Broken Bimmers and Questionable Home Improvement

[CoreyZ]

Hey folks! Relatively new to GJ - my first introduction to this board was the 12 Gauge Garage a few years ago. It's still one of my favorites! I became a homeowner for the first time last month, and now I finally have my own garage here in southern Indiana! It needs a bit of work though, and I hope to build a large space late next year.




So, not too long ago I was renting comfortably in a condo with a one car garage in the bottom level. I have enough space to work on things, even though only one car got the privilege of covered parking.

Unfortunately, the landlord sold the place. Long story short, I was thrust into home ownership sooner than planned!


The house is about 100 years old, and full of the : you'd expect. Here's the business end:





I've got a carport, two one car garages, and a slab between them big enough to park a car.

Mind my crappy camera



The first garage is big enough to work on the e30 at least. I need to move some of the shelves to garage #2 to make some more room. It was a fairly recent construction and is in decent shape.



Fender flares!



Not too much space in front of the car, but it's workable.






Garage #2 is an old cedar deal that was built decades ago. It's too narrow to really pull a car in, so it's going to act as workshop and part storage space. At some point, the back wall was bumped out a bit and they must have done a ****** job with the foundation back there.





I don't think I'm going to bother fixing that - this thing will get torn down sometime next year to make room for a proper 2 or 3 car garage + shop area.


I'll use this thread to document my home / garage improvement projects, how it feels the first time I taste 110V, and all the stuff wrong with my cars that I can't get around to fixing. I've got a camping / driving trip to the Tail of the Dragon with some fellow bimmer bros planned the first week of November, and all three of these bastards are in some state of brokenness!

 

[CoreyZ]

First problem:

I've got very little in the way of power and lightning.

Garage 1 has one wall outlet, a ceiling outlet for the garage door opener, and a light switch going to a single 100W bulb.


Some backstory:

During inspections, we found no power to the garage. P.O. claimed ignorance. She called her ex-husband to find out why - apparently they had cut the power to the garage purposely but could not remember the reason. I had some suspicions at this point, but figured the electrician they were having repair it would find out the truth of the matter. Apparently he hooked power back up and found nothing of note, besides the janky way power was ran. More on that later.

When I came to do my walk through, the garage once again had no power. The breaker was popping instantly. Traced a short to garage 2, disconnected it, and was good to go.




Here's where power comes from - a hole from one of the basement windows. Buried with no protection who knows how deep.




This line reappears at garage #1 and is stuffed through a wall.




After routing through the few boxes in the garage, it exits stage left!




Note that there is no strain relief on this cable, and it's shorted at the clamp holding it to the roof of garage number two. Here it powers one light fixture and one outlet - that's it.


This all USED to be on breaker #1, which happened to power most of the outlets in the house including the microwave. They kept popping the breaker, but instead of fixing it just cut power to the garages, and claimed they could not remember why it was cut.

The previous owners thankfully were only there for 5 years, and didn't do lasting damage (aside from painting over some beautiful wood trim and NEVER CLEANING ANYTHING!!!). The old couple that came before them took good care of the house


Right now power to the garages is just sitting on its own 20 amp breaker, and I still have yet to hook up power to the 2nd garage (hereby noted as the shop)


Run down on the issues with the cars:

e30 (90 325i coupe, late 98 Z3 engine swap and lots of goodies) needs the head removed and a valve job - bad valve seats that I didn't catch before the motor rebuild. Shame on me for just cleaning the head and shoving it back in untouched! It also has some rubbing issues in the rear, and some other random ****. I've got a junkyard S52 (90's M3 3.2L I6, also bad valve seats!) to grab cams out of to shove into the hi comp aluminum 2.8L 24v that's in it right now when the head is back on and good to go.

e34 (95 540i 6mt) clutch master has started to take a **** on me. I've got a replacement intake boot to install, a bad aux fan to **** with, some window motors to rebuild, CaTuned coilovers to install, an oil change to perform, and a washer fluid pump to install. It also could really use a goddamn detail. It's the beater.

The e82 (09 135i 6mt) just rolled over 100k miles. I've already roasted the rear tires, and I want to do a bunch of preventative maintenance / upgrades to get it ready for MORE POWERRR. Low priority. Right now it mostly sits there and drains money.


Parts are on the way for the e34 and I expect to address most of its issues this weekend. Once I get the garage more workable I'll rip the head of the e30. I'm also going to shove a bore scope down its throat and make sure it's valve seats, and redo the leak down test just to be sure.

 

[JustinS]

Doesn't look like you can inline imgur images

 

[matt_i]

Try Flickr or Photobucket.

 

[CoreyZ]

Weird, it looks fine on my end

 

[CoreyZ]

Changed to the 'bucket.

 

[CodeRedZ]

Wow thats sketchy on the power wire

 

[Bib Overalls]

You don't say anything about the service panel or the amperage of the service. With plans for a 3 car shop and garage you need to address the overall power requirements of both your house and your existing and planned demands. 200 amps is the minimum service standard today and should be enough unless you have some unusual demand.

