Shed Floored

I took a break from all the interior stuff on NewOldHouse and got after the shed floor this past week. Today's brief post covers that.

Mid-Afternoon Update: my father's memorial is this Saturday (21-January) and the longer obituary was finally posted by the funeral home (here) this morning.

Holey Floor

finished floor

I've mentioned that the NewOldHouse came with a pair of chicken shacks. The one closer to the house was marked for storing tools and car parts until we can build a shop. The other one has been marked for gardening stuff, but it is in far worse shape. The garden shed has been left siting while I prep the tool shed for use. When I shot the interior of the house, I shot in the interior of the shed. While I was preparing for paint and afterwards I realized just how bad the front-most section of flooring was. I figured I could cut out the bad section and jam in some new wood.... I could replace the whole floor... or I could do both. I went with both.

Parts

We had to go to Home Depot for some other home repair stuff, so I got 3 pieces of treated 15/32" plywood (4 foot by 8 foot). These ran for about $60 each. I had the lumber guy trim off 7 inches off the long end, bringing it to 89". This is the distance between the base plates for the side exterior walls. Front-to-back, I needed to shave 7 inches too, but the lumber guy would not cut a couple inches off each board and I failed to get one shortened. So, with 3 pieces of 48" by 89" plywood, and the 48" by 7" cut-off bits we prepared for the floor work by setting the sheets inside the shed on an especially wet and windy winter afternoon.

Patch It Up

fixin a hole

There was an actual hole in the floor close to the door, so with a framing hammer I got whacking around the hole until I couldn't easily knock off dead floor. Then, I measured off 13.5" from the door and then 47.5" across to create a neat hole to patch. I cut the hole with a hand saw and then cleared 1/2" of the rotten wood under the baseplate. I still had to cut a small section out of the section of new material that was against the door, but the bits fit. To support them from below, I pulled a 2x4 from the scrap pile and set it into the hole, centered under what would be the thin gap between the patch boards. I attached it from above, with 1.5" long screws into the base plate and then into the solid flooring at the doorway. I had to section that 2x4 first so it would fit the hole and I used the cut-off along the inner edge to create a lip to set the inner patch board upon. Once solidly attached, I screwed the patch pieces in.

Floored

With the hole patched, I marked and drilled the hole for the off-door floor latch and then shifted to installing the full sheets. First, I swept the floor of the shed. I picked the one that looked nicest and set it closest to the doorway. With more 1.5" screws, I set the new material into place, held it down with my knee and set screws through. I measured off 16" spaces and continued until the first sheet was down. I repeated this process for the middle sheet, again, picking the next-nicest sheet. The last sheet needed to be trimmed 7", down to 41". I did this again with a handsaw. I would have used a powersaw at this point, but I lacked clamps, and did not want to mess it up. Once the panel was shortened, I marked where the center 2x4 in the rear wall was by setting the panel in place and drawing with a pencil. I marked the depth and then cut the rectangle out again with that handsaw. The panel fit pretty perfectly, and after another round with the power drill and 1.5" screws, there is a new floor in the toolshed.

back wall

Start to finish, this took me, maybