single car start from scratch :D down under...

[jinjaninja]

heya lads,

long time lurker, continual dreamer of sheds. Always had grand plans of building a great shed space on our property in country Tasmania, but recent events have forced us to move back to suburbia.

The only upside seems to be that this place has a shed. Of sorts.

behold!...



tis only a little fella... basically a big single.



with a long bum...



Due to the inevitable shitness of realestate agents, what WAS meant to be a shed full of 40 years of metal trades tools became a shed emptied of anything remotley of value.



and more ****...



sooooo i set about cleaning out as much of it as possible.



what i am left with.

Updates will most likely be few and far between, at least until our 2nd property sells. We are stretched very thin due to the time constraints involved in moving, but ill endevour to keep it up to date

Im an adult apprentice metal fabricator, so the majority of use the shed will see is going to be playing with my cars, making things for mates cars and working on my bikes. Eventually ill be making my own frames etc, mainly for shits and giggles, and there will be a small extension to the shed to house a lifting gym.

Thanks for stopping by gents, enjoy the steak.

 

[jinjaninja]

looking for inspiration to make it look less awfull...

thinking a old school roadhouse look??

anyone got any suggestions? i am terrible at being artistically creative lol

 

[Cat88]

looking good mate, great blank canvas to start with. You gona get some drywall or plywood up for hanging cabinets? could also paint and brighten it up a bit

 

[dubber]

Looks like a great size and a solid basis, have fun!

 

[1/2 Cup]

Another one I missed

G'day..

 

[jinjaninja]

all good half cup, **** all has really happened

it has been filled with more **** basically. have managed to get some bits and pieces together. slowly turning into a properish shed in between everything else. our other property finally sold, so that helps a bit

 

[HSpencer]

Nice home and great garage. I like it a lot, and you can make it whatever you desire. Lots of great potential. Nice.

Best Regards
Herb Spencer

 

[coykiam]

Got any updates? Looks like an awesome canvas to start with.

 

[rydeshed]

Nice!

I like the old kitchen table with the two drawers!

Real Estate agents are a special breed...

 

[jinjaninja]

no real changes.

we were forced to leave our dream property to move here due to my medical issues. i needed to be closer to a city centre if i need to find different work.

long story short, we are trying to make the best of a pretty naf little house and shed lol.

But im on apprentice wages so progress is very slow. I have done some fun things to my little car project, but my phone camera has royally **** itself, so i have no real updates for that.

im really keen to get power out to the shed, and start working more on alloy tig work. i do mostly stainless tig at work, but would like to progress to alloy lol

 

[jinjaninja]

hey guys.

a LONG time between drinks. I was reminded of this wonderful hideaway by a friend of mine recently.

How could i forget you guys i here you ask.... well i i been busy

I fell ill in september 2014. Proper ill. I spent a total of 6 months between icu and various rehab wards. I have since had to learn to walk again, and slowly get back to a point of some capacity in life.

My shed is still a pile of **** lol. but now it is a very messy pile of ****. Ive had a few strokes during the illness and my attention span doesnt really extend to tidying up a lot lol.

Some good has come out of the last few years. I have a son, poor little ****** was born in the middle of everything. he spends more time at hospital chatting up nurses than he does at home (because of me though, thankfully he is healthy as they come!!)



here he is helping me play cars a few weeks ago.... "the spanner was right here dad, the ****! it were gone!!!"

Onto the currant state of the shed, thats why we are all here right ?



its getting a fair bit of use. But is full of ****...

because of my illness, i dont look to be able to get back to work anytime soon, if at all. so im slowly working through little projects that i had on the go and ticking them off.

Finished an exhaust for my little honda rocket, (so we could sell it)



Purged stainless that i managed to hoard off work turned out pretty good. A bit short, and slighty off... i cant get under the cars well right now so i was eye balling it. It took a few zippties and vice grips to get the muffler bolted on, but once together worked a treat



made this little treat for a friends wedding

well hopefully ill be more diligent in marking my progress from now on guys...

cheers for watching lol

 

[metalhead140]

No good to hear about the health issues mate, glad you're getting through it. Keep us updated on your progress, lots of potential in that little garage.

