Hello all - with pics

[Dickey]

I've been lurking for a while, joined recently so I could see some of the pictures and figured it was rude not to share some of my own. My shop started out as a 30x40 pole building with 17' walls. I bought the place where I live primarily because of it and have since managed a few updates. When I first moved in there was a single 220 outlet, no loft, lift or lights. I purchased a four post lift about a month after I moved in but it was nearly seven before I installed some real lights:

from the front

from the back

Two years ago, I put in a 40' 18w40 ibeam and began work on my loft:

forgive the shakiness on this one - but I just wanted to show how I hung the beam by myself with the lift

Last year I finally got off my **** and ordered the lumber I needed to do the upstairs. To which, it took me right at four hours to hang that I beam without any assistance at all. The first 2x10 I had to hang on the wall for the loft took me over an hour to accomplish exactly nothing and I had to call my father...who reminded me that I could simply put a nail in place to hold up the one side while I nail the other.

Dad came out and helped me one Saturday and we were able to complete the entire floor in about half the amount of time it took me to hang four 2x10's, six 2x8's and stack the rest of the lumber on those six joists.

I took a few pics from above to illustrate my need for the loft;

started shuffling stuff upstairs pretty quickly but only so I could begin putting in some insulation and osb sheathing downstairs

As you may have guessed I also have a taste for junk cars. My latest project, an old hearse, has been frustrating the snot out of me so I've spent the last few weeks just cleaning up the garage and organizing stuff that I'd been meaning to get to since about January. I haven't quite finished but when I do, I'll have a few more pictures.

I also want to add that it has been an absolute pleasure reading over the posts on this forum. I'm more than a little jealous of some of the welding prowess demonstrated too.

 

[Lawson4450]

dude I wish I could have just a corner of that lol my little one car is only eight feet high and im 6-2 so not alot of over head storage as you can imagine sweet shop though

 

[RHD 4 LIFE]

Nice job, I love the DeLorean too!

 

[Bib Overalls]

Ingenious way to lift that "I" beam. Did you have to disassemble the lift to get it out from under the beam once it was set in place?

 

[SweetD]

DeLorean - cool! And a great space to work. Looking forward to seeing more...

Dave

 

[garliclover101]

WOW!!!!!! Love it.

 

[Sanko]

If you will have some free time, please, could you come to me in 2001 to say "you better study than spend all the time with girls"...I will be very grateful

 

[custom1]

Talk about getting stuff off the floor!! Great loft.
Like the plate on the Delorean Too.

 

[930dreamer]

Nice place you have there.

 

[Dickey]

Ingenious way to lift that "I" beam. Did you have to disassemble the lift to get it out from under the beam once it was set in place?

Nah, I took my cherry picker and picked the beam up about 6" on one end to clear the two lift supports so I could just roll it back to the center bay where it normally sits.

If you will have some free time, please, could you come to me in 2001 to say "you better study than spend all the time with girls"...I will be very grateful

hehe, It is a myth that DeLoreans can actually do 88 mph.

 

[IMCA38]

hehe, It is a myth that DeLoreans can actually do 88 mph.

Sounds like you need to rebuild the flux capacitor.

 

[AndrewBigA]

nice delorean...have some more pics of her? i detailed 2 in my life, actually one of those customers came by the shop last week but i didnt have time for his 83 back to the future time machine!
nice looking garage & i love the loft but i have to ask...
do you have the detailing kit from delorean, with the special metal polishing blocks & liquid?
the liquid is very strong & can stain the plastic bumper covers & black rubber moldings. to detail the car without damaging those things they need to be masked off with tape or covered with paper or plastic. basically, only the metal can be exposed.
the trick with that car is to work east to west & go in the same direction. im pretty sure if i can remember correctly, the stuff they give you in the kit is kind of like fine sanding the metal. if you dont go in the same direction you will see sanding marks.
have you detailed the car or no? those cars are COOL!

