Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT Duster346's Home Shop Thread

[Duster346]

After 15 years of renting shops, and having those shops completely disorganized/inefficient, the wife and I bought a new house with the RV garage option in 2019. On my block, you either have an RV or a shop in your garage.

In addition to having a full time job during the week, I am also a part-time racing transmission builder, which I've been doing for the past 20 years or so. I have roughly 150 Chrysler transmission cores on hand from 1967-2018. My previous shops were an absolute disaster and cluttered--so much that I'd be embarrassed to show pics of those. So I took the plunge and bought all snap-on toolboxes and drawer units to hopefully be more organized and efficient. I realize it is not everyone's cup of tea to have expensive tools and tool storage, but it is certainly mine. I am not rich but work 70-80 hours per week for what I have, and to pay bills.

Here's some pics from start to where I kind of am at now...

 

[Duster346]

Garage floor was obviously the first thing to get done.. had a local commercial company coat the floors. In lieu of the designer chip coating I had done at my previous residence, elected to go with a more standard commercial type coating this go around. First pic is my old garage/house.

 

[Duster346]

Changed the cheap/crummy lighting that the builder installed to T8 LED's. I plan to upgrade the lighting even more at some point. Lighting in the RV side was installed poorly/too close to the walls.

 

[Duster346]

Time to do a little two-tone paint job in the company colors (black/silver). Also wanted black on the bottom portion of the walls as to hide any grease/fluid/yuck stuff that would show up on white paint. Also started unloading shop equipment and toolboxes ...

 

[Duster346]

Place is really starting to get filled with junk now ...

 

[Duster346]

Since I have 20lb of chit in a 10lb bag, lets go ahead and store some cars in the ceiling with a two post lift.

 

[Duster346]

As for heat, elected to go with a Mr. Heater Big Maxx 125,000 BTU unit.

Guess I should tell you guys how big the shop is... it is roughly 27 wide by 45 deep .. so about 1200 sq/ft.

 

[Duster346]

This is the beginning of the "Command Center", which I will get to a bit later in this thread, as it has been a work in progress for the last several years. Started with an 68" Epiq, and went from there. I was faced with a challenge of mounting humongous snap on KRL overhead lockers, which I will get to later as well.

 

[Duster346]

Some random pics since I'm kind of going in chronological order with the pics... Picked up a flams cabinet. Have a couple of Plymouth Dusters that have been in the family for quite some time. Also, in all the madness of setting up the shop and trying to fit all the junk in, tore down my 1780 snap on vise that I'm still trying to finish the restoration on.

 

[Duster346]

The next thing on the agenda, was figuring out the transmission build area. I will let you know early on here, I am not a career fabricator, and do not claim to be good at it whatsoever. So, I contracted my chassis builder friend to build an idea I had for a transmission teardown/build bench. What I wanted was, a built in gutter for fluid to drain into on teardowns, adjustable legs to compensate for the horribly un-level floors in my spec-built garage, enough room underneath for three 30" wide snap-on floor standing drawer units and finally an outrigger for a vise.

The legs are square tube with screw type adjustable feet, a brake bent front lip and rear backsplash, and enough reinforcement to hold a complete engine. The bench ended up being 100% tig welded.

 

[Duster346]

Getting the bench setup in the shop...and a general idea of drawer unit placement ...

 

[Duster346]

With the bench in, it was time to get some Wall Control panels installed. From the start, the drawer units under the bench were to hold new transmission parts inventory, and not tools. So, the plan was to get as many necessary transmission building tools onto the Wall Control pegboard, and within easy reach.. all in the name of better efficiency, which I historically **** at.

(Surprisingly the Pittsburgh level is fairly accurate) ..

 

[Duster346]

With the bench and wall control settled in, I wanted to add some lighting above the bench. Cutting and welding flat steel is about as far as my fabricating skills go.

Made some light fixture brackets out of 1/8" thick flat steel for two 4 tube T8 LED fixtures for over the bench.

And a Rolling Rock for my efforts.... "33"

 

[Duster346]

So, you might ask--Hey dude, why are you a junk man in the suburbs? Well, we thought about moving into a more rural town with some acreage with the ability to put up a bigger building, but commute time was the biggest factor, as both the wife and I work in town.

When the RV garage homes started popping up down the street from our current home, we went for it, and somehow it worked out for us. Wife wanted a new house ... and I wanted my dream shop--something I didn't have to rent, like I had done for the past decade plus.

So, here's some pics of the inside of the house .. a ranch style, and the open space behind our house.

 

[Krfjkm]

Nice place and a great shop!

 

[Duster346]

Kickass .. the third under-bench snap-on drawer unit shows up. And the first build in the new shop was NOT a transmission. Instead, we put together a wagon for my then, 4 year old daughter. Let me tell you, she is my world. Kids change everything in life!

 

[Duster346]

Nice place and a great shop!

Thank you!

 

[Openroad98]

Very nice build so far, thanks for sharing your progress! I'm in Colorado and have never seen an RV garage next to a 2 car double deep single stall. Thats an interesting build design, but looks compact and pretty efficient. Usually the RV garages out here are next to 3-car garages which make them REALLY wide. It's great to see what you have done with your space, I have 6 wall control panels waiting to be installed over my bench and I'm glad they look like they can hold some weight.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Duster346]

At this point, it's game on, let's build some bad *** Chrysler drag racing transmissions.

 

[Duster346]

And.. build some more transmissions after being behind for several months ..

I also build dodge diesel transmissions from 1990-2018.