 

[jinjaninja]

Thanks man. It's really hard to keep coming up with enthusiasm to keep punching when the world keeps kicking you in the balls lol.

But fight on we will

Managed to find a few hours in the shed today. Turned out to be a shocking Valentines day for all concerned. Anna my wife has fallen I'll over the last few day and spent the first half of the day in bed... Then she looked after the little fella while I scurried off to the shed for a few hours.

Been working on a few things and need to focus on one project at a time lol.

For the last few days I have been working on a throttle adaptor for my engine build. It's not going to be the prettiest piece of machining I'll admit, but it will function and I like the idea of jobs that keep me busy for a while. I have a lot of time. And it's cheap. My Labour costs me nothing lol.

Getting there. It's a slow process but just keep plugging.

I then got distracted with a much more important shed job.

I've had an old bench grinder for years but never had anywhere to out it. So I set about fixing that. Priorities were #cost nothing and #out of the way.

The support leg is wildly on the piss. I'll fix that tomorrow. Or the next time I get out to the shed.

But I FINALLY have a proper grinding wheel for my tig tungstons. I've been using dodgy methods for sharpening and avoiding sharpening when I should have just cos it was a pain in the ****. And that doesn't help with the welding

I'm very very slowly putting together the tools needed to start making some bicycle frames. I've been riding and racing for over 30 years now, but probably won't ever be able to race again. I sold a bunch of my track bikes and gear to fund my tig. Building frames will at least keep my finger in the pie and around the environment I grew up with

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[delazy]

still yet to decide what frame i want built

 

[jinjaninja]

Ssh you I've got a few gift frames to play with to get my eye in.... And I've been planning some silly carbon seat stays just because....

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[1/2 Cup]

No good to hear about the health issues mate, glad you're getting through it. Keep us updated on your progress, lots of potential in that little garage.

As above, and thanks for the update.

 

[jinjaninja]

Hey guys, been a long time between visits

Been getting a fair amount of time in my poor excuse for a shed. Most of the work I do is rehab. My walking has improved greatly, I can almost jog lol. Still get sfumbly when I'm tired, but don't need a frame or walking stick these days.

Not much has changed in the shed. Have done some tidying to try and make the best of the room available. But with a small house and 2year old son, the shed cops a fair bit of random piles of junk...

The place is regularly filthy. Because of the illness and associated damages, I can only work for short periods of time and I get very distracted easily so tidying up generally gets forgotten as my wife calls me in the help with our son lol.

Have her a bit of a spring clean, lasted about 3 days before i started work on a friends turbo manifold.

All my work in the shed revolves around trying to finish my little project car, fixing things for the house/Mrs or setting up to make bicycle frames.

The layout of the shed is terrible. I have a great many plans to rectify this. But as it's now pretty clear I won't be returning to work ever, things will move along very slowly with a disability pension. My wife also can't work as she acts as my career and carer for our son. He can't go into daycare on a regular basis because of my illness, I'm too open to infections if he gets sick.

Some of my latest adventures for th ode interested in it. To try and keep some sort of enthusiasm for things I have set myself a bit of a challenge. Building the car, I have set out to "touch" as much of it as possible and to make do with what I can modify or make myself rather than buy. I guess it's in the spirit of the original hotrodders... Just throwing together stuff they can with what they have lol.

So first up I made some mounts for the shiny chrome bumpers...

As you can see, it's only a povo little ke70 corolla. But I love it.

This is the engine i have for her...

3sge beams engine. 2l with 200hp stock. I made a quad throttle adaptor and have made a exhaust manifold to clear the cross member for install...

And I modified the 6 speed gearbox. As this engine and box come from a much larger car, the shifter was about 170mm too far back. So I set about making a shifter relocation..

