30 Minutes a day in the shop/garage

Yesterday I spent most of the day in the shop. Those updates will be in the lathe thread this evening. Mostly pulling heavy parts and cleaning them.

Today I'll probably put at least a half day in there. 

I like this concept and have been trying to do "something" every day, either on the Audi in the garage, or other projects. As a way to avoid fabricating brake lines, I spent my garage time yesterday clearing a space on my work table big enough to lay out the angle iron I'm using as a frame for a rain barrel stand, and fired up my MIG welder for the first time in over 10 years and started to tack it together. Felt good to melt metal again and am looking forward to more today...

Don't be afraid of the brake lines!  Just don't forget to put the nut on first.  
 

In reply to jfryjfry (Forum Supporter) :

I'm not afraid of them, I just don't like doing them. I need to update my build thread on this car... started as just an upgrade to braided stainless flexible lines, but everything was so rusted together it turned into a "need to cut and build new hard lines" job

Day 6.

A bit more cleaning up and finding homes for things. And I did a project!  That meant my 30 min turned into about an hour and a half.

I've been wanting to hang my shop radio for years. Finally did it. Although in the future I may end up replacing this radio with one with a remote since I can't really reach the switch/volume knob. Nor can I reach/see the tuner.  And despite having a digital tuner, the reception on this radio kinda sucks.

And most importantly, I put away all of the tools used. 

I found a bit of off-cut stair tread left over from a previous project that was a couple of inches shorter than I would have liked. So I traced the feet of the radio onto the wood and chiseled out recesses that locks the radio onto the shelf.  

Now with the radio out of the way, I can start working on cleaning off the tops of the Gladiator cabinets.

My 30 minutes, or more like two hours due to having to be quite and not use any power tools, involved disassembling my old block to get be able to lift it out of my truck bed by myself since I don't have a cherry picker.

Crank and block are in excellent shape (motor only had a hair over 100K miles when the timing chain guide let go and some valves decided to try out a new dance move that they just didn't have the flexibility for). Minus the bent valves, the heads are actually in good shape too, and surprisingly, not much harm was done to any pistons that did make contact with the valves. I'm debating on rebuilding the whole thing and keeping it as a spare, setting valuable parts aside and doing something interesting with the block, or just storing it all until I get an actual shop where I can get a stand and do some real work.

Day 1 of actually organizing the small space I have. 
From the quarantine thread I had built a new rolling workbench. Today was the attempt to put it in its proper place. Of course that couldn't happen without drama. Push it out of the garage to clean out the space and turn it around, went to put it back in after just a quick cleaning and one of the casters fell off. Quick trip to rural king for different lag screws and a lift from the floor jack, it got fixed and put into place. Started to actually clean up all of the loose tie downs that I could find, that would be 8 on top of the 4 still in the packages. Ugh....

Starting point after some initial cleanup:

Having to fix the damn thing:

End point for today:

This is after Day 2, yesterday. Chopped up old workbench, got the 914 on the car dollies, tucked some wiring up from the lights. Heck, I can walk 3/4 around the 914 now! I quit when I did not have some wood screws for the air hose reel mounting. That is todays project.

Today's hour was spent cleaning lathe parts. I'm pretty sure that's going to take up quite a few hours over the next week or so. 

Yesterday I added outlets and Pyro pulled the last of the old romex wiring down. So all my electrical is protected and encased in metal. 

Tonight I cleaned my welder, checked the rectifier and plugged it up. Wire feed works, didn't make sparks though.

Sealed around my new workbench edge with black silicone. Tomorrow I'll paint the frame black.

I am worried that I have a problem.  I can't stop cleaning and organizing. 

Day 4: Cleaning up from garage door install (I'm messy)

Day 5: hung 2 more lights, installed 1 more ceiling panel.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

This is a good plan.  If I may modify the Hemmings suggestion of "no more, no less" slightly- if you're on a roll with less than 10 minutes to go, turn that timer off and keep getting E36 M3 done.

But don't use that as an excuse not to do the 30 minutes the next day!

(At least that is how my brain would justify it)

In reply to Bent-Valve (FS) :

I need to replace a lot of bare romex in my garage, although I'll probably use MC cable instead of wire in conduit.

Day 7

Spent mostly cleaning off the tops of the Gladiator cabinets (more stuff put or thrown away).  Uncovered a lot of hardware in store packaging, so a bit of the time was spent getting those into the newly hung hardware bins. My "timer" was a Mettalica concert from 1983 when they were touring for Kill 'em All so it ended up over 30 min.  A lot of time is spent figuring out where some random item can actually "live" if I don't want to toss it. 

The non-functioning blast cabinet (that I got for free) is really starting to annoy me with being in the way, so it will probably go to the curb tonight.

Day 8.1

Spent some time during lunch out in the garage and with the MINI.  I finally bought a compact spare for the MINI, so I can unload the huge 17" R55 (Clubman) JCW wheel I acquired as a spare a few years ago from a club buddy.  It took up a lot of space in the car whereas when I wanted to carry it, whereas a compact spare can be squeezed behind the driver's seat and left there more or less permanently (especially after I talk my ex- into making a storage bag for it).  So I offered the JCW wheel back to the club and the previous owner wanted it back for sentimental reasons - after he sold the car 5 or 6 years ago, it caught fire a couple of years ago and was a total loss.  So the wheel I have is literally the only thing left from the car.

I also put away a few more random bits - like the rear seat floor mats that were on the floor and not back in the MINI where they belong. And finally unloaded the VW wheels out of the MINI that I'd taken up for Nonack to test fit on the FRS. 

Technically, I put 30 min in, but I'll probably do some more after work since it's windy as freakin' hell around here right now, so going for a ride wouldn't be safe.

Not keeping track of the days, as there are in house projects, too, but I'm pretty pleased with the wire routing and the LED lights. 

Day 4 for me wes just picking stuff up a bit and getting it to where it belongs-ish. Then I tooled up to go take the interior out of the LeMons car.

Anyone have a clever way to hang/store a Quick Jack?

In reply to preach :

Why does your shop floor look like it has a serial killer pit below it?

Got all the rockers off, pushrods out, waterpump, and belts off V.  One more triple check that she is at TDC and off comes the crank pulled to do the new cam and then hopefully back together.  

Given the smaller base circle of the new cam it appears I guessed right on the new pushrod length.  

Only negative is two of my 1yr old plug wires came apart on dissassembly.  I think they may have been cooked by the headers despite their heat safe covers.

Day 8.2

While waiting for the JCW wheel to get picked up, I continued cleaning some stuff up.   The area under the GT6 is almost clear, although I didn't make as much progress on the bench area as I would have liked.  But it was good to get my 30 min in during lunch instead of working or surfing the web like I typically do.

At some point, my "30 Min in the Garage" will expand into "30 Min in the Garage/Basement/Attic/Shed" since I have car parts scattered all over the house. 

Tonight, I made someone an offer to sell them my air compressor. That's a big thing for me - I don't usually let tools go. But I bought it in a very different stage in my life and I'm unlikely to be doing major body work and painting any time soon. It's a monster 80 gallon two stage and I just don't need it any more. It's still kind of hard to think about selling it. I don't know why. I wouldn't have even considered it except it's to my brother and he'll put it to good use. I think it was my first "real shop" tool and I've had it for close to 20 years. 
 

That'll be a big chunk of floor real estate cleared up. That was my 30 minutes today. 

Day 6: Repaired and then delivered my FIL's generator that has been in my garage for about 2.5 years.  

Yesterday I took care of some of my shop seating problems. 

Number one on the list was a seat for the parts washer. The parts washer is just low enough that it kills my back to spend an hour standing at it. Enter a new shop chair from Northern Tool. It worked perfectly for the hour or so I spent cleaning lathe parts. 

Next on the hit list was my rolling stool. I've had a couple of these over the years. They all have crappy little casters. The current stool is nice and sturdy, but two of the five castors had already broken. I picked up 4, 200# casters at NT while I was there. The new casters are plate mount instead of post mount. A couple of pieces of flat bar and a welder solved the problem. It rolls better than it did when it was new. 

Total shop time was about two hours, an hour of which was spent cleaning lathe parts. Progress is being made!!

NOHOME said:

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

I would find that very demoralizing if it were my shop. The "ownership of projects keeping me from working on projects" is a vicious cycle. Hence the root of my one "project" car, one "toy driver" and one "go to work" car. I become overwhelmed otherwise.

 I want to start a new project, so something has to shift....You need an MGB GT to add to that "Collection"? figure if I keep asking you will bite someday!

 

Pete, sent yu a PM

Day 9.1

Lunchtime was spent getting wheels of the Jetta wagon parts car swapped over to the old steel snow tire wheels from the TDI.  Then I'll take those wheels up to Nonack tomorrow.  As nice as cordless impact guns are, it was nice to have a reason to get the air gun out for this task - since the parts car tires needed air before I could jack the car up.  An IR 2135ti makes short work of lug bolts that haven't been touched in many years.

This project pertains to the "other areas" I alluded to yesterday - this "garage project" gets 4 wheels/tires out of my basement.  The TDI may get the OE Monterey wheels reinstalled as well so I can sell the 16" BBS RXII's, which "should" be easier to unload than the boring and ugly 15" wheels.  Or (more likely) I'll say "berk it..." and just put the Montereys in the back of the parts car for the next owner of the two wagons.

Another project in the works. Once the Gladiator cabinets are clear, I'll put the drill press back up there and try to fix the loose chuck (visible under the TDI in the picture quoted above).  I found an old thread I started on Garage Journal years ago about the issue and one guy posted a method of baking the chuck to 350 in an oven and then pushing it back on the arbor.  Seems worth one last shot as I'd like to have a functional drill press again.  For one, I'd like to finally complete the MINI R50/53 MFE service extenders I started making nearly a decade ago.

Day 5 for me. No shop work but I ripped out the seats and some of the trim on the Lemons beetle. It was gross.