 

[loganb]

Awesome looking place and congrats on getting the dream setup in an attached space! Organization is looking awesome and think you'll like the wall control panels! Looking forward to following along here

 

[SRU1436]

Looks awesome

 

[DeeDubz]

Damn OP those snap on boxes! Nice looking pad.

 

[JEFFREYWisconsin]

Great place. Takes a special kind of talent to build those transmissions! Very cool.

 

[Vernmotor]

Love them mopar .Here is my. Very nice place you got

 

[Boosted1]

Nice shop. Looks like you are well stocked in transmissions.

 

[Duster346]

Very nice build so far, thanks for sharing your progress! I'm in Colorado and have never seen an RV garage next to a 2 car double deep single stall. Thats an interesting build design, but looks compact and pretty efficient. Usually the RV garages out here are next to 3-car garages which make them REALLY wide. It's great to see what you have done with your space, I have 6 wall control panels waiting to be installed over my bench and I'm glad they look like they can hold some weight.

Keep up the good work!

Openroad, thank you sir. Yes, these are Richmond builds and they offer a few different floor plans. One other option was a double 2-car, with the RV garage, but the 2-car portion was not deep enough for my liking.

Wall Control is a great company, with a great product for sure. I am 100% satisfied.

 

[Duster346]

Awesome looking place and congrats on getting the dream setup in an attached space! Organization is looking awesome and think you'll like the wall control panels! Looking forward to following along here

Thank you, loganb!

Looks awesome

Thank you!

Damn OP those snap on boxes! Nice looking pad.

Thanks, DeeDubz! Yeah, kind of got out of hand with the snap-on stuff at some point.

Great place. Takes a special kind of talent to build those transmissions! Very cool.

Thanks!

Love them mopar .Here is my. Very nice place you got

Hi, Vern. Thanks .. I've read your posts on moparts for the past couple of decades or so!

 

[Duster346]

On the transmission build side, I got all the boxes fairly organized with new transmission parts inventory, and being fairly happy with that I then switched focus back to working on the Command Center. Here's some pics of how the transmission build side looks now, and some of the drawer layout for parts storage.

 

[Duster346]

As I mentioned, the command center started off with just a 68" Epiq. I traded a Matco double bay (think it was a 7525?) for it and got a smoking deal on the box on top of it. My plan all along was to incorporate some modular storage around the box. I was leaning heavily towards Moduline's products. Once, I figured the logistics and extra pricing to match Moduline's products to snap-on's red, I decided to go with all snap-on for simplicity sake, and better aesthetics. Snap-On had just recently come out with their new line of modular storage, so it just made sense to me.

 

[Duster346]

With the command center, I ended up buying another half locker, so the command center would consist of the 68" Epiq, and 3 half lockers. I bought all the boxes, and KRL horizontal lockers before we moved into our new house with the initial intention of setting up shop there.

The next challenge was going to be figuring out how to mount the 72" wide and 27" deep horizontal lockers, which weighed several hundred pounds each.

Went to bed thinking about that, and waking up thinking about that for several months it seemed. I didn't want to take the chance of putting just the back of the locker into the studs, filling them up with hundreds of pounds of tools, and then having the things fall off the wall.

By now, you know I'm not a fabricator, so again, leaned on some expertise from a buddy. We came up with an idea on paper to build a frame to sit on top of the tool box, with the lockers on top of the frame. Wanted clear span in the front, which would be about 14' long, so it took some creative thinking on both our parts.

 

[Duster346]

Ordered up some more Wall Control pegboard, this time in black to go inside the command center. I planned to initially have a larger computer monitor, printer, and stereo receiver mounted to the wall control.

Welded flat steel to the frame we made for mounting points for the wall control pegboard. As for securing the horizontal lockers, I used some angle iron and welded it to the inside of the frame and bolted the lockers down.

Ended up putting the Polk Audio speakers and sub on top of the lockers, as floor space is virtually non-existent.

 

[Duster346]

This is what the command center looks like at this moment .. Planning the LED lighting as I type .. actually kind of waiting for black friday deals to buy all that ..

 

[Duster346]

Nice shop. Looks like you are well stocked in transmissions.

Thank you, Boosted. Yes I am, fortunately and (at times) unfortunately.

 

[Duster346]

Had one 54" horizontal locker left, and no wall space for it, so it ended up here on the transmission build side, on top of two 30" drawer units.

 

[Duster346]

Picked up this 1780 Snap-On vise off FB marketplace several months back and finally got it restored and bolted onto my build bench.

 

[Duster346]

Wife was complaining about having to continue to park outside. My opinion is that garages are for working in and not parking in.


So, got a 4 post lift for the other side of the garage, and did the mods to the door for the high lift opener. And she can now park underneath the lift.

 

[loganb]

Gotta live when making the spouse happy "requires" you to buy a 4 post! Looking great!

 

[Duster346]

Logan, I think you're the only one that follows my foolish thread.. thank you dude.

I was going to post this in a different thread, or a craftsman thread or something... but picked up this used 5 drawer S2000 top box for my nephew's first box. He has no tools/box yet. $125 still made in the USA, ball bearing slides, and 16" deep.

I have a lot of duplicate/older USA made tools to give him to get started ..

I started with Craftsman tools and toolboxes 26 years ago ...

 

[zc15]

Logan, I think you're the only one that follows my foolish thread.. thank you dude.

Well, add another to the subscriber list. Typically I try to follow spaces that are my size or smaller so I don't develop tastes that I can't attain, but this looks like a really cool space. I appreciate how your neighborhood is full of these RV bays. I wish this was more common, but it is what it is