Xti04's garage and projects

[Xti04]

Hi all, I finally decided to quit lurking and do a garage thread/project thread for my small home garage. I have been a mechanic for the last 15 years and just left my shop in February while I finish up nursing school. So my first priority was getting all my tools to fit in the garage which meant lots of cleaning and getting rid of stuff. I had to give away a really nice stainless steel welding table to make room for my boxes. The problem I have is any flat space will get clogged up with my projects and stuff that I lay down until its a huge mess. I have been slowly working at getting things to have a permanent home in the garage, as well as making everything accessible. I still do quite a bit of automotive work here as well as woodworking projects, restoring old tools and equipment and making sad attempts at learning to weld. So here are some basic pics of my shop and setup top pic is a shot of my generator setup, my table saw/router table is next to it behind the plywood. Next is my tool box cart and the cart in the back holds my small grizzly lathe and bench grinder. Underneath the milk crates on the shelves is a flip top cart I built which has my belt sander on top and my planer on the bottom. Over my catch all table is my woodworking board and clamp rack, table is in the process of getting cleared off and getting prepared for a new bench vise as soon as funds allow. The rest of the garage is taken up by my kids toys and my wifes car, so until I finish school next year I am stuck with this space until we add onto the garage. Its not pretty but its at least getting cleaned up as I go. Thanks for looking any comments are welcome!

 

[rixtrix1]

Welcome! Sounds like you're busy, but motivated. Keep letting us know of your progress!

 

[Xti04]

Thanks! Here are a couple of pics of todays quick and dirty project. I finally went back to my former employers shop and brought my welder home. In process of getting it here the carboard boxes holding my filler rods finally gave out. So a quick cut of a piece of 1 inch pvc and I had two rod holders. Nothing fancy but a fix for todays problem. I also received my generator to house cable and was able to shut down the incoming power to house and do a trial run with my generator. I am using a Lincoln ranger 8 welder generator for my house power setup currently and it works awesome! I was able to run most of my house off of the generator.pics of todays small victories

 

[Xti04]

Tonight project battery charging station [/URL
This was not what I started out to build, i wanted to make a storage and charging station for my deep cycle battery for my canoe, but somehow I got sidetracked and this is what I ended up with. Its attached to the wall with a french cleat which lets me have the ability to move it to other places in the shop that have cleats on the wall. Had to come up with a way to secure the two lower chargers since there were no keyholes on the back for securing it to the board. Turned out ok and kinda got me fired up to use my saw again.

 

[Culture]

That's a lot of chargers! I try to avoid cordless tools for this reason (however, you will have to take my cordless drill/driver and cordless impact driver from my cold, dead hands). I got tired of buying new batteries. I wish all the manufacturers would agree on a common battery format. This will never happen because it is good for us but bad for them.

 

[Xti04]

Would be nice to have a standard for batteries, the dewalt 3/8 impact would go for weeks on a charge and I used thatevery day when I was wrenching still. The snap on tools are both litiums and do ok, the big charger is for my 1/2 impact and the little one is a 1/4 bit driver. The ridgid stuff was home tools, they work well andhome depot sells the 4 amp hour batteries in a 2 pack at black friday for what a single dewalt battery costs so I have kept them around.

 

[Xti04]

Tonights project was to fix the mysterious overheating issue in an acura tsx. The dietitian from the hospital has been telling me about her car overheating in traffic and she has to turn the heat on. So I finally got her to drop it off and let me take a look at it. Opened the hood and this jumped out at me when I looked into the issue
So after fixing this and a quick check over and oil change this one is ready to hit the road again. Also took a few minutes to hang some coat hooks up for the wife. I took some oak boards from thwnscrap pile planed them off some and stained them and mounted them in the closet. Threw some hooks on them and made a happy wife!