Made a shift knob out of an old tool.. it's the first screw driver my old boss ever bought me. (when you start an apprenticeship with my old work the boss buys you a basic tool kit. If you finsih the apprenticeship in less than the allotted time, you don't have to pay him back lol). A bit rough and ready but I really like the idea of a bit of history in the car for my boy

I've mentioned a few times how a lot of this is for my son.

Well recently we received the news that my treatment will be focused on quality of life rather than cure. They don't honestly know what sort of time frame we have. But all the research we cms find indicates 5 years is the limit. Generally speaking people relapse around the 2 year mark, and most are dead within 5 years without a bone marrow transplant. The hospitals have ruled out a transplant at the moment as too risky. So for now, things are aimed at enjoying the time I have left with my family and working as hard as I can to leave a legacy for Leo (my son) to remember and hopefully know a bit about his father when he grows up.

I'm really hoping to have modified and improved every single aspect of the little corolla. So every time he drives it, he can smile and know his dad is there cheering him on. And it's a real expression of me.

Similarly I have plans for another legacy. It's a long story. But the best legacy I could think of leaving Leo was a garage full of tools. Somewhere he can dream dreams and have the tools available to try and make them a reality.

So I set up a gofundme campaign to try and raise some funds to add to the fittout I already have. The most important thing I want to leave my boy is a belief that ANYTHING is possible if he is willing to give it a try... But for that to happen he has to have the tools available lol.

It's taken me a lot of years to collect the meagre amount if tools I have lol. So I didn't have a lifetime left to make it happen. So the support from the campaign has been awesome in helping me fit out some of the more expensive and exotic tools, especially the frame making specifics lol.

Anyway guys thanks for listening to me ramble always good to check out what's going on in here. Especially Kris at 44. Total man crush on that shed!

This is the little dude I'm doing this all for..

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[1/2 Cup]

jinjaninja when you do an update you do it well and thank you.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I read the last few paragraphs, far out that is just so devastating.

Our thoughts are with you and with an outlook and the positive attitude you have it is just so great to read.

Stay in touch and all the best..

 

[sean Buick 76]

You are an inspiration, keep us posted please!

 

[jinjaninja]

Thanks for the support guys.

I have my up days and down days. So long as I can still keep playing in the shed and hopefully building someonthing for the little fella to remember his dad, it's enough to keep me going

And you get to the point where you either have to sit on the couch and wait to die or go and do something instead. So I figure doing somehtig instead is the better example to set the little fella

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[1/2 Cup]

Thanks for the support guys.

I have my up days and down days. So long as I can still keep playing in the shed and hopefully building someonthing for the little fella to remember his dad, it's enough to keep me going

And you get to the point where you either have to sit on the couch and wait to die or go and do something instead. So I figure doing somehtig instead is the better example to set the little fella

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Way to go, I like your style...

 

[jinjaninja]

So despite some careful attempts at keeping things clean. I failed. Miserably lol

I need to be more consistent with keeping things tidy given how limited my space is.

Been working on some little projects lately. I can still weld pretty good, but I am slow these days and only manage a few hours at a time.

Started some work on a turbo manifold for a good friend. Everything was going well...

Simple little jig for the collector cuts

But then I managed to **** it all up. I had removed the coatings from the face of the flange. But didn't remove it from the inside of the main cutout. My own stupid fault. So waiting on a fresh flange to turn up so I can cut this one off and do it properly.

My little boy really wanted to play with my bike lol. So I came up with a solution. I'm surprisingly more stable on a bike than I am walking these days lol but still needed to put the seat down a fair bit to make sure I could balance him ... But he had a great time....



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[jinjaninja]

As you can see, it's a VERY basic shed.

And very limited in tools.

Here is a shameless plug for a little campaign I have for my baby boy. I think most of you will understand the sentiment of what I'm trying to acheive.

Basically I won't be around to teach my boy how to do a lot of things. But I really want him to have some sort of tangible connection to me in the future.

So I have set about trying to raise funding to collect a modest lifetimes worth of tools to leave Leo. The idea being he has tools and equipment available to him to pursue any sort of adventures he can think of as he grows.... Whether that's building go karts or racing bikes or playing with cars...

http://www.gofundme.com/Patslegacy

So, shameless plug. In have had a huge amount of really great support and it's been a really successful campaign.

Id really love to get a pedastal drill or mini mill. But beggars can't be choosers right lol ?

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[jinjaninja]

Engine and gearbox and diff all gone. Have the engine bay a wash also.

This action however meant the shed is not full of engine cranes and old shifty engines and craps everywhere again. Need to set aside more cleaning time lol

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[1/2 Cup]

jinjaninja The engine bay cleaned up well.

Nothing nicer than starting with a clean slate..

Regards

 

[jinjaninja]

Yeah very much mate.

The old girl is in remarkable good shape for her age. 35years old and the only rust is a smattering in the spare wheel and in the rear most pockets of the wheel well.

Going to get started on the rotisserie shortly and then do some seam welding to help strengthen the old girl

Was having day dreams of a real sized shed last night. Would be nice to walk around and not trip over things lol.

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[metalhead140]

Nice work mate. I find it hard to imagine what you must be going through with the health issues, but great attitude to get in there and set the example for your son. Cool ke70 too! Keep us updated.

 

[jinjaninja]

Nice work mate. I find it hard to imagine what you must be going through with the health issues, but great attitude to get in there and set the example for your son. Cool ke70 too! Keep us updated.

Thanks mate.

managed to get rid of another engine yesterday and did a bit of tidying up so less tripping over things lol

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[gazza]

Hi Pat,
a few of us have started a thread in the Australian/New Zealand social group,
see if this works! you may have to join to get access.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=8
We would like to help you out with some donations of tools and some equipment but we also need to know what do you need.
If you can follow the link above or can find your way to the thread it would be great to have you on board.
There could be lots of tools that we can post/send your way depending on what you need, a list no matter how big or small would help enormously.

cheers
Gazza
with help from other forum membrs

 

[yhprum]

Sorry to hear about your health issues.
Your story sounds so similar to a friend's I have to share.
He received word that his blood test (proteins?) showed he was in early stages of a rare form of bone cancer and he had about 5 years max to live.
In his earlier years, he was exposed to agent orange and because of medical issues he took about 13 different tablets a day.
Being naturally suspicious, he sat down with all his medications in front of the computer and searched by the medication name and cancer. When he got to one of the medications, Bingo hits galore.
Stopped taking that med and it and it took about 18 month for the blood to go back to normal. Been about 7 years now no problems.
Funny part was it was for a relatively benign heath issue and the medication that had substitutes/alternates and it was no problem changing over.

 

[1/2 Cup]

Hi Pat,
a few of us have started a thread in the Australian/New Zealand social group,
see if this works! you may have to join to get access.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=8
We would like to help you out with some donations of tools and some equipment but we also need to know what do you need.
If you can follow the link above or can find your way to the thread it would be great to have you on board.
There could be lots of tools that we can post/send your way depending on what you need, a list no matter how big or small would help enormously.

cheers
Gazza
with help from other forum members

Endorsed...

Thanks Gazza..

 

[jinjaninja]

Hi Pat,
a few of us have started a thread in the Australian/New Zealand social group,
see if this works! you may have to join to get access.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=8
We would like to help you out with some donations of tools and some equipment but we also need to know what do you need.
If you can follow the link above or can find your way to the thread it would be great to have you on board.
There could be lots of tools that we can post/send your way depending on what you need, a list no matter how big or small would help enormously.

cheers
Gazza
with help from other forum membrs

Hey mate.

