Whats in your Garage

Hard to tell... whats the #10 car ??

My messy garage... parts laid out prior to installation.
Sent from my HTC Desire using Bimmer App

Here's my current stable. Had the garage built a few years ago. I spend a lot of time out there maintaining all the vehicles.

Originally Posted by Bennt771

Hard to tell... whats the #10 car ??

It's a mini. See the hinges.

Well it once had plenty of room in it (30' x 26') my car and who ever brings their's over for some wrench and beer time.
The wife's car gets moved outside.

None of you guys have an above ground lift? Best investment you can make for yourself.

Originally Posted by Bandem

None of you guys have an above ground lift? Best investment you can make for yourself.

Don't have the head room for one. Got a few friends that have them.

Originally Posted by JimLev

Well it once had plenty of room in it (30' x 26') my car and who ever brings their's over for some wrench and beer time.
The wife's car gets moved outside.

You let your friends drink your beer and use your garage? or do they bring the beer for letting them use your garage?

We make my Brother park his POS e34 back away from our cars


Mad Flow

Originally Posted by Bandem

None of you guys have an above ground lift? Best investment you can make for yourself.

in all fairness its my shop, not really my garage; but I can obviously go there whenever I want.

Originally Posted by Bandem

None of you guys have an above ground lift? Best investment you can make for yourself.

I have a Atlas scissor lift under the p-car. And your right, i couldent go without one now.

I have two garages, one has all my extra crap, and i can still fit one vehicle. One is for working on them.

Its to small though to really do a lot of stuff.

Originally Posted by hh3uunp

You let your friends drink your beer and use your garage? or do they bring the beer for letting them use your garage?

I use to have a "Garage Day" in the summer when a lot of BMW gear heads would show up to work on our cars, one guy (Chivas) came from NJ.
I'd cook burgers and dogs on the grille, some would bring beers, I had plenty of "extras" too, just in case.
We'd wrench on the cars and then go out to a local sports pub or British Beer Works after.
I'd help them with what ever they needed to do, it was just a day long get together with lots of guys that only knew each other by screen name on a few different BMW forums.
Some just came to meet the other guys and chew the fat.

So what's the deal with that clutch pic, side step the clutch at 5K RPM?
A little JB Weld and that thing should be good for another 100K, LOL.

Here's what's in one bay and the basement.

That's a tii project behind the blue car.

Originally Posted by fullthrottle540

unbelievable. You need to get it dirty so it looks like a garage and not like a kitchen!

Thanks. Most of the time, the space is reserved for my weekend car.



And there's a lot of functionality built into the place. In the picture up above, you can see that there are two workbenches on the left-side wall that fold down from the wall when a car isn't parked there.

There's also a lift that I built into the floor. Here's how much floorspace it eats up:



And here's what it does at the push of a button:



And yes, the shop does get pretty dirty.



But it cleans up quickly and easily, since there's a place for everything.

I made it all myself. The total budget for the cabinets, floor, benches and lift was under $3,500. In this picture, for example, I made the bench on the left by cutting a damaged Equipto cabinet in half and adding a blank drawer space by the vise what has my air reel in it (sideways). To the right of it is a tool chest I made by taking the good parts from two damaged Lista cabinets and welding them into one taller-than-stock cabinet. It did it in a way that would allow the drawers to come all the way out without contacting the steel bench you see just to the right.



There are ten workbenches in the place. And a few tons of steel cabinetry. You can take a tour of the place at the website I made for it: www.12-gaugegarage.com

Jack Olsen
1972 Porsche 911
2007 BMW 328i
1983 Jeep CJ7

How does the tile hold up ? Is it a "special " tile ?? I take it you cant put a jack on it. Thus the lift ?

The thing that makes tile strong is the way it's installed. People see the brittle stuff in their bathrooms and assume it's because tile is brittle. That's not the case. I have the cheapest, .59/sf ceramic tile Home Depot has. I have the basic thinset and the basic grout. I had never installed tile before I put this stuff in.

I jack the car up on it. I drop tools on it. I dragged those 800-pound cabinets across it. I've rolled a dressed 500+-pound engine over it perched on a floor jack. It's very strong because there are no voids between the tiles and the concrete below them.

Like concrete, tiles are very strong in compression but weak in tension. If there is space underneath a tile, it will likely crack. But if you install it without voids (which is so simple that this first-timer was able to do it), then it's very strong.

Here is a video clip I shot of me taking a 4-lb sledge hammer to the tiles. You can see the camera jumping from the impacts.

I dont understand "space" ?? What is different in how you installed it ?

Originally Posted by Jack Olsen

The plainest plain-vanilla BMW in my made-by-hand garage:

Looks great as always. I saw your place in the garage forum a while back.

Not as nice as the 12ga garage, but mostly built by me. The stand alone workbench was built by my grandpa and there are a couple crappy home depot cabinets. My total shelving budget and workbench budget was about $600. I don't have a recent picture of it being clean, so these are all a little dated.

In between the single and double garage doors is shelves for my winter tires.

I was refinishing the desk and it is now replaced by a metal cart with a miter saw on it.

There is a wheeled work bench under "Kyle's Workbench" The MDF also lifts up and some less used tools are stored inside it. Haven't found a place for the band saw yet...

The picture of the welder and air compressor was during construction. The hose runs into the crawl space and there is a reel that feeds out through the wall. Now there are sliding doors and a cover around the air hose.

The A6 is my old mans. I am still in college and rent a place, but I still get free reign of 1/3 of my parents garage.

Originally Posted by Bennt771

I dont understand "space" ?? What is different in how you installed it ?

He is referring to voids between the bottom of the tile and the cement floor.
If there is no thinset (~tile cement) that covers the complete bottom of the tile to the cement floor the tile can break.
I used an epoxy coating on my floor, very easy to keep clean.

Very nice garage Jack, same for your 911!
I couldn't get the link to work, bummer.

I don't see a beer fridge in any of you guys pics.

Originally Posted by JimLev

I use to have a "Garage Day" in the summer when a lot of BMW gear heads would show up to work on our cars, one guy (Chivas) came from NJ.
I'd cook burgers and dogs on the grille, some would bring beers, I had plenty of "extras" too, just in case.
We'd wrench on the cars and then go out to a local sports pub or British Beer Works after.
I'd help them with what ever they needed to do, it was just a day long get together with lots of guys that only knew each other by screen name on a few different BMW forums.
Some just came to meet the other guys and chew the fat.

So what's the deal with that clutch pic, side step the clutch at 5K RPM?
A little JB Weld and that thing should be good for another 100K, LOL.

I let my brother learn stick on my car. I love him to death but we were on the highway and he decided to go from 6th to 2nd instead of 6th to 4th. About a week later the clutch was slipping I knew it was gone, ordered the parts. I thought the car was still driveable and then it blew up and I drove home in 3rd.

I still need to wire my my spal fan to work in 2 stages.

Originally Posted by Jack Olsen

The plainest plain-vanilla BMW in my made-by-hand garage:

This garage looks very familiar to me, maybe Rennlist? With a 911 in it?

i would enjoy working on my car a lot more if i had jack's garage. nice!