The swedish barn

[stewbacca3]

Greetings from Scotland,

I have been watching your work with great interest. You have done a fantastic job so far and I look forward to seeing your progress. Keep up the good work.

Stewart

 

[Mr. Tool]

First of all, sir I have to hand it to you. You are definitely "the man"!

What an excellent thread on restoring an old barn and bringing it back to life. Your workmanship and skills are nothing less than perfection.
No sense in me saying the phrase "keep up the good work and progress" because I know that you will, so keep posting and updating and thank you so much for posting and sharing your experience on your restoration of that terrific looking outcome of your barn.

As like everyone else who has been following, I look forward to seeing the progress as well.

 

[aussiesteve]

great job !!!! lm sure a lot of us would love to have garage with so much character and so much space

 

[Boosted1]

Wow! Great thread. That's a ton of work. Looks great.

 

[Jimbo..]

Love this project. Swedish barns are tough to find here in California so I am very envious. So are you planning to work on your A-traktor on that lift? Lycka!

 

[u1elmquist]

This project's fantastic!

Please continue the build story

 

[930dreamer]

Great work, I'm not sure how I missed this thread.

 

[plexxarn]

Thanks everyone for the comments !

So are you planning to work on your A-traktor on that lift? Lycka!

You must have been watching way too much "Wheeler Dealers Trading Up" if you heard about A-tractors over in California

For those of you who haven't:
A swedish A-tractor or EPA-tractor is a car registered as "tractor".
To do this it has to have a top speed of 30 km/h = 19 mph and some other features like a small pick-up bed and max 2 seats etc.

The older version EPA-tractor was introduced after ww2 when there was a shortage of farm tractors, but plenty of old cars. It was then allowed to convert a car or truck into a "tractor" of you took away the rear suspension, shortened the wheelbase and gave it a loading rack or bed.

This was used by young guys to be able to drive "cars" before you turned 18.
A-tractors have less restrictions to suspension and wheel base etc.

Tractors can be driven on public roads when you are 16 (or 15 if your dad owns a farm), if you take a simlified driving licence for tractors.

Normally you shorten an old Volvo and make it into something that loooks like a pick-up. The top speed reduction is normally done by adding an second gearbox behind the first one locked in first gear. This means plenty of revs at cruising speed, huge fuel consumption and not so many chicks as you might have expected when you were 14..

 

[Jimbo..]

You must have been watching way too much "Wheeler Dealers Trading Up" if you heard about A-tractors over in California

Bingo! Nailed me. Well done. I tossed that same reference at my Swedish buddy and he had absolutely no idea where I could possibly have ever heard of an A-tractor. I love that Wheeler Dealers show. The only part that annoys me about the regular series is that they never tell you how much time poor Edd spent fixing the car. "We made a profit of $200 pounds!" is kind of a poor return if the guy spent 100 hours fixing the stupid thing...

 

[Bib Overalls]

Similar to a chopped up old Ford converted to a "Doodle Bug" although they did not have a speed limit or much body work.

In Arkansas you can drive an agriculture machine on the highway and you are always considered "right" or "not at fault" if you have an accident with a car or truck. A gent we knew up in the hills lost his driver's license to DWI. So he bought a small tractor and used it for his daily transportation around town.

 

[u1elmquist]

Uppdatera mera

 

[thunderbird61]

Uppdatera mera

Agreed, we need som updates

 

[vegar]

I really like your barn and they way you think. More updates please

 

[udderlyoffroad]

God jul!

Just read this thread over the course of a couple of evenings after everyone went to bed after the festivities. Please do keep the updates coming. As you mentioned, this was done in 2011 so I suspect it's all finished now, and you can enjoy some well earned öl in the 'bar area' upstairs?

Matt

 

[BuickFarmer]

Well I must be Rip Van Winkle, how else would I have missed this. Subscribing now though, don't want to miss another update. You're doing some detailed and meticulous work so far, lots of engineering as you go and just DOING it. Love the line of doors across the front.
On and by the way, hope you had a Merry Christmas and the new year is great.

 

[plexxarn]

Alright, It's been time for an update for a while now.
Had a really busy autumn. Had to read up on the thread to see where I left off.

Here is the state of the barn at the time. In the picture I'm hanging some new gutters and removing the moss from the tiles.

The door layout of the barn will be changed from 3 1/2 to 2 big double doors. They will be 3m wide each (almost 10ft.) The current ones are all different sizes, unevenly spaced and too narrow. I hate narrow garage doors. And I will never be able to park and work on more than two cars since there will be no space between the cars with the current doors.

The rightmost 1.5 doors will be merged into one. That meant the post between the single door and the double door had to go. To make this possible I had to do some triangulation above the new door.

Door post foundation going away..

Back to the last third of the floor:

The forms, insulation and rebar is going in. I also put down some plastic pipes for electrical cables so I can have power in the lift pit.

Mixer is running, concrete is going in:

When I came to the pit form it started going downhill... I was stupid enough to fill the small space to the left between the old floor, and the pit form first. Vibrating it caused enough pressure to shift the form into a "banana shape" since there was nothing pushing on the form on the other side.

