Right! Quite the ride the past few months. Time for an update.
I've completely lost the chronology of stuff as it was all a bit of a blur, so I'll divvy it up job-by-job. Most of this stuff happened between the last update and the end of April.
The corridor
Job 1 was to get the two holes in the sides of the garages sealed up. First off was a bit of ground preparation between the two garages. Thin drainage layer covered by sheeting then Type 1.
Shuttering and mesh...
...and finally concrete.
Dwarf wall, stud walls up (free-standing from the rest of the structure), and a couple of beams in for the flat roof.
First few soffits in as I won't be able to get to them afterwards (which I'm sure will never come and bite me in the backside...)
And some horribly fiddly roofing attempting to seal off the corridor while allowing for relative movement between the two garages. I eventually ended up with boarding on the corridor rafters, then a double-layer of breathable membrane and black membrane between the two, covered by roofing sheets (which are screwed in before the corridor starts and after it ends, but not in the middle).
And managed to actually get some paint on this bit before filling it with junk (which didn't even nearly happen for the rest of it!).
Roofing the second garage
Job 2 was to get the second garage weatherproof.
I'd managed to sort the insulation before this as it's a quiet job that can be done after kiddo has fallen asleep. Useful as it got the insulation out of the way!
After that, job proceeded much as the other one. Membrane then battens, though having done it once before I managed to space them properly and finish the hips correctly so I didn't need to re-do those.
Good enough to be usable!
Oh, and layed a couple more metres squared of blockwork, which isn't roofing but I might as well mention here.
Shuttling stuff from one garage to the other
That helped get the rest of the battens up and out of the way, and let me decant a load of stuff from the near-complete garage to the other. Here's the stuff pre-moving (with a couple of boards already decanted).
This was necessary because of the looming deadline of getting my stuff hauled over from my folks' place!
Endless lugging heavy stuff from one place to another place 1.5 hours away
Jesus H Christ had I managed to accrue a lot of stuff over the years. I don't even think I got a 'before' picture, but this is the closest I have. Garage (to which I'd added a Fiat X1/9 engine, 2x O-Series turbo blocks, a spare set of Jag wheels and a zyto mini-lathe on a stand):
Parts shed (which had lost the 2nd Spitfire, but gained a boatload of random junk, though not all of that stuff is mine):
Over the course of 3x horsebox loads, one flatbed transit, and innumerable car trips (timed up with childcare to save on fuel costs), we eventually got it to this:
...but now my nice fresh garage looks like this!
On the positive side the winch worked an absolute treat shifting all my gearboxes and 4-cyl blocks up into the loft, which is also rammed full of stuff (though that's at least arranged in totes by car). Best decision ever was turning this into storage.
I reckon with a bit of sorting through and selling the bits I genuinely won't ever need I might even be able to fit all of my stuff up there!
Proper haul for the scrap metal man (again, not all mine):
We were going to take it ourselves but completely ran out of time. Didn't even manage to nab the copper water tank!
Last four engines loaded into a trailer at silly o'clock in the evening:
...and unloaded at the other end with an engine crane that didn't have quite the same reach as the other one, meaning lots of fernangling to get the big ol' Jag lump out!
Oh, but before that the trailer decided to eat its brake shoes. Because of course it did. So those needed replacing.
...not just junk but cars too!
First to make the leap were the Fiat and the Spitfire, which happily were the first ones that needed to go in and also towable with the VW Passat I bought off my sister as the Jag decided it wanted to pick up a couple of electrical faults right around MoT time...
Fit nice and snugly in the space vacated in the LH garage.
Of course, to move the Spitfire I needed to get the front wheels back on it, which went well until I realised I could only find one set of front bearings for the uprated stub axles it has. Not enough time to order another set, so I made this contraption:
I would say this
nearly worked, in that it did allow it to be gingerly coaxed onto and off the trailer with the help of a jack, but it also got caught on any tiny little bump and ended up pulling the screws off a couple of times and dropping the car on the floor. You can see the aftermath of one of those in the second picture where it's bent my brake heat shield. No major harm though. And of course, the wheel bearings turned up 2 days later (they were on top of the welder, because of course they were).
The rest were brought down by my brilliant mate in his Disco, which both put in some serious graft.
Luckily, he lived with us for a good decade or so and managed to accrue a similar amount of stuff to me, and I could repay the favour by helping him clear his stuff out too.
Of course, the cars didn't come out easily. Because of course they didn't. The Lada was covered in brambles with seized brakes, but the Disco made short work of pulling that out and freeing them off.
The Alfa was surrounded by saplings (alright, 'lightly mature' saplings) and had a perished tyre valve that would only hold air if you got it into the perfect orientation.
