be pruned back.



Inside the garage - day one. The space has been extended a number of times, most recently in the late 1980s. It's a bit eclectic but has lots of potential. Ceiling height is 9'10, 8 pendant lights on two circuits of 4. Improved lighting is a must.





And from the other end the second set of doors lead into the garden and directly to the shed.



The workbench and some of the inherited storage.



The above bench heating is a bit of an antique and has been disconnected!



There's 3 double power outlets on this wall above the 'bench' so that will be my home for my bench to start with. I'm looking at a require in future but want to get a feel for the space first.



Some more of the existing shelving.



Other storage units. The 18 draw unit is pretty decent and will be kept in some format.



With the new garage, I felt I needed a new sign so I have designed this up and will translate it into large scale at some point.



Since taking these we've started moving some stuff in but it'll be a few weeks before there is any real progress to share.

 

[Cris B]

Directly behind the garage is the shed. This is 12' by 30' and we suspect is the original wood store. It's seen better days:



First job is to get all the ivy off and then carry out a few repairs. It doesn't have a long term future in the current state but it will do for now for gardening and other non-car stuff I don't want in the garage and for storing wood.





Inside is like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. Needs some serious work!









Updates to follow after Christmas.

 

[HSpencer]

That is a very fantastic space!! I would have loved seeing it set up as a woodworking shop. You will have a lot of enjoyment setting it up for your own desires. It looks very nostalgic and I like that look.
Will be looking for your updates and thanks for posting your great space.

Best Regards
Herb Spencer

 

[Cris B]

Made some progress over recent days. Almost all of the inherited storage is removed, my priority was to get the workbench wall ready so the garage move can take place. The brick work looked very dirty and close inspection revealed that this previous external wall still bore many remnants despite the fact it has been an internal wall for over 30 years.



Overall this didn't help the appearance of the wall...



i hooked up a wire cup on the angle grinder and ground all the bricks. My wife also pointed out the old window that was bricked up when the garage was built. The oldest brick is not a naturally orange red colour and still looks quite dirty in comparison to the more recent bricks. It is now clean and free of nails and screws so I can start some filling and painting to seal that wall up. The pipework and wiring is a bit amazeballs and it'll all get done at some point in the future.



Also hit the ivy covering the shed and have managed to make a big dent in it. Unfortunately it created a very damp environment so the wood behind it is rotten, some crumbled as it came off with ivy, other pieces just fell off. The whole end gable wall nearest the house will need replacing and the doors will need repair if not complete replacement too.

 

[Cris B]

That is a very fantastic space!! I would have loved seeing it set up as a woodworking shop. You will have a lot of enjoyment setting it up for your own desires. It looks very nostalgic and I like that look.
Will be looking for your updates and thanks for posting your great space.

Best Regards
Herb Spencer

Thanks for the kind words

 

[1/2 Cup]

Character plus, looking forward to following your progress.

Regards

 

[lakeroadster]

Yep, that's a space with history and character... congrat's.

So what's the terminology "Rally Shop" referring to?

Sorry if that qualifies as a "stupid American" comment... I tend to lead with my chin

 

[jwhcars]

Nice old garage with lots of character, looking forward to your updates.

 

[Cris B]

Yep, that's a space with history and character... congrat's.

So what's the terminology "Rally Shop" referring to?

Sorry if that qualifies as a "stupid American" comment... I tend to lead with my chin

That's a reference to my passion for rally cars, particularly small French ones.



All my projects have taken a back seat for the last two years whilst we've been in limbo, but once this space is operational again I'll be getting back on the case with some car-related fettling.

 

[Cris B]

Nice old garage with lots of character, looking forward to your updates.

Character plus, looking forward to following your progress.

Thanks guys, I have a few ideas about how to keep some of that character in the new space...

 

[racingtadpole]

The above bench heating is a bit of an antique and has been disconnected!

Surplus to requirements.. you rally types are supposed to be hard as nails

Watching with interest.

 

[Cris B]

So over the remainder of the Christmas break since the last update I managed to get all of my garage stuff moved in. Then I set about remodelling the kitchen so it was done ready for us to move in late January. Garage progress has been on hold since then with other domestic jobs in the way like bathroom air extraction and new exterior gates... We are out of the old rented house so the 16x8 single is no more.

Last weekend I picked up the project car from storage and it is now home. Photos are me collecting it from it's winter lodgings...


Had some approach angle issues so popped the bumper off via the dzus fasteners to get it on the flatbed.


As I was loading it up a chap called Ron Sutton came over who lived in one of the neighbouring houses. We had a chat for about 20 minutes. He worked with Subaru during the Colin McRae era and then went on to work with Richard Burns during the Peugeot days. A good local contact to know as he was Clark of the Course for a lot of local events including at the Aintree circuit which is my most local one (unbelievably where they used to hold F1 races, but now better known for a certain horse race!).