 

[Xti04]

Busy day today, finally chopped up the sheet of plywood thats been in the way for months. This sheet is going to become a cabinet that will go at the top of our mud room locker setup I am building. Cut the sheet to make a top and bottom, as well as pueces for the face frame. Once I got the sheet down to a more manageable size, i tucked the scraps into the garage and went to cutting up some really nice walnut I got from a lumberyard out in the sticks. Cut the walnut into some strips for a cutting board, then cut some maple into 1/4 inch strips to give it some color. Got it all glued up and clamped. Once I let it setup overnight I can trim and plane it smooth. Then rout and sand it all before giving it all several coats of my board butter I make. Was nice to spend the day outside just tinkering and building. Went ahead while the table saw was pushed outside and blew all the sawdust off of the shelf under the table. Waiting for glue to dry is pretty boring so I pulled out my wifes car ( garage hog Audi A4 cabriolet) and gave it a good scrub. It had these tiny sticky black spots all over it from who knows what so once I got all of them scrubbed off of the paint, I grabbed the buffer and hit it with a nice coat of Meguiars sealer wax.

 

[RogueFab]

That is going to be a hell of a nice cutting board. I like how you admitted that you ended up with that (very nice I might add) cordless tool charging board when you planned to build something completely different. Haha

 

[Xti04]

Thanks for checkin out my projects. Today I lose my garage helper as he is going to start kindergarten today. His younger brother will still be home so I am spend the day with him and start on my mudroom build. I have to install shiplap backing, build a cabinet for the top, build a bench for the lower area, and an oak top for the bench.

 

[Xti04]

Took the boy to his first day of school and then came home and started into the mudroom build for my wife. Heres what I am starting with its riggt at the entrance from the garage and is off to the side of the hallway from the garage. I used some 2x4s to make a base for the bench, so that it will have a solid base. I ran all the 2x4s thru the table saw to get a nice flat edge on them. Then we found the studs and screwed it all to the wall. . Next up was the actual top, its made from red oak that I took off my property. We cut these trees down about 8 or 9 years ago and had a guy come out and saw it all into 1x10 boards. This stuff has a ton of character and i used it to build our bathroom vanities, tables and all kinds of stuff. It looks great, but isnt always perfect and thats part of what I like. I had a table top I had put together and abandoned so it will be the bench top. I cut another piece and ran it thru the router to put a roundover on it to use it as an edge. .next up was joining this to the top, so a coat of titebond and the clamps came out. Got it clamped up and shot some finish nails into it to hold it tight. . Now thats its all together I needed to use the tracksaw to cut it straight after drafting the angle of the wall onto the top. Only problem is I dont own a track saw. So I took a piece of mdf and ran it thru the table saw. Then i took the cut piece and glued and screwed it to the top of the other piece. Once it was dry, i ran the circular saw down it and now I have a ghetto track saw. The blade will ride right down the edge it sliced, so I just lay the edge of the mdf on my line and it works just like a tracksaw. . Now as soon as I get my kids back from swim practice, I will be able to cut the sides and get it to fit as good as I can. My plan is to have the bench top fitted and ready for sanding this afternoon so I can begin on the dividers for the lower portion under the bench. More coming up!

 

[Xti04]

Got back home this afternoon and got the bench top situated, had to trim it to clear the door casing. Took lots of tries to get it in and then I hit the next issue, the 2x4 was hitting the trim on the face . Grabbed the pull saw and notched out the corner . Next up was making faces for the plywood shelves that go undwr the bench. Used to tablesaw to cut these out to 3/4 to fit the plywood. . Last thing today was was getting it all test fitted and get the wife seal of approval. [/URL[URL=http://s1126.photobucket.com/user/zombieforce/media/footholds/20180813_204608.jpg.html] ]

 

[Xti04]

Todays score for the garage was an air hose reel! Going to mount it to the ceiling near the center of garage and planning to plumb it with copper pipe for air service. Also decided to do some major reorganization to get this place workable! Sick of not being able to do anything except drink beer out here!

 

[Xti04]

All sort of busy out in the shop. Friday night after work I got to do some major rearranging of equipment to the point that I can actually get a second car in the garage! Saturday was spent staining my bemchtop for the mud room, installing my new air hose reel on the ceiling, running a temp line to feed the hose reel and some cleaning in the garage. I also pickdd up a 4 ft power strip and angle grinder this morning to replace mine that got stolen while we were building the house. I was able to get my bench cleared off for about 5minutes before I started assembling some shelf units for this bench setup.

 

[rixtrix1]

Those weatherproof cooling fan connectors always seem to come apart, don't they. Makes one wonder who was under the hood last, and why? Nice projects. Must be very satisfying to use wood reclaimed from your own property! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Xti04]

@rixtrix1 the wood is nice to have and it works out pretty good for most projects. I dont plane it all the way to baby **** smooth so it still has some character. Only problem I have is there is so much that its starting to rot and go to waste.