 

[evildky]

DMC, MRS, Shoebox, interesting collection

 

[Lookin4'67Galaxieconv]

We'll need to see more pics of the Delorean and '55 Chevy convertible.

 

[LoRollinLS]

Nice big place, and nice DeLorean! Love the license plate. Holy un-organization batman! But I'm sure you'll get it all fixed up now that you have a loft to help with some of that. Keep up the good work!

 

[Dickey]

nice delorean...have some more pics of her?
...
have you detailed the car or no? those cars are COOL!

I wash it fairly regular and I generally just use brake cleaner to remove any tough stains. Had some peculiar sap get on it one time and it left a mark in the grain of the stainless. Had to use actual stainless steel polish on that, but other than that I don't do anything special with it. I don't keep any of them as show cars to be honest. I just like to play with interesting cars.

We'll need to see more pics of the Delorean and '55 Chevy convertible.

Most of my DeLorean pics can be found at http://www.dickeysgarage.com/images/dmc and the various 55 pics can be seen at http://www.dickeysgarage.com/images/55 though I think a lot of the four door pics are just in the images folder itself.

The convertible is actually a four door sedan that I got when I was 19. I started doing some minor body work on it some years ago and it turned out the entire car was skinned with a thick layer of bondo. I cut the roof off of it with a sawzall and put a frame behind the front seat to keep the doors from wobbling. When I parked it last, it had a 350/4 spd and a 4.88 positraction. I had intended to build a 406 for it but that engine turned out so nice I bought the two door to put it in, as is common behavior with the lust for rust.


This evening was a pretty good step in organizing the shop. I put in two more sections of interior wall (OSB) which will allow me to put up my bolt/screw organizers and should also give me a little more room to deal with the engines that seem to follow me home.

Since late August, I've had to make room for this little guy as well:

Over 21' long (13' wheelbase), 6' at the luggage rack and it weighs 6000 pounds.

 

[Red Leader]

Having a Delorean is like instant bonus points.

I need a Delorean.

 

[Dickey]

Made some progress these past several evenings:

A close up of my welding cart/table that I made out of some old walmart shelving. I found that having the grinding/wire wheel nearby was fairly handy for most of the work I do. I can also roll the whole show around to wherever else I need to do work as well.

Standing up front to give an idea of how much room is between the welding cart and the shelves.

I also grabbed a shot of what the other side of the shop looks like at the moment. I figure I'll get there eventually. Next up is to fill those new plastic bins in the first pic with the various nuts and bolts that are littering my work areas though.

 

[Rich H.]

Good looking shop, definitely has enough going on in there to keep a guy occupied and out of trouble beer:

 

[AndrewBigA]

I wash it fairly regular and I generally just use brake cleaner to remove any tough stains. Had some peculiar sap get on it one time and it left a mark in the grain of the stainless. Had to use actual stainless steel polish on that, but other than that I don't do anything special with it. I don't keep any of them as show cars to be honest. I just like to play with interesting cars.

i just remember all the fun i had working on those 2 deloreans.
the first one i had no clue what to use & neither did the customer. i wound up using 3M hand glaze on it.
the second one i did i went all in with the kit from delorean.
i used what was given & then for a final polishing i rubbed the entire body down with #0000 steel wool.

ok if you need any advice about the delorean with how to wash it n such let me know. the main thing is moving the wash mit across the surface WITH the grain.

you have an interesting collection of projects in there. keep the pics comming!

 

[LoRollinLS]

Your like a walking detail advert. I think he said hes got it covered.

Good job on the organization, it looks like you've got alot done already.

 

[AndrewBigA]

Your like a walking detail advert. I think he said hes got it covered.

Good job on the organization, it looks like you've got alot done already.

ok no need to be rude. i was just trying to help the guy out bc those cars are a little tricky to maintain.

 

[Dickey]

No worries, a lot of people like to be helpful just because. I try not to fault the behavior as it is just what gear heads do.