If I were doing the job I would run a 50 amp (minimum) to 100 amp (recommended) underground feed to the planned garage and feed the garage to be retained with a single 20 amp circuit fed from either the main panel in the house or from the new sub-panel.

The problem is you don't as yet have the planned garage/shop. This is my recommendation and it is going to sound a bit bizarre. Run a 100 amp aluminum underground feed to the existing shop you plan on demolishing. Aluminum mobile home feed costs about the same as #6 copper for a 50 amp circuit. Go big early.

While it is easy to splice underground feed I would try to determine where the new panel will be located in the new building and ensure that enough cable to reach will be in the ground or in the ground and coiled inside and ahead of the sub-panel.

My old house in Albuquerque, built in 1950, had a 50 amp service. That was not unusual back then and I have since worked on country houses that were electrified in the pre-war period with two 15 amp circuits, one for the lights and one for the outlets. With a 100 year old house you can expect a lot of electrical challenges. Good luck.

 

[CoreyZ]

Thankfully I've got a 200 amp service in the house right now. The house electrical isn't horrible - just a few things like very limited light switches and some old 2 prong outlets. Because the place has damn near a full basement, most things are easy to get at.

You should see the plumbing though - I've got everything under the sun down there.

Part of the problem is I still have yet to make up my mind on what I want to build and what I want to demolish, and where I want to build it. For now I just need to get the current setup liveable and start talking with a good contractor.

 

[CoreyZ]

Both garages now have some level of security! They had no locks to begin with, and that didn't sit right with me given all the tools I was shoving in them.

Immediate plans are to move some of the storage over to the workshop area to make more room around the brown car. I need to get working on the car soon.



Here's a picture of it this spring up in the Smokies.

 

[ftaffy]

Nice looking cars, looks like a nice sized space to start with.
Have to say having a separate space that is a 'dirty' workshop away from the cars would be a good addition.

 

[CoreyZ]

Got some lights in the garage and switched up some of the storage. Got some more room to work around the car now. Before I go do some major work, I felt like the brown car needed a bath









Been busy on the house side of things. Whipped up a small fire pit and been working on the kitchen. The yellow **** was the old stank - new coat of paint and new floors made it a lot nicer.




Old Stank


New hotness (WIP)



Also some dingus backed into my 135i and put a bunch of cracks in the paint.



Stuff like that just ruins your day

 

[Bib Overalls]

Your newer one bay stand alone garage looks really good now that it has been cleared out.

Have you considered making the replacement for the old stand alone garage an addition to the one you will retain?

Running between two buildings to fetch a wrench will be a real pain, particularly if it is raining or snowing or just freezing cold.

 

[turbowoodworker]

First off, where are you located, climate etc?

Second, you mentioned security in a later post. My first thought was security while looking at your first pics. Those one cars are so easy to get in to and with you being on the street, everyone knows what you've got inside.

Even if plans are to improve, demolish, build etc., think about locks, cameras, and insurance. Hard to replace what you've been collecting.

 

[str8shot]

Nice 1er. I've got one, too.

Any mods? These things make easy power.

 

[CoreyZ]

First off, where are you located, climate etc?

Second, you mentioned security in a later post. My first thought was security while looking at your first pics. Those one cars are so easy to get in to and with you being on the street, everyone knows what you've got inside.

Even if plans are to improve, demolish, build etc., think about locks, cameras, and insurance. Hard to replace what you've been collecting.

I'm in southern Indiana. Gonna freeze my nuts off in that garage this winter!

When I moved in, only the good garage had a lock on the garage door, and none of the side doors had locks. I recently put in some dead bolts and latches on the doors so it's at least a little harder to get in.

Definitely looking at camera options.

Nice 1er. I've got one, too.

Any mods? These things make easy power.

I love that blue.

Only mods are a berk tech race exhaust + midsection, and BMS intakes. It was my daily until I picked up the 540i earlier this year.

Early next year I plan on going FBO

 

[ryanp77]

Welcome, have never seen two single garages and a carport before

 

[Richard Cranium]

I would of cut the lamp cord supplying power to the second garage also, it scares me.
I neither have seen two single garages and a car port.

 

[TractorJeff]

It was probably a porch till the old couple decided the garage was too far to go get the car. Look at the overhangs and Railings plus the ramp as clues.
When I was growing up my neighbors were like that. It was a 35 yard walk to get the car. As she got more sickly he started parking the car outside closer and closer to the house.

 

[Dan_RN]

Nice stuff. Love 1 series and E30. Is Track One still around? I remember them from my Honda-Tech days.

 

[CoreyZ]

The setup is definitely a bit weird, but it was hard to find anything in my price range that had the space I needed. Right now I'm leaning towards knocking down the older one car and building a nice sized two car in its place.

The previous owners of this house had it for about 5 years, but the people directly before them were in their 80's. It seems like at some point they built that carport and also moved the laundry room upstairs (eliminating a bathroom in the process).

Track One is definitely still around!


Don't worry - the second garage / shop is not hooked up right now. I've got a plan to address that!