2 Car Garage - Thoughts on layout...

[KZJonny]

Good example. If the lauter pump is left on while mashing in, it’s not the end of the world, but it can make the morning harder than it needs to be!  But with all the noise going on, you often can't hear it running.

I’ve made this mistake once or twice over the years, so put this inside the grain mill. You need to look right at it to mash in, so you’ve gotta be in full zombie mode to be able to ignore that for a solid 15 minutes.

 

[m sprank]

You can do a quick check once it is operational.  Roof hits the stop bar, if you go that high and I doubt you will.  Your my height, not 6ft 6.  Most hoods barely go above roof line if fully open.  On a 4th gen LGT you have to go to MAX prop to get the hood that high, like when pulling the engine.  Once again, no reason to prop the hood at that angle when lifting for underneath work. 

So just be careful the first lift and check the clearance.  Hard to tell the roof pitch from the pix and where the hood would be as the roof line falls.  But, you might not have any real issues. 

It is helpful to have the hood open for jobs like a clutch replacement.  The light coming through makes it far easier to see and work. 

Edited July 13, 2023 by m sprank

[Max Capacity]

A label, funny, I remember years ago putting a label on the floor jack, "Wheelie Bar" after forgetting to on pin it before jacking up the front of the car.  LOL  My son still has that jack, and the sticker is still there.

[KZJonny]

It lives!!

[Max Capacity]

That looks great, good job.

[GearJamr]

Jealousy +1000

 

[KZJonny]

On 7/20/2023 at 10:44 AM, GearJamr said:

Jealousy +1000

 

Yeah man, thanks. Offer still stands if you need a better place than the driveway to do that 6MT swap.

Having gone through all this trouble to build a garage and install a lift, I've got a few initial thoughts on it that other might find useful. I think this will change over time, but we shall see.

- First, let's be serious, any kind of lift is great. My Quickjacks were 100x better than gettin my car onto axle stands and doing work on ramps. Serious work anyway.

 

The 2-post is already 1000x better than that, but it is not without flaws.. this is being fussy, but still. Not that none of these are flaws in the lift, but the operator/installer/guy who built the garage.

- In this amount of space, the assymetrical lift is a bit of a win/loss. Given the total amount of floor space in the garage, the layout really had to be the "narrow" configuration for the lift to allow the second bay to have any amount of useable space left. It DOES give you a little more room to open the doors, which is nice, but it also biases the car towards the back of the lift. Eg:the car does not sit in the middle, rather, more of the car is towards the rear of the lift. In my case, I get away with it because of the size of the LGT, and I still have just enough room to walk around the back comfortably and raise the car all the way to the top of the lift capacity without getting anyhere near the bump bar. The downside is that the "short" front arms are pretty close to one another when swung all the way "out". Specifically, there are only a few inches to spare between the lift arms and my tires when I back in. This is easily enough remedied by removing an arm or both with backing in something wider, but that's a minor hassle and it would be better not to have to. If anyone else was considering doing something like this is in a similar size space, I would strongly look at the differences in fitment between a Symmetrical And Asymmetrical lift for your space.

-Knowing what I do now, I might have gone with a symmetrical lift in hindsight, mainly to get me a more flexible workspace. However, I will be mainly working on my cars, and the GT is the biggest thing I own, or will ever likely own, so if it fits, pretty much anything else I plan on messing around with will. (I am currently planning to fix/retire/sell the OBW in favour of a cheap, gas efficient winter-beater. I just can't really justify the size/ fuel consumption of the old Outback any more for the one Christmas trip I take up into the frozen north each year. I am thinking a Toyota Echo/Yaris with some really good winter tires....)

- 22x26 is just enough space for a lift. Specifically depth. Even if the building was 24' deep, it would have been great. I suspect I will struggle a little getting my engine crane into and out of the space in front of the car, and doing it while it is on the lift will be extra annoying. I also hope to not be pulling the engine out all that often, but hey. Again this can be worked around by pushing, (not driving!!!) the car pretty much right up against the back wall, making space for the crane. Not the most efficient way to do it, but what do you do. I could probably have asked to build to those dimensions, or gone with 24x24 which is about the same total area, but this really was a better fit to my lot, and uses the yard space well. If you have the luxury of going larger, or course do it. There is no such thing as "My garage is too big..." But, I had enough of a fight with the city to even get this, so I'm just happy to have it. If you're going from scratch and have a larger lot than me, so maybe less hassle with paperwork (?), I would suggest that 24' of depth is better, but 22' is useable if you have to. You could do even 20' or so, but forget having space at the front and back of the car at the same time. It would be one or the other.

If you were willing to have just a single bay in the garage, then less than 26 wide would be fine too, but I wouldn't go an inch less than that if you want to have 2 cars side by side, and any amount of work space/ bench anywhere in there. No minivans or SUVs will ever be permitted into my garage, so again, no worries there. (Convertables are also not permitted, unless it is a Miata, with a hard top, they are acceptable....) 