Just had a quick look and blown away ill sit down shortly and have a proper look and get a good grasp on what's doing my phone is playing silly buggers

Thanks for the thoughts and efforts guys. Really humbling.

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[jinjaninja]

Sorry to hear about your health issues.
Your story sounds so similar to a friend's I have to share.
He received word that his blood test (proteins?) showed he was in early stages of a rare form of bone cancer and he had about 5 years max to live.
In his earlier years, he was exposed to agent orange and because of medical issues he took about 13 different tablets a day.
Being naturally suspicious, he sat down with all his medications in front of the computer and searched by the medication name and cancer. When he got to one of the medications, Bingo hits galore.
Stopped taking that med and it and it took about 18 month for the blood to go back to normal. Been about 7 years now no problems.
Funny part was it was for a relatively benign heath issue and the medication that had substitutes/alternates and it was no problem changing over.

Yeah the world of chemistry is crazy.

Prior to this illness, I was never ill. Literally. I had a small trip to hospital with kidney stones in my mid 20s lol. But I didn't even have a regular gp. Hadn't seen a dentist in 15 years lol. Had 2days off work in 10 years (crashed my pushy racing lol)

I now take about 20 pills a day. I've no doubt the meds I'm on have some serious side effects. Dex alone has some nasty side effects with sweeping and skin and blood vessel thinning. I've had in the order of 20 or 30 cat scans (and no super powers to speak off lol ) and the honest word from the doc was the likely hood of cancer later on is massive... But if I live that long it will be worth it lol.

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[jinjaninja]

Ok so how do I see the cool stuff in the Aussie section ? Lol I didn't even know about the regional stuff lol. I'm using tapatalk but is there some extra sign in stuff I need to do guys k

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[gazza]

You do have to sign in to the social groups area, HOTFR8 or 1/2 Cup can help you join,
This picture should help you to find it.

 

[jinjaninja]

Yeah soooooo

I made a thing.

You know those times your heart just isn't in something ?

You spend hours and hours, days even, hoplessly polishing a turd. Hoping for a miracle.

I would have been happy with rolling this turd in glitter to be honest.

But not to be. It is entirely functional. And will last many years. But it's not something I can hoenslty look at with pride. And that *****. I have always wanted to approach everything I do with a attitude of "worth doing worth doing right". So I'm bummed at my own **** attitude as much as any real failure of the fabrication.

What am I talking about ?

Feast your never to be the same again eyes on this.

Welding kart of doom.

Had some minor issues when I started loading th old bits up. Turns out my little mig and tig are not heavy enough to counter the weight of th bottle. So then the front does a weelie...cool. But not ohs [emoji14]

So then busted out my hot rod and put some drop spindles in...

Alas my maths was once again off and now the big tyres don't touch the ground lol. The small wheels seem up to th task though for now so I left the big boys off.

No pics of it complete. Not till I clean the workshop a bit lol... It's not really as bad as I am making out. But dissapointed lol

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[1/2 Cup]

jinjaninja hang in there, that's a bit of thinking out of the square..

I love your concept for the cart

Regards

 

[jinjaninja]

So it's all assembled. No paint yet. I need to replace the caster wheels. The ones I have on the front are "repurposed" from a shockingly old and hard done by car Jack lol. So she doesn't really roll well. Once I get a few spare dollars I'll raid bunnings for some happier ones and she should be right ... Then give her a lashing of paint, replace the tank strap for something a little more sturdy (just an okky strap for now) and come up with a few torch holders.

As a bit of a pat on the back for myself I decided to look at swapping my gassless mig setup for a gas setup in preparation for doing a bunch of body work on the Rolla. I don't really mind the gassless stuff. I know a lot of people really really hate using it but besides being a bit dirty, I don't mind em.

But they do run very hot for thin sheet work. Without the cooling of the gas and with the added heat of the chemical reactions it's very hard to get good welds on thin stuff..

But I was having a world of troubles. Combining my inability to concentrate with the absolute stupid amount of standards and threads for fittings, I have been unable to come up with a solution.