 

[Xti04]

Need some help here boys! Installing this shiplap over my bench and I have a bowed piece thats probably a 1/4 high on one end. I went ahead and nailed it working my way down the board to keep it in place but here at the end i cant seem to get the end down. Any tips?heres a pic for reference

 

[Adittmer]

Adjusted the gap on how much the tongue is in the groove and it will work its self level after a few boards. You will not notice it after it’s all up.

Also sometimes the milking of those boards are not the same and you will run into this from time to time


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Xti04]

Thanks! I ended up pulling that one and using another piece there. It leveled out better and we are continuing up the wall! When I did my hardwood floors ( 3 houses worth) i could always staple or nail one end and beat it into submission and nail it as I go. This stuff is definitely not as forgiving. But its looking pretty good so far!

 

[Xti04]

Spent the whole day cutting wood for the mudroom walls, when I ran out of nails for the air nailer, I knocked off and went to home depot to grab some more and another coiple pieces of wood to finish up. While poking around in there I came across a dust collector mounted to a 5 gallon bucket. For 39 bucks I figured it was worth a try so I grabbed one and off I went. Setup was super fast and it seemed to work pretty good on my miter saw , but that thing throws dust everywhere so its hard to tell how effective it was. Plus the whole area was trashed from not having vac setup earlier in the day.


Cuttingnand coping this pine was definitely not my idea of a day off, but this is my last week of summer vacation before nursing school starts so I am trying to wrap up all my summer projects before I have to get back in school mode. Have a timing belt job lined up for later this week along with doing some sway bar links on the wifes pilot. Now I got holes to fill and sand and the worst part of this whole job which will be painting all of this mess.

 

[Xti04]

Knocked out a Honda v6 timing belt yesterday in the garage, as well as fixing the constant popping noise on my wifes car from her sway bar links. Thought I would show one of my special tools I use for the t belt job. Its a weighted socket that breaks loose the crank bolt. Before I had these sockets, you had to use a crank holder tool to hold the crank pulley and then break the bolt loose with a huge breaker bar. This was really hard to do when you dont have a lift like at my house. For the 40 bucks I spent on the socket, ita made me hundreds of dollars.

I also used my matco thread chaser kit to clean all the locktite out of the threads of the idler pulley bolts. I have seen these bolts break off before, not sure it is related to the locktite or improper torque or what. But after experiencing it personally, I always clean and lube the bolt before reinstalling it

All in all a pretty sucessful day in the garage. Also started on some storage to go above the man door that goes into the house. Going to use it to store camp chairs, outdoor seat cushions and other stuff that just needs up off the floor. The start of the shelving ,

 

[Xti04]

Started building a grinder/ buffer stand yesterday to help reduce some clutter in the garage. I drilled the mount plate for both machines so I can just swap out for which ever I need. Since using the buffer is not as common the grinder will most likely stay mounted there full time. I bought some 1/4 in plate, and then stopped off at my buddies shop and cut a drill rod in half to make the upright. The base will be a med duty truck rotor (about 16 in diameter). Had a hard time getting it welded up, at first I thought it was that I was just way out of practice. Today I found the issue. My torch lead has a cut in it allowing my shield gas out so there is no shield for my weld. Just one more shortcoming with my eastwood welder. I have a friend who deals with longevity welders and he says they are pretty much the same machine. K. I have him looking for a tor ch and an adjustable foot pedal since mine is just an on off switch. So intil I get the welder situation handled my project has idled to a halt.

 

[rixtrix1]

How about some more info on that "weighted" HONDA socket? In all my years as a tech, I've never heard of it. Anything that make the bolt removal easier would be a godsend.

 

[Xti04]

Mac tools sells it. Ingersoll rand also sells their version which is not near as nice or as heavy and is twice the price. I have them in 19 and 22mm for most honda and toyota applications. Paired with my Ingersoll titanium impact, these will remove almost any crank bolt I meet.

 

[rixtrix1]

Thanks! Makes a lot of sense. I wish I had known about it when I did retail work. I also use the 2135ti; great impact!