No issues with maintaining the car for me. I've had it for 6 or 7 years and in addition to replacing all the stuff that *****, I have learned to keep up the stuff that didn't. Truthfully, the best method I've found for cleaning it has been to go to a local automated touchless car wash place at night. I drive it back to the shop and use a few towels to get any water that is left on the car. So long as it is wiped with the grain there are no issues. If I were going to deal with a car show or something, I'd just use some stainless steel polish to brighten the panels.

btw - don't ever use steel wool on one. The bits of steel get lodged in the grain of the stainless and the car will look like it is rusting. Also, don't press on the hood when wiping it for any reason. There is an X shaped frame under the skin and a lot of cars have a visible (in a glare) X on their hood because of overzealous cleaning. You can regrain the metal at any time to remove that and other imperfections but it is a pain in the *** just the same.

I maintain this car well so I can spend a fair amount of time up at the Dragon (Deal's Gap) without any worries. In the picture below you can almost make out the X I was referring to. The previous owner put that there and when I bought the car I didn't realize what it was. It is not nearly as bad as some but its there.

 

[AndrewBigA]

No worries, a lot of people like to be helpful just because. I try not to fault the behavior as it is just what gear heads do.

No issues with maintaining the car for me. I've had it for 6 or 7 years and in addition to replacing all the stuff that *****, I have learned to keep up the stuff that didn't. Truthfully, the best method I've found for cleaning it has been to go to a local automated touchless car wash place at night. I drive it back to the shop and use a few towels to get any water that is left on the car. So long as it is wiped with the grain there are no issues. If I were going to deal with a car show or something, I'd just use some stainless steel polish to brighten the panels.

btw - don't ever use steel wool on one. The bits of steel get lodged in the grain of the stainless and the car will look like it is rusting. Also, don't press on the hood when wiping it for any reason. There is an X shaped frame under the skin and a lot of cars have a visible (in a glare) X on their hood because of overzealous cleaning. You can regrain the metal at any time to remove that and other imperfections but it is a pain in the *** just the same.

I maintain this car well so I can spend a fair amount of time up at the Dragon (Deal's Gap) without any worries. In the picture below you can almost make out the X I was referring to. The previous owner put that there and when I bought the car I didn't realize what it was. It is not nearly as bad as some but its there.

#0000 steel wool is very fine. we use it to remove overspray on glass.
im glad you got everything covered.
i saw something on tv a few weeks ago about a company that started to modify deloreans with just batteries. do you know anything about this? im having morning brain farts so it couldve been hybrid deloreans theyre building? i dont know, one or the other.

they are really cool cars.

 

[Dickey]

I wouldn't put any stock in what the company says they are going to do. They've been promising new build DeLoreans for quite some time but they still just refurb old ones. Has been almost 10 years now that they are promising to build replacement headlight switches and dash binnacles.

 

[Caleb T]

You my friend haved an amazing garage, and an awesome collection of cars!! +1 on the delorean being bonus points! Keep up the good work!

And that is a sweet action picture..

 

[Dickey]

Some progress today - basically I've been knocking out the interior walls a 10'x8' section at a time so long as money and free time allow. Last week I got the two sections of the back right corner (looking into the shop) done and today I did the center section at the back. When I'm finished, I will have R12.5-R13 in every wall except for the upstairs south facing wall which has R25 in it. This is all covered with OSB sheathing so I don't have to fret about hanging stuff.

I grabbed these pictures before I put everything back where it went and filled the thing up again.

and a shot looking from the back to the doors

 

[LoRollinLS]

lets see how full you have that loft now! lol

 

[Dickey]

lets see how full you have that loft now! lol

Pretty darn, but I'm looking to install some stairs in the next three or four days which will allow me to treat the loft as just another section of the shop. With the only means of getting up there being my ladder, I can't carry a lot of stuff and use the lift if I need to get a large pile of things upstairs or something that's heavy. Here's a few shots plus one on how I'm going about storing some insulation for my dad:

So my father and I needed some insulation. I needed it because in spit of the large stack of 2" foam you see in the pictures above, it wasn't enough to handle all of the walls and the doors. My father found a guy on craigslist that was selling 2x8 sheets of 2" styrofoam. I needed 75-80 to complete my project and he needed about 300 for something he's working on. Well, we brought back 400 sheets on two trailers to my house with the expectation that he would come get his within the next several weeks.