As the project is going to take time and I wanted a run around more rapidly had been on the look out for another mini project. Put a speculative low bid on something local via eBay and only went and won it, so...

...Behold! The stablemate. This is what the wide track project car started life as so it seemed apt.



And yes it truly is every bit as good as it looks. The photo above is from collection. My MIG will be busy on this one. Already have new rims for it and am picking those up on Wednesday and should have a few bits of bodywork by then too.

The garage which felt huge before now feels cramped with two cars in, but with lots of removal boxes filling space and other stuff to pack away I am not too worried just yet.

I did manage to get a dozen T5 double light fittings for a steal of a price and the biggest job on the garage front is incorporating them into a new ceiling which should deliver some much needed soundproofing. I've also started filling the holes and painting the brick wall. About 25% through that. Will try and post some update pics soon.

 

[metalhead140]

Good looking space, and cool Peugeots! Lots of potential.

 

[RennSporter]

Cool that you have a streamer in your frontwindow with the norwegian "Gatebil" (streetcar)

 

[Cris B]

Cool that you have a streamer in your frontwindow with the norwegian "Gatebil" (streetcar)

Yeah, it's been over the North Sea to the Gatebil gathering. It's the event that killed the previous engine. There are some videos on YouTube of it on track as well as general other automotive lunacy.

 

[Cris B]

In the garage is a drain cover, when we moved in this one was on the drive and i didn’t fancy driving over it.



When I lifted it and inspected it I was pleased I hadn’t left it! This was after I hammered off the loose rust.



These are 20” square covers which I couldn’t find anywhere so I swapped the good one which is a heavy duty cast iron one onto the drive and made this new one up out of 6mm plate.



It’s primed and fitted now but the fit was good and I don’t have to worry about where I tread in the garage anymore.

Shortly after we moved I secured a decent metal cabinet from the other side of the River Mersey so fairly local to me. It’s probably 40 years old and is built in a way that you just don’t find any more. Unfortunately the shelves had been lost at some point and replaced with some flimsy ply efforts.



So I had these fabricated by a firm I commissioned to do some stuff for us at work. They’re 2mm steel the same as the cabinet so are sturdy.



Primed and painted (pic below from before paint) and in the cab now and I’ve been able to tidy up a bit more in the garage.

 

[Bib Overalls]

That old "wood shed" looks to be beyond hope. Is the concrete slab sound? If so, you can rebuild the shed one wall at a time and finish up with a new roof. Here, if you have a structure like yours the tax value is negligible. Progressively rebuilding rarely results in a new assessment.

 

[Cris B]

That old "wood shed" looks to be beyond hope. Is the concrete slab sound? If so, you can rebuild the shed one wall at a time and finish up with a new roof. Here, if you have a structure like yours the tax value is negligible. Progressively rebuilding rarely results in a new assessment.

It needs cladding on two sides. I have bought the ironmongery and made some running repairs to the doors until I have the time for a clear run at it when I can strip all the old weather board off, the old plastic and make some repairs to the frame (sill plate) and then wrap it in Tyvek and clad it in new wood.

 

[Cris B]

So slowly I have been making progress. Yesterday I have all of the accessible wall undercoated. I haven't been able to do the bit behind the main workbench but as the window needs to come out and be bricked up I will tackle that then. So now one half of the garage looks something like this:



I need to brick up the window before I can put in a new ceiling that will provide much needed acoustic separation from our bedroom which is above and will be the basis for mounting the new lights which can be seen on the bench in the photo above.

To keep an established theme running I built a small table for the drill press using a beech top off cut from the desk in my office.



When I swapped the motor I hadn't spotted it was spinning the wrong way until I came to use it for the first time which was a bit of an amateur mistake, but was for the best as the motor was full of sawdust from it's former life on a wood lathe and was arcing on start up. I stripped it down and cleaned it out and then took it for a professional service and health check. All is now good so I can use it with confidence.

Next messy job was getting it of the pebbledash on the wall in the garage where the last extension had been done. I started from the edge easily accessible:



And then made quite a dent before the wife and kids returned and less noisy jobs were needed:





I also did some work in Sketchup to calculate how to best build the shelving. The wooden frames on the righthand side in this photo are not evenly spaced and now the green cabinet is off the wall, I want to extend the shelves to the full width.



Based on 80cm centres, I will only need to make two additional support brackets and to a further piece screwed to the wall above the doorway. I colour coded the timber, green is good and doesn't need to be moved. Red is an existing position that needs to be removed and rehung. Yellow are the new positions.



I've 10 days leave coming up so hope to get that done then and make proper use of the space for storage, freeing up the floor.

 

[Cris B]

Made some more progress on the pebbledash removal. Slow progress, but getting there with a 4lb lump hammer and cold chisel.