 

[Xti04]

Since I started school this week, garage time has been cut down considerably. But on the way home from class yesterday I stopped and picked up a retractable extension cord reel to stop me from tripping over the cords laying all over the floor. Having the air hose off the floor was so nice and now my cords will be too. Got a 40ft 12/3 cord reel since my table saw setup doesnt like skinny cords. Stuck it up next to air hose reel and plugged it up and gave it a quick check. Works perfect!

Later while cooking dinner we lost power at the house. Since it didnt immediately come back on, I figured this would be a perfect opportunity to pull out the mighty Lincoln and fire her up. Shut down the main breaker, turned off big power consumers, plugged in the genny and fired her up. Flipped the generator breaker and the house came back to life. This was a perfect excuse to run all the old gas out of the unit, which happened during our 3 hour outage. I filled it back up with 100% 93 octane treated with stabilizer so it will last longer. Hate to have to use 93 but thats all thats available around here without corn squeezins in it. This winters project is gonna be a muffler system for the generator to make it not so annoyingly loud. Last thing for the day was I took a few minutes to glue up another cutting board. These pieces have been sitting around for months waiting on me to decide on how I wanted the pattern to be. I found a piece of maple that I cut into 1/8 strips to separate the doubled up walnut pieces and thought it made it look nicer. I try to wait to get the planer out until I have enough stuff to run through it to make it worthwhile.

 

[Xti04]

Drug out the planer to clean up the cutting boards and some 6/4 red oak I bought for a table build earlier this year. One of the oak boards has a crack in the end so rather than leave it alone or cover it up I decided to dress it up with a walnut bowtie to hold it together. I dont have a band saw so I used my lil scroll saw to cut out a chunk of walnut and then I split it in half after cutting out the bowtie .
Next up i placed it on the oak and traced it out. Good sharp chisels come into play next and I started cutting out everythin inside the line

Once I got in about halfway I got lazy so I drilled a bunch of 1/8 in holes in the wood and then chiseled the rest out which made quick work of the remaining wood. I sanded the bottom corners off the bowtie to ensure it didnt catch when installing it hit it with some glue and pounded it into its new home. Since it was sitting about a 32nd proud of the oak I took my tiny detail plane and cut it flush.
Then a quick sanding got it totally flush with the oak. This was a pretty decent first try at this for me. I went ahead and gave the cutting boards agood sanding too so they would be ready to get cut up and reglued.
My wife wants to take them and sell them in her shop, but I dont feel like they are worthy of that. I hate trying to put a number on stuff I make. I would rather just give them away because they arent anything special to me and I dont feel like I could charge someone for something I built,but she is insistent that her clients would pay for stuff like this so I guess we will find out if this **** sells or not.

 

[Xti04]

Had to pull the car in today to check for a boost leak, while I didn't find a leak I did manage to find a pre turbo leak from the air inlet. Subaru uses a stupid plastic nose with a rubberized end to clamp over the turbo. I used to hate replacing these because the easiest way to remove it is to pull the intake. I skimped out last time and replaced it with another new stock tube instead of buying a quality silicone hose. Now it's time to pony up 200 plus dollars for a hose that I don't want to replace and adds no actual hp. Hate spending money on this damn car.

 

[Xti04]

These manifolds are kind of a pain to remove, everything is attached to the intake. The complete engine harness, fuel rails and crossover lines as well as most of the breather hoses all are attached to the manifold. It's not as bad as a plastic intake turbo subie,but still not something I like to tear apart. Hoping this hose will hold together until Christmas break when I can take it down and not need it to get back and forth to class. If you peek down into the blackness next to the kishimoto silicone hose , you can barely glimpse the inlet hose. If it weren't for smoke testers I would have never found the leak.

 

[Xti04]

Since school has started, I haven't been out to garage much except to roam around and polish on a few random items I have found while moving things around. I cleaned up this yale lock that was laying on a shelf, and a zippo lighter that was in my tool box.
But last night after 12 hour shift at the hospital I needed some time to decompress. So I took all the pieces I had cut for a cutting board and was getting ready to glue them up when I realized they weren't perfectly flat. So I glued them to a sheet of plywood and ran them thru the planer to smooth them out a bit more. Once both sides were flat(verified with a straightedge to be sure), I laid it out and glued it up.
Definitely the most productive thing I have done out here in a few weeks. Next up is starting some organizations of all my hardware and I have found some really good ideas from other members here,just have to find the time to put it togehter.