Similar amount of tree surgery required to get the Citroen out, which at least started first flick with a new battery and pumped up its suspension (though the clutch cable is snapped so it couldn't move itself). Oh, and we discovered a leak on the fluid return so it dumps a load of LHM out as the suspension drops, but that's one of the least-worst places to spring a leak so I'm counting that as a win
The old Alfa 156 V6 that has passed between me and my dad half a dozen or so times, and was my first cool car, was going begging so I ended up inheriting that. It's been off the road for a good few years now, but started first flick as well and drove itself onto the trailer. Brakes a bit sticky but otherwise absolutely fine. Picture of it in the foreground with me and kiddo waving from the roof!
Similarly, my dad's old Maserati 228 was going begging as well, so I ended up inheriting that. This might seem unusual given how rare these cars are (especially in RHD), but sadly it's probably fairly terminal. It's not actually that bad rust-wise for a Maserati (though it does have some), but the killer is that the windscreen is smashed. Considering they only ever made 400-odd of these and the windscreen isn't shared with any other car, the chances of finding one are slim-to-nil. Autoglass said they'd make us one, but only in a batch of 10 for £700 a pop over a decade ago. Still, either I'll sell it to someone who really, really wants a 228, or part it out to help keep other 228s on the road (and perhaps bankroll the purchase of a biturbo that's a little less work). Still, it means that after 20 years of my online handle being 'Biturbo228' I finally have a biturbo...
Oh, and this one didn't come out easily either. It was resting on bricks on a slope, so whenever I jacked it high enough to get a wheel on it would teeter around worryingly. Lots of lumps of wood to give it something soft to land on that wasn't me if it did go, but I did manage to gingerly get it on its feet. I also had to make up a dummy strut as the front left's spring pan has completely disintegrated. Ended up making something out of some 50mm tube, a bit of 3mm plate and a 1/2" UJ to give it a bit of play on the orientation. Popped that in the knuckle loosely and it was enough to get it loaded onto the trailer.
Miraculously, amongst all of that I managed to get the little MGF to the point of being MoT'd and on the road, so I just drove that one back over
though the brakes need a good bleed, I've got a set of actually refurbed suspension spheres (unlike the ones I bought from eBay), and some of the coolant hoses need new jubilees as they're looking a bit suspect.
Last over were the bikes, for which I bought two front wheel stands and bolted them to the car trailer. This worked brilliantly and kept them rock-solid when strapped up.
Oh, and the poor little 99p MGB got scrapped in the end. It was terminally rusty when I bought it, and has only got worse over the years. I pinched the non-sunroof roof skin which I've sold to someone, but that was the only panel on it that wasn't like a lace doily.
Also, in the midst of all of this our tumble dryer packed up and
this is how far you have to dismantle the ****** thing to get to the temperature sensor. Nothing to do with the garage or moving, but it irritated me so much I thought I'd post it anyway!
But still, all done! And with half a day to spare
does that count as cutting it fine? I've no idea...
So if that was all up to April, what have you been doing since?
In case it hadn't come across well enough, I'd done quite a lot of work in a very short period of time! My knees hurt (which started with the roof tiling and I'd never given them enough time to recover), but broadly I was ok. I had planned to give myself a solid month off after all of this to recover, but a day or so after the move had finished I thought 'maybe I'll just get this pile of car batteries shifted down to the scrap man'. Loading them went fine, but while unloading them something went majorly ping in my lower back.
Now, I'd done this before and broadly know what to do. Get it seen to, rest, recuperate and then build up strength again gradually. Unfortunately, the way I was resting to help ease the strain on my lower back seemed to stress the newer old injury in my mid-back I'd done tiling in November. What then followed was a ****** stupid game of 'resting one part of my back injures the other' where I spent about two months flipping between my lower back or my mid back putting me out of action. As one part healed enough to stop hurting the other would cause issues, though after about the third iteration of this they started getting less worse whenever they'd get exacerbated again.
Something else I discovered is that a back injury can cause tight hamstrings which make your knees hurt, so as soon as the back started climbing out of its hole they started getting worse. Luckily the physio said there doesn't seem to be any meniscus or ligament damage, which is what I was concerned about as they take forever to heal (if they do). A lot of stretching out and they're on the mend too.
So here I am at the end of July, having only got back to light duties over the past week or two. Lesson well and truly learnt. If you know you need to rest,
****** do it! Probably something about stretching after exercise too...
On the positive side, some swallows had taken up residence in one of my garages and I got to watch them raise a brood while I was prevented from disturbing them too much. Must make sure they've got a good place to nest when they come back next summer!