I had to try to push the form back with some jacks and planks and wathever I could find "MacGyver style" and also reinforce the form.
Don't underestimate the power of concrete density

Fortunatley It worked out pretty good, and when I had gotten concrete on the other side it stayed in place.

After some days it was a nice feeling to take off the forms and find this end result:

 

[rixtrix1]

Looks great. I could never mix concrete fast enough to make a continuous pour that big without it setting up too fast, but you definitely have the process down. Thanks for the update!

 

[1949 caddyman]

Just found this. Went through the whole thread, very nice job! I am suscribed.

 

[domecreek]

Wow, It is amazing that you did this with that little mixer - Should call it "The Little Mixer that Could . ' Job well done !

 

[Bib Overalls]

Happy to see you posting again. Interested in seeing how you weatherize that old barn. Can't imagine working in that place in January or February with the short wall boards and multitude of other openings.

 

[1/2 Cup]

Fantastic and progressing well, thanks for the update.

 

[Bib Overalls]

Are you alive?

 

[crawler07]

Your amazing with the concrete and the creative way you build the forms. Cant wait to see what you come up with next!

 

[NASMAN]

Really great job of saving an old barn. Love the fact that you have done it by yourself. I know how hard that can be. Also know how rewarding it is.
Missed this thread first time around, will subscribe now.
Keep posting the updates, please.

 

[rixtrix1]

Would like to see more of how you finished your barn, as would many other Garage Journal viewers. Hope you have time to respond.

 

[RuZleBiFf]

Nice job!!! I have been thinking about a scissor-lift in my garage, when i come around to pouring concrete in there.
Did you calculate the price on doing all the concrete-job yourself, compared to have a tryck come and dump it all in?
Here in norway, the price is about the same, and you can take of MANY hours of work by ordering a truck.

 

[pablo94sc]

I'm hoping he comes back with more updates!

 

[Andersen]

Nice job!!! I have been thinking about a scissor-lift in my garage, when i come around to pouring concrete in there.

Did you calculate the price on doing all the concrete-job yourself, compared to have a tryck come and dump it all in?

Here in norway, the price is about the same, and you can take of MANY hours of work by ordering a truck.

Here in Denmark I'm doing the same calculations at the moment and comes to the same result if you include a little salary for you (and your friends) when doing it on your own... I'm planning to call for a truck delivering the concrete.

Frank

 

[Nystad]

Gleder meg til å se mer hær!

 

[sqaurelizard]

brilliant build . nice to see some work been done by hand , I'm not that old (30) but I grew up in a house that had very little in the line of machines and have many time filled a cement mixer for days by hand, definitely a good work out (who needs a gym) dont mix any concrete myself anymore as its cheaper here to buy ready mix than to buy the raw materials

 

[Brunow]

Any update?

 

[dypen]

Impressive work, this will be great

 

[356vintage]

Nice re-build!

 

[pablo94sc]

Bump - hoping for updates!

 

[jimmie jam]

First of all, sir I have to hand it to you. You are definitely "the man"!

What an excellent thread on restoring an old barn and bringing it back to life. Your workmanship and skills are nothing less than perfection.
No sense in me saying the phrase "keep up the good work and progress" because I know that you will, so keep posting and updating and thank you so much for posting and sharing your experience on your restoration of that terrific looking outcome of your barn.

As like everyone else who has been following, I look forward to seeing the progress as well.

I could not agree more with Mr. Tool. The only word missing in this thread is "GANGSTER"... Desperately hoping for some update.

 

[Water Boy]

Updates?

 

[rixtrix1]

Re: The Swedish barn

Ditto. This is such a great thread. But, sometimes life bites and we get distracted or have to follow another road.

Sent from my SCH-I435 using Tapatalk

 

[spoonsports86]

its been for ever since i been on here. hope you post some more updates soon

 

[plexxarn]

Swedish Barn is back from the dead !
Sorry for the long wait, but I just haven't had that much inspiration for this thread, but I've still been busy with the barn so lots of things to show you guys!
We are now up to august 2012, and I had just finished the last third of the floor and it was finally time to drop the lift down into the pit and see if I had gotten everything right...

This is a heavy beast to move around. 450 kg..

But I got it in place and it fit just as planned in the pit.

It is compleyley below floor level so I can park, and lift cars with almost zero ground clearance

Here you can se the steel tracks I cast in to the floor that the steel rollers will run on:

After a little clean up the place is starting to get cosy

I then started to work on the door opening to be able to get a car in on the lift. It will be almost 3m wide, almost 10ft. The old post between the old double door, and the smaller door will be cut, and I joined the double doors together temporarily just to have something to close.

The beemer is ready for take-off

Here it is lifted, but not fully. It reaches a pretty decent height to work with suspension, and brakes etc. Also you can work on the body without any disturbing posts in the way.

Yopu can reach everything from the gearbox forward from underneath.
Only drawback with the scissor lift solution is if you want to wotk on the exhaust or propshaft I guess.

I'll try to keep the updates coming more frequently !

 

[xtremek]

Thx for the update. I know I speak for a lot of people that this is one of my favorite threads. (ok, I have a bunch of favorites, but still.... this in very good company)