 

[Xti04]

Had some time after my test today to clean up the garage some and get everything situated for the weekend, used the dustopper to clean up all the sawdust on the floor from using the planer and miter saw this week. This thing is awesome! Wasn't sure if it would be as good as I hoped but it pulls strong and nothing as far as I can tell is getting into the vacuum. I think this has been a great under 50 dollar investment in the shop. Next thing g will be to get some longer hoses for it to give my self a bit more room to operate with.

 

[Xti04]

Had the day off so we loaded up and went to tour Brushy Mountain State penitentiary in petros, about 40 miles from the house. Normally I wouldn't have posted this but there was some amazing metal work there I wanted to show yall. I am always a bit envious when I see some of the guys here who have home plasma tables,waterjets, or mills that can shape metal at the touch of a button. What I saw today showed me just how far a man will go to kill another man.

This bed is almost a 1/4 inch thick steel and they had cut 2 shanks out of it. I spoke with a guard there who had worked there for years and he told me most of it was done with guitar strings. Next was the collection of confiscated shanks, Now I have seen some members on here who make some amazing knives but these guys are pretty creative, making anything they can just to protect themselves or inflict harm on snitches.
Next up was the identical sprayer I have used for years to spray brake clean at work only theirs has tear gas in it
Last but not least, the Tennessee gambler 500 is this weekend and the prison is home base for this rally. So for all the gearheads out there I have a couple of the cooler cars I saw there first up was this Yugo(yes a yugo) and then is a car I have always wanted but never owned, a civic wagovan!

 

[Xti04]

So my wife's convertible other than being in the way, is a constant reminder of how happy I am that I no longer work for the Audi dealer. Tonight I tackled a quick little project that I have been meaning to do for a while now. The seat backs in these cars were notorious for separating from the seats. The crappy glue they used would stay stuck to the backing but release from the plastic clips that clip to the seat frame. Back at the dealer we used to replace these seatbacks all the time, but they were really pricey and I never saw one where a glue could hold it together. So tonight I tried a glue called rhino glue, that I had ordered online for another project out on these clips. I roughed up the plastic on the sander, and applied the rhino glue to the seat back and applied the clip to it. Put a couple clamps on there to hold it tight and boom as good as new.


Installed the first back in the car and it went back together perfectly . Will see if this glue is as hard or as they say it is online

 

[Xti04]

So today the wife got me upstairs to do some cleaning and getting rid of some stuff the kids have outgrown,and I think I now have her on board with finishing out the room above the garage! This is over 500 sq ft of unfinished unconditioned space that I had pre wired when I built the house. So it's currently just storage for my camping gear and whatever else we toss up there. So after some clean up, I started running some cat 6 for cameras, and trying to finish up everything needed so that I can get this space insulated and finished this winter. I ran 2 lines today for the first two security cameras, I have to pick up a fish tape so I can run the rest of them later this week. Also have to grab a case of caulk and start.sealing up all the spaces up there. I am not sure how to tackle the insulation job, or what product would best work in this space so any ideas or opinions are appreciated. The sheetrock and the rest will be done by me, I may have my old neighbor do the sheetrock finishing just so I don't have g we t so dusty


Here are some pics from this morning before I started worki g on cleaning up. Next thing I knew my wife was up there and totally Into us finishing the space so I gotta strike while the iron is hot!

 

[QwikKotaTx]

Cool thread. Glad to see a garage in use and not for show. Mine is similar. A lot has been done in it but not a beauty queen. Can't wait to see that cutting board.

 

[Xti04]

Got a lift for the garage this past week. Went with a mid rise scissor lift, fit the budget, still allows the wife to get into the garage as well as whatever car I have on the lift, and is actually way more stable than I anticipated. I got mine from Aplus lifts. Its basically the same 6600 lb lift that titan sells, same warranty and everything. They were easy to work with and it arrived well packaged. Hardest part was getting it out of the truck by myself. I used an engine hoist, pulled it out halfway then sat it on jackstands. I then strapped to the other end and drove out from under it. Some quick jack work got the pallet onto the ground and in a few more minites I had it all apart. Easy to setup, painless to use, and stable even at full height. Have already made 300 dollars doing stuff that would have left me crawling on ground cursing.

 

[Xti04]