Start of the shelving work, garage is a mess at the moment as I am stripping the silver GTI for parts before I scrap the shell. It is too far gone with the rot to save so I will need to reshell it.



Top shelf was made of a single 8" pine plank and just didn't allow much storage depth. Lower shelf will be going.



Stripped down and then discovered every single bracket was loose on the wall due to the wrong type or no rawl plugs being used. I've now taken them all down and started making some repairs to the concrete render. More photos to follow.

 

[Cris B]

There were four of wooden verticals rendered into the wall. They weren't too difficult to get out but they have left a mark. So as part of the work on this wall I have been patching up the cement render.



I have now painted and filled the holes in the top half of the wall. I've been using special high-build filler undercoat (the photo below was mid process) and as this has dried it has allowed me to start putting back up some of the brackets in the right positions. You can also see one of the filled vertical holes in that photo too.



This first bracket was originally reinstated in it's original position, but I found that when it was fitted like that and screwed to the wall it fouled the door mechanism. I removed it and drilled new mounting brackets and inch to the left and now have suitable clearance.



I've added an additional mounting screw hole to each bracket so there are four screws and rawl plugs on each support. I think this will be enough. I am not sure that the final height on these is right based off the first one so there might be some more fine-tuning tomorrow.

 

[Richard Cranium]

looks like you are well on your way to have a great garage.

 

[HSpencer]

Very good work!! The space you have for a shop is so nice and I do hope you keep the old school look to things. I am very impressed with your rehabs and it will be a great shop. Looking forward to more postings!

Best Regards
Herb

 

[mopar440_6]

Very nice Doc! Looks like you're making serious progress towards having a suitable shop. I'm also a rally enthusiast, just on a different side of "the pond."

 

[1/2 Cup]

Looking fantastic.

Regards

 

[Cris B]

Made some good progress yesterday, five out of six of the original shelf supports are now back up and I have cut and fitted 3/4" ply shelving giving me 10' 6" length so far. Cut and planed timber to make two new brackets using the sixth bracket as a template. In the end I was happy with the height of the shelves and didn't change them.

When selecting wood out of the shed I had a bit of a barn-find moment, well in this case the shed-find was this old spanner:



Gave it a bit of a tickle with a wire cup on the angle grinder and it has a nice patina:



It's a 1" 1/2 by 1" 3/8 and with a length of 14" it's a proper spanner. I'll wax it up and make a wall mountable feature out of it.

 

[Cris B]

Shelves support brackets are all up and I've laid down some 3/4" ply shaped for the top. I reused the two pieces that had formed the shelves spanning the width in the rented single to create half the required length and then had a new sheet cut to provide the rest. This also yielded four 8' strips which will provide a front edging strip that will eventually be painted up.



The racking is now out and has been moved into the shed which I've also managed to tidy up inside. It had become a bit of a dumping ground for a lot of the old cabinets that came out of the garage. I dismantled two of these and will reuse some of the wood, in fact I've already used some of it to make a table top for our porch. Needs more work but making good progress.

 

[Cris B]

So outside of the shed now looks like this:



Move ivy cleared off and all the glass removed. We had a storm a few weeks ago that blew one of the glass panes out onto the grass. It didn't break, so I picked it up and put it into the shed. The next storm blew something else over and the glass pane inside the shed was discovered broken. So I removed the rest of the glass (non-safety) and we're much happier with the kids being around the place now.

My wife wants to plan the garden in this area so there is some pressure to sort the exterior now. The Tyvek housewrap has arrived and now I am just looking to secure some French doors or bi/trifold doors. The plan is divide the shed into two and install the new doors facing onto the garden to create a garden room. We'll have table and chairs in there (it's west facing so will get the evening sun) and all the gardening stuff inside. A friend has also suggested a bar

The other half will remain a wood and general store space. Wish me luck with this division and maintenance of space.

Back to the garage... space inside is eaten into by the body kit moulds so I am planning to build another shed in a cutback to the side of the house, between us and our neighbours. Before I could do this we needed to replace the boiler heating system. This did need doing for efficiency purposes as the furnace was of 1970s era and the new condensing boilers are at least 20% more efficient and will give us hot water on demand. The house is currently a building site whilst it all gets professionally repiped up stairs with the new boiler going into the bathroom.

My line of 'we'll just pop up this row of tiles so this radiator can come out and the new heated towel rail can go in' has equated to a whole new bathroom floor! Turns out that when you tile directly to untreated 1/2" ply 4x8 sheets screwed to wooden floor boards, the end result does not allow tile popping LOL. That's added a lot of unexpected work and taken me away from other things I'd rather have been doing.

Anyway old flue is now out, so I'll finish off bricking up the hole in the wall and once patched and rendered this weekend, then repainted I can get to work building a new shed in this space:

 

[jkrout]

Nice start! Looking forward to see how it progresses

 

[HSpencer]

You have some really great space and there is a lot to work with. I am still amazed at the garage. Your going to have it all spiffed up and working well for you. Great job and I am on for more photos!

