Motorbreath53's Area... ROUND TWO!

1001 Projects and counting...

So, a few months ago... while counting the minutes to the end of a shift at work, I found myself on one of the real-estate websites that my wife and I would frequent "just for fun..." We weren't necessarily looking to sell our place, but we always said for "the right place..."

I found an acre... with a house that needed me and a hammer in just about every room... but dammit did it have a view... it also had a beautiful recently done pool, a three car garage at the house, and... AND! a separate shop.

Best of all, it had been on the market for a while, which allowed the price to fall into our price range...

**** it... i'm still young. Lets do this. We made it happen. I'll spare you guys the details of the house, because the shop is way more fun for me to talk about...

The shop as it stands now, is a stick framed, free standing, concrete slab'd, three car garage at the opposite end of the property from the house.

This shop will serve as my automotive fabrication and wrenchin' funhouse with a few amenities to entertain when parties at the house migrate to the shop. (they always seem to?)

Here's the workhorse of the operation getting some love just after the move in... notice the missing rear window... casualty of the move...


moving the toys in... The doors are obviously slab doors in poor shape.. the spring has pulled apart the 2x6 on the L side of the two car door frame... the siding is peeling plywood...

UTILITIES!

This i'm excited about. There was 220 to the panel at the side of the shop! (along with RV hookups, water and a dump!)

No plumbing inside the existing structure... but have a look at what caused my heart to pitter-patter the first time we came to see the place...

This is off the backside of the shop...



Many of you will see a whole mess of things for me to clean up...(this place was a MESS) those with a vision... or maybe a sickness similar to mine.... will notice the plumbing for a full bathroom/cleanup room and a near full car deep slab just BEGGING for the shop to be extended... probably a year out by the time I knock out some other projects... but yup.. it will be so...

As of tonight... i'm still getting moved in and organized... but its at least usable space as of now.

All of the wiring thats hanging embarrassingly in the photo's is courtesy of the previous owner... I'm trying to map out a plan to rewire without too man "do-overs" when the back of the building is extended...




I did loose my shed with this move. I hadn't considered that I had stored FAR TOO MUCH **** in my shed... most of the stuff on the shelves is new chassis parts for the 53' Chev in most these pics... so it should disapear as I progress on the pick em' up... the dirt tires for the buggy will be wall mounted, and the compressor will end up outside... but the scrap metal pile... hell I may need another shed....




OH! the TV! It was pointed out in my last thread that I was awful proud of my penny pinching finds/buys for my shop... but I have to mention... this is the SECOND TV i've got for free as "broken" and had working for under $10. Google and you-tube kick ***...

Great looking fixer up. Lots of potential there. A super shop area. Expansion. This should keep you busy for a long time. Looks great!!! Love the possibility of extending the back, and wow!! A bathroom to boot!! Keep us posted on your work.

Best Regards
Herb Spencer

Thanks for the attaboys and well wishes Herb... its a diamond in the rough for sure... but I couldn't be any more excited to start on it... unfortunately, the major renovation is at LEAST 3-4 house projects away...

Thought I should add this one as well. Exterior shot with the plane jane slab doors.

Not much work on the shop... but PLENTY of time spent in it.

Finished the prep on the dirt car for the season, and got out for a midnight shakedown... (still near 100 degrees at 10pm!)



Chased some valve noise on my cheap gofast car... added some roller rockers, and steering upgrades while the toolbox was open. I know its ugly... but show me a car thats more fun to drive for under $1500...




Peckin' away at my 53'... doing body work while waiting for a turn on the frame machine. Then MII front end and 4 link rear.... then .....and......



Working in the shop pre-renovation has been bitchin as its given me ideas I would've missed. Big stuff like moving doors and utilities, but even easy stuff like where I want outlets and airlines...

Still fighting with the idea of going two feet taller when I do the addition to facilitate a I beam chain hoist... the "do I NEED it" fight with myself...

nice find. any more poser pics of the view? great potential there.

jim

Nice work space man!! mustang looks good too!

SCORE! nice place. good bones for a kick *** shop for sure

Thanks for the kind words on the shop and the toys...

madoc1 said:

nice find. any more poser pics of the view? great potential there.

jim

Click to expand...

Poser pics? sure do...
From the deck off the master bedroom:


Then, the only thing about the house that doesn't need completely redone...

sunsets are epic just about every evening...


We love the pool... but don't be fooled. It is the only thing in the place that has been redone since 85'. I don't exagerate when I say EVERY room of the house, every door, every window, kitchens, bathrooms etc needs renovated/replaced.

Cool place. Looking froward to seeing how your shop will progress.

Awesome place and piece of property with a view! So, a 3 car attached and a3 car detached? Awesome!

Very nice.

Congrats on getting a huge increase in garage space with the new house!!

I could do with any and all of that except 100º at midnight. It's 80 degrees in my garage now at 7 am. I get nothing done this time of year.

Still nice view. That would ALMOST make me want to move.

jesse72 said:

Awesome place and piece of property with a view! So, a 3 car attached and a3 car detached? Awesome!

Click to expand...

Thanks guys. Cool to see some shared enthusiasm in my overwhelming project.

There is a three car garage attatched to the house. Whole nuther' story in itself.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=261295

I could do with any and all of that except 100º at midnight. It's 80 degrees in my garage now at 7 am. I get nothing done this time of year.

Click to expand...

Suppose I should have been more specific. The 100* at night was out in the desert. Thats about an hour from my door...but we're up on the hill where the temp is quite lovely this time of year. Yea...I said lovely... what of it..

Lovely is as lovely does.

Eve'nin Gentlemen. Just shy of a year since I last checked in. I wish I had a superbitchin palace of a shop to update with... but... well... life happens.

Work and house projects have limited shop time this year, and time spent in the shop has been spent keeping our toys alive this year. Good news is, the more I wrench/fabricate in here, the more ideas I have for the rebuild.

I got after our Bronco to asses some oil and exhaust leaks... TIGHT fit squeezing my stock height truck under the slab door... and no way my F350 would clear length wise. I'll definately ad 2 feet to the wall height and do open roof trusses on the do-over.


(It now has some JBA's and is about to get a cool new bumper since my loving beautiful amazing bride..."modifyed" the stock bumper...)

I spent an unreasonable amount of time on my back under the mustang recently adding some craigslist found suspension/brake/tire goodies... and have since been flogging the bejeezus out of the poor thing since. FAR too much fun. But making exhaust changes to fit the suspension from my back has me 100% convinced that a two post lift is in my future.





Then... I started in on my 53' chev' truck. I was promised a break in my house renovation duties for long enough to have a running driving hot rod. I was sealing up the excess holes in the firewall until I got my turn on the frame machine at the local high school. Got the frame straight and I started jiging up to do the MII and 4 link... right before we sprung a slab leak up at the house... go figure.




SO! I haven't had any shop time in about a month since i've been busy replumbing the house... which led to drywall work... which led to a kitchen reno... which led to new floors throughout...

...which leads to me venting to GarageJournal about missing my shop.

Nothing short of fascinating to me that its almost a year to the day everytime I think about updating my shop thread. 99% of my time and money has gone into the house. I am baseboards and trim away from calling the current renovation macaroni. While waiting for materials for the house, I did get some Shop progress done. Nothing crazy... but some neat stuff has been accomplished.

Phone and Internet.
We had a trencher in the backyard to run sprinklers (and audio/low voltage lighting)... so why not run the last of the utilities down to the shop right? I scored an HP tower keyboard and mouse on ebay for $3.99. I was super skeptical that it would work at all... but well:

I used the dirt cheap flatscreen as the monitor, and even scored a printer/scanner for free. No idea if ill ever use the printer, but what the hell.

Fans!
Barely visible in this shot cause' they are at full throttle... but top foreground and far side in front of the embarrassing amount of RC's...

There were three matching ceiling fans throughout the house. They are quite ugly, but move air in fine fashion. As we renovate room by room i've been moving them down to the shop. Initially I was just hanging them down there to keep them out of the way, but tonight they got powered. The breeze feels awesome, and I still have one to add. I can't wait for the next wrenching day! Trans Am in progress belongs to my father in law. I'd share details of what our plans are, but he is certain that the internet is the devil. I've been sworn to secrecy.


Not shop progress, but time spent in it...
I still can't stop pecking at that stupid fox mustang. Parts keep finding me... (never mind that I open craigslist everytime i'm on the toilet.)

I scored a killer BartsWorks SLA front end. Tube K, coilovers fully adjustable lowers etc... I moved the motor back an inch while I was installing it all.

I think a cobra IRS will end up on the car eventually, but I found a complete 8.8 with cobra brakes and 4.10s(car had 3.08) for too cheap to skip. Nothing like faking horsepower with gears that make freeway driving awful.