I use ryco fittings ... I'm aware these are for compressed air, not gas. But every fitting I have for my tig is ryco. Every fitting we used at work so everyone's stuff was consistent was ryco. So I was trying to find an adaptor from the male fitting on the back of the welder to the male fitting on the ryco (1/4 bsp I THINK) ... went to a local weld shop today. Old mate was more interested in giving me a lecture on why the two won't match. I ******* know why. But he just kept on and said it won't work.

Went to a local hydraulic hose place (enzed for those playing in aus and nz)

Old mate there was much more helpful but ultimately had nothing to offer. He had nothing to suit a parallel thread such as the fitting on the welder.

So a bit despondent I came home and had a think. Then decided to just embrace my dodginess and come up with a decent fix.

And I present you.....

Thread tape, garden hose, cheap **** hose clamp (keeps slipping lol) and a zipp tie to help the other end...

Doesn't leak. Woot woot. Swapped the polarity around and changed the roll of wire to .8 mild. Tested everything and gas comes out all the right places and none of the wrong!

I also am aware I'm not using the "right" gas. I'm using pure argon. I should be using Argo shield which if memory serves is an argon and co2 mix...

Spoke to my old boss about it and he says it will simply make a slightly dirty weld. Maybe a bit hotter than normal to compensate for the lack of peno without the added co2 but not a problem as far as he was concerned.

I use straight argon as this is simply t-ing into my tig setup. And my boss looks after me with bottles instead of having to get my own account. (my boss has been an amazing man throughout my dramas. He constantly supplies me with steel and let's me raid the work recycle bins for any random scraps I might want so I can keep playing at home) so I don't want to run 2 bottles for the sake of a bit of a dirty mig weld. Any weld I'm going to be wanting to show off will be tig welded anyways [emoji14]

Believe it or not this was tidy last week. Anna helped me clean up and tidy the shed. She moved a heap of junk to an outside shed and pushed me to clean things up. I have since set about making a huge mess again with very little in the way of actual work progress lol.

Made this a while ago but don't know if I showed it off at all... Was for a friends wedding. Not being able to afford a present, this seemed like the next best thing.

And the local rocket surgeon in action

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[1/2 Cup]

jinjaninja you do some beautiful TIG welds

That is one fantastic job you have done on the wedding present, there is nothing better than a gift like that, its just so personal.

I have admit that I feel your pain when it comes to getting the right fitting to do a job, I use Ryco fittings here as well as they are just so universal.

Looks like your Rocket Surgeon is having a ball...

Thank you for the update..

 

[jinjaninja]

Tried my hand at a bit of tig brazing.

Have been putting this off for about 12 months now. Basically because I'm converting a front wheel drive engine to use in rear wheel drive format, I'm having to fix a few hurdles. The fwd blocks don't have all the mounting bosses for the rwd mounts. I had 3 good mounts but they were all in a single vertical plane. So I wanted one more offset mount point to just make me feel a bit more comfortable. Being a cast iron block I was very concerned about cracking the block. I don't have any oxy equipment, so tig brazing was considered my best option.

So a nice gritty old mild steel bolt was found and cleaned up. Cleaned the block with a wire wheel attachment on the drill and a lot of metho. Did a practice run on some old 10mm thick angle iron to try and get a gauge on how hot to run the welder.

Then with baited breath and after a bit of preheat with a portable gas torch, I jumped in.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd... No where near hot enough. Wicked well onto the nut head. But simply no where near the required heat for the block to wick properly. It kinda just balled and slopped down onto the block.

Waited for it to cool with a few hits from the torch to slow things down and refitted the mount and bolt.

It held. But was making protesting noises. So I definitely wasn't hot enough for a good clean bond. I think if I had a proper oxy torch and had got real good heat into the block it would have gone really well.

But chalk that up to a learning thing lol. On the plus side I didn't crack the block ... So yay me

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