Best Regards
Herb

 

[Bib Overalls]

Reading your thread exhausts me. You must have more energy than a 2 year old on a sugar high.

 

[HiWind]

love the interaction with these old forgotten structures ... looking good! Lots to learn here - I'll be back - thanks Cris! (ps - pics of rally cars shd be more frequent!)

 

[Cris B]

Thanks for the kind words. Some progress as I am on annual leave for a week and the wife is in the USA on business. That equates to time outside with the kids.

Months ago as the heating engineer was finishing up work I rendered and painted the hole in the wall. The render damage was quite bad so lots of it came off and the patch repair was quite large, but I have piece of mind that it is sound and water tight now.



Not the most exciting picture, this one gives a bit more perspective on the cut back. Only the wall on the left hand side is our property, the wall facing and on the right is our neighbours house. The land is ours however and I intend to put a shed in here.



It'll take a 7' by 5' and I am undecided as to whether or not I should fill the space or go for a more standard 6' by 4' preowned or make something custom. This is at the back of my mind as I work on other things. The wonky fence post needs jacking out of the ground and the brick wall needs render and painting. The wall isn't ours but it does my OCD no good to look at it like that when I am in the garden

We've had some strong winds the last week which blew out the sheeting from the shed. Sorting this has been on the agenda for some time, and eventually I collected two pairs of french doors from near Halifax. On the way back I picked up a rather tatty looking kids play house which then gained a raised platform, a lick of paint, new windows, roof and floor, a slide and climbing wall. It's affectionately known as the tree house now. Still a kind of work in progress but getting there.

Back to the shed... The plan with the french doors is that two doors will become fixed panes the others hinged as normal. So yesterday the strip down commenced with new timber going in to frame the doors and take the load of the roof. Today the old siding started coming out and the redundant posts.



I think the wife and neighbours will be pleased once this is done. It's looking a bit rough around the edges

 

[Cris B]

In the garage work has been slow, I'll try and do a few updates on that tonight. The silver GTI turned out to be a real lemon and rotten to the core so that was stripped down to the bare shell and went off to the scrapyard. Later the same day I then went down to the Haverfordwest in Wales to collect a replacement. It's an original Peugeot 106 Series 1 Rallye.



This is the same as the first car I ever bought although my original one was white. It's been a track car previously but the quality of some of the welding was below a standard I'd accept so the cage mounts and seat rails have been chopped out. It's had a replacement non-sunroof roof panel fitted and work done to accept the 1.6 16v engine rather than the 1.3 8v unit that came from factory.

I've been working my way through various bits on that, front suspension converted to coilovers and Bilsteins and rear shocks swapped too.



Then I changed the steering to the GTI power assisted rack, but stripped of the hydraulics as this is a quicker rack lock to lock. Bit of a job as the bulkhead has to be modified to take a slightly bigger pedal box assembly. I ended up needing a sacrificial rack for parts, but it's turned out well. With this fitted the car now has steering for the first time since I've owned it.



As always lots to do and not enough time to do it.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Loving the progress!!

I'd love to see some videos of you racing. Have any up on youtube?

 

[Beenman]

It's an original Peugeot 106 Series 1 Rallye.

Damn. I love these cars.

 

[Cris B]

Loving the progress!!

I'd love to see some videos of you racing. Have any up on youtube?

Thanks! Afraid there are no videos I am aware of at me at the helm. Here is one of the Maxi having a shake down at the hands of the previous owner (from when it was fitted with the 220bhp 1.6 engine):

Damn. I love these cars.

Thanks I do like them, the original 1.3 engine with 110bhp was a gem, but the torque of the 1.6 is a popular upgrade.

Managed to get some frame completed and the doors on this afternoon, need to do some hinge adjustment tonight then onto cladding tomorrow with luck!

 

[HiWind]

shed looks 400% better and with the windows and a lick of paint, you might have another new workshop

always been a favorite ..

and this one from SA

http://www.casy-place.nl/sportracing.htm

 

[Cris B]

Bit more progress on the frame of the shed

There's a lot of hype about living walls, however we didn't want this one. More like living insulation harbouring everything from birds nests to mini beast hordes.

Weather today was poor this afternoon and it was wet work, so I pressed on with things as fast as two small boys allowed.

The corner woodwork nearest the house is shot and needs cutting out. I'll spice in some new uprights once I get back from the timber yard tomorrow morning.

 

[Beenman]

and this one from SA

http://www.casy-place.nl/sportracing.htm

Interesting story. Despite their popularity in this country they never seemed to make it onto the race and rally circuit in any kind of numbers.

Unfortunately Peugeot pulled out of the country prior to the launch of popular models like the 205 and 106 etc. Would love to have owned one.....