Neither of us are very good at predicting the future.

So I had 400 sheets of styrofoam that I decided to store in the shop so it is out of the yard and went ahead installing the 80 sheets that I had bought for myself. While doing that I had an idea on storing the rest to an extent that it would at least be useful while it was here:

So far, I've got 25 sheets installed in the last five sections of wall that I did and another 24 sheets in the two sections of wall above. I've got five more upper wall sections that I can do which will allow me to store 109 sheets total without making any extra clutter in my way and before forcing me to put extra supports in the rafters to stack the rest.

This also helps on heating and cooling details so if the stuff ends up being there forever it won't be the worst thing that could happen.

 

[LoRollinLS]

Nice. Nothing like insulation to get everything right. And your not kidding, it is pretty darn full up there, lol!

 

[Nighttrain]

Pretty cool selection of projects you have there. Is your avatar picture you as a kid?

 

[Dickey]

It is. That's me in my grandfather's shop when I was 3 or 4. A few years ago my grandmother was showing my wife and I some family pictures and stumbled across it. I'd forgotten about it up until that point even though it seems to have set the expectations for every other car I would come to own.

 

[KF5LCH]

Very nice! I wish I had that much space. The stuff I could come up with to put in there...

What year is your DMC-12?

 

[cowboy73]

You have a '58 Caddy hearse!!! I am truly jealous. Awesome shop, awesome cars.

 

[Dickey]

Thanks guys.


//the DeLorean is an 81. To date it is the most abusive relationship I've ever been involved with.

 

[novaboy009]

Small world. I just moved from Little Mountain, SC back home to Pittsburgh. Chapin was about 10 minutes from my house. If I would have caught this thread about a week ago I would have stopped by to check out all those cool projects!

Kev

 

[dittle fart around]

A perfect example of the theory "The more room you have the more projects you can start".

 

[Dickey]

A perfect example of the theory "The more room you have the more projects you can start".

That is no joke.

I had started squaring the shop away in response to the hearse build going so poorly. It was becoming a hassle because it is an enormous car and getting around it was hard enough without the additional clutter that started building up. When I realized I wasn't going to get it roadworthy in time for Halloween, I focused entirely on organizing. Then I saw Bill's thread and immediately began throwing stuff away because I'd recognized some of the arguments made for keeping things I didn't really need. Already sold one engine (472 caddilac for $1) and will likely scrap a few more. I want to be able to get work done.

 

[Dickey]

Made some progress this weekend and was glad my father stopped by to help this afternoon:

finished with the upstairs styrofoam storage

snapped a few shots of the stack we made in the rafters

one more shot from the door before I stuff the cars back in

In spite of all the styrofoam shown, there is still another 200 sheets to go. Those are stacked neatly on a trailer but I'd like to free it up and the stuff could be put to use while waiting for my dad to get around to needing it. I believe I can fit 4 sheets in each space of the ceiling for a grand total of 140 sheets. The others will likely get put above the rafters just like I did today's stack. In addition to getting all of the styrofoam out of sight, it should also make a noticeable change in how hard it is to keep the shop warm/cool when I want it to be.

Tomorrow my father and I will ride down to the metal shop and pick up a set of stairs for the loft and hopefully get them installed as well. I don't know that I'd be this far along were it not for the motivation provided from seeing everyone else's shop on this forum. Thanks again.

 

[Robert156]

If you will have some free time, please, could you come to me in 2001 to say "you better study than spend all the time with girls"...I will be very grateful