 

My last thought on all of this is that a 10k lb lift is total and complete overkill for the space and my needs. If I were buying something today at todays costs I would choose something smaller and more specific to my needs. At the time, it made a lot more sense tho, since it was only marginally more money than a 7-8k lb floorplate lift and I was willing to accomodate it. Today, the cost is something like 30% more money than I paid, maybe more. I couldn't justify the extra spend if I was ordering today, but that would change from person to person of course. Just saying, a garage with 8' walls is going to be plenty high for most people and cost a lot less. If you do a cathedral ceiling instead of normal joists and an interior roof, you'll still end up with lots of room to work in, and could put in on the the smaller lifts.

 

Anyway, I would have put some photos of the OBW on the lift up, but it turns out on of the jack points is failing, so it looks like I'll be pulling off the cladding to see how bad the damage is, and doing some welding of patch metal before I put it back up on the lift for any length of time. (The things you learn about even your own car when you chuck it on a lift.!!)

Edited August 25, 2023 by KZJonny

[Max Capacity]

Can you get the front lift points under the frame and not the rocker on the OBW ? 

I think one thought about the shorter arms is to move the heavy part of the car back a little towards the post for safety.

[KZJonny]

1 hour ago, Max Capacity said:

Can you get the front lift points under the frame and not the rocker on the OBW ? 

I think one thought about the shorter arms is to move the heavy part of the car back a little towards the post for safety.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I can put the rear arms under where the trailing arms mount to the unibody. They should be fine to hold the weight of the rear while I patch up the jack point on the seam weld.

[JmP6889928]

Today is the first time I've even noticed your thread.  Garage looks great and while you lament some of the things about the lift, you'll not ever regret having it as it will make most of your life a lot better, and that's all we can hope for is to help "most" of anything we work on.  We'll never be able to get it all, so I think you did a great job on it, and I'm envious. 

My garage is beginning to tip over due to a neighbor's tree with the roots under the concrete so large it has one corner of the garage tipped up about 6", so if/when I get this handled with them (they live like pigs and they're assholes to boot, and if they don't agree to have the tree removed, I'm going to have every bit of branches that hang over my property removed plus the roots all removed, so if it falls on their house, I couldn't care less), I may be looking at having to knock down my garage and build new, and if I do, I'm going to see if I can get a permit to go tall so I can put in a 2 post hoist too.  I'm in the city limits, so I don't know if they'll let me, but right now my garage is 16x24 and if possible, I would even like to mezzanine above the second bay for storage and as long as I could lift on Quickjacks on that side and hoist on the other, I would be good to go.

Great job Pal.  Sure looks good to me.

[KZJonny]

14 minutes ago, JmP6889928 said:

Today is the first time I've even noticed your thread.  Garage looks great and while you lament some of the things about the lift, you'll not ever regret having it as it will make most of your life a lot better, and that's all we can hope for is to help "most" of anything we work on.  We'll never be able to get it all, so I think you did a great job on it, and I'm envious. 

My garage is beginning to tip over due to a neighbor's tree with the roots under the concrete so large it has one corner of the garage tipped up about 6", so if/when I get this handled with them (they live like pigs and they're assholes to boot, and if they don't agree to have the tree removed, I'm going to have every bit of branches that hang over my property removed plus the roots all removed, so if it falls on their house, I couldn't care less), I may be looking at having to knock down my garage and build new, and if I do, I'm going to see if I can get a permit to go tall so I can put in a 2 post hoist too.  I'm in the city limits, so I don't know if they'll let me, but right now my garage is 16x24 and if possible, I would even like to mezzanine above the second bay for storage and as long as I could lift on Quickjacks on that side and hoist on the other, I would be good to go.

Great job Pal.  Sure looks good to me.

Thanks John!

You've forgotten more about working on cars than I know, so if you figure it's a a job well done, I'll take that as a compliment. And for the record, your minivan would, grudgingly, be allowed in my garage if you ever needed it. Definitely better if you are heading past Niagara to bring the GT tho.

I also figured out the obvious solution to the short arms being too close together at the end of their swing... and I can hardly believe I didn't see it the first time... I'll take pictures to go along with the explanation shortly, now that I've had a little time to work in the garage, but in a nutshell, the arms swing all the way back, so that they are parallel to the long rear arms. That is to say that they are completely out of the straight path between the two post, giving you all kinds of room to back into the lift.

Spending too much time looking at users manuals and instructions sheets can temporarily blind you to the answer looking you straightin the eye sometimes. Hah!!

I am 100% inside the city limits as well, and at least in my municipality what you do inside your own shed is your business. I am sure you could rebuild on the existing footing and have no problems, but if you can sneak in a little larger and taller, whoooooboy! You're a bit of a drive, but if it came to it, we could always change plans and host the next ECM at your place contingent upon everyone bringing some demolition tools to take down that old garage, and help chop it up!

 

[KZJonny]

Framing inspection set for next week.

I don't have the money to put up siding or soffit and fascia this year, or any time soon even, so this is a good time to get that out of the way.

I've got some materials I can chip away at, and can do a bunch of the soffit work with leftover plywood from the rest of the building, just to keep animals out this winter, but definitely won't be covering it with vinyl or any such thing.

Should be able to put together some doors this weekend and hopefully get some extra hands to mount them. Winter isn't exactly coming right up, but Autumn rains are, and it will good to have the thing wind and water 'tight' before then. Also more resistant to animals. Don't need my wiring getting chewed up!

[Max Capacity]

For the animals, I use Tom Cat mouse blocks. They work great for keeping mouse's in check. I have the blocks all around the house, sheds, garage, basement, by the down spouts from gutters, and in the old F150

[KZJonny]

Messing about with fitting doors. Nothing fancy, but they’ll keep the weather out.

Need to at least get these ones hinged and working for the weekend and start on the other door. Got a brake job to do for a friend. Put away a couple more dollars towards paying for all this garbage. Hah!

[Max Capacity]

Those should work. I remember making something like those doors for the changes I made to an old barn...back in the early 1990's. The ones I made looked more like these. But this is a bought shed.

[KZJonny]

I'll probably put in some decorative cross bracing eventually, but given they are made of 3/4" plywood, there really isn't much opportinity for them to sag laterally. So, the zed bracing you often see on doors won't help, as it is meant to transfer weight towards the hinges.

I do wonder how they will hold for staying "flat" tho. Not really a problem, since I can always just pull them snug and secure them with some lock bolts or the like, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

For the moment I would be happy to have the building closed in and lockable, so I can leave my tool cart out overnight. I'm pretty good about keeping things tidy and all put back where it should be... but sometimes it's nice to be able to just stop in the middle of something, put the tools down and come pick them back up the next morning. (Or say whenever you've had time to chew on the gumption trap the stopped you a little, and are coming back to work on something with a clearer mind and open eyes.)

Edited September 13, 2023 by KZJonny

[Max Capacity]

The doors I built were from the T111 siding, which I installed on that side of the old barn. I made in 2x4 frame and attached the T111 to that. Those were fine some 20 years later. 

You can always make a 2x3 frame to attach to the inside if needed. Your going to really enjoy having it closed in.

[KZJonny]

On 9/13/2023 at 2:03 PM, Max Capacity said:

The doors I built were from the T111 siding, which I installed on that side of the old barn. I made in 2x4 frame and attached the T111 to that. Those were fine some 20 years later. 

You can always make a 2x3 frame to attach to the inside if needed. Your going to really enjoy having it closed in.

Just got everything buttoned up, with a couple of bolts on the inside and the man door deadbolt working. So… you could get in with the right tools, but that’s the same as any shed or garage.

Does feel good to lock it up and know that at least, it would take more than just pulling a door open to get in.

[GearJamr]

Ha, now you can get to work on your summer cars during the winter!  No more excuses. 

[KZJonny]

5 hours ago, GearJamr said:

Ha, now you can get to work on your summer cars during the winter!  No more excuses. 

Yeah….. not sure if that’s a good thing or not, in ways.

Sometimes I appreciate an excuse to be lazy. I suppose I’ve made my shop tho, so now I have to work in it.

[Max Capacity]

15 hours ago, KZJonny said:

Yeah….. not sure if that’s a good thing or not, in ways.

Sometimes I appreciate an excuse to be lazy. I suppose I’ve made my shop tho, so now I have to work in it.

Well, if you put a cot in there, you could sleep in it too LOL

[m sprank]

Or, you could just use it as excuse to hang out, drink beer and stare at your baby planning the springs adventures. 

I get amped up working too much. Sometimes letting my mind drift and getting not much accomplished is what I really need to see the path forward more clearly. 

[KZJonny]

11 hours ago, m sprank said:

Or, you could just use it as excuse to hang out, drink beer and stare at your baby planning the springs adventures. 

I get amped up working too much. Sometimes letting my mind drift and getting not much accomplished is what I really need to see the path forward more clearly. 

Agreed. It's good to have a plan and work it, but sometimes you gotta take that big picture look and see where things are heading... how it's going to shape up down the road.

 

No cot to put in the garage, but I went looking for, and found, the hand-woven hammock I bought from a street vendor in Bolivia years ago when I was backpacking around South America. Never used it, nevermind actually taken a nap, so I think I'll need to find some way to set up up, so I can sip a beer and stare at whatever car is currently being worked on.....

[RumblyXT]

Wow, talk about a project! Looks awesome dude. Congrats! 

[KZJonny]

Not a "worked on the building" update, more the realization that the building is fulfilling it's purpose, which feels good.

Had a friend by the other day who needed a place with (ideally) a lift so he could do some touch up welding on his exhaust system. First GT on the lift aside from mine.

Did a trans filter and flush on my buddies daughters car.

Helped my septuagenarian nieghbour with his broken window regulator. At least just got the window closed and taped in place for now until he can afford a new reg.

Did the head gaskets and a valve job on my OBW so it can be ready for winter and stop leaking everything everywhere.... Exhaust work tonight, hopefully. you can see right through the resonator from one side to the other...

 

So, aside from a place for me to hang out and fix my own shit, it is also already a place for friends and neighbours, and more than a few beers have been consumed in it. Hopefully the start of a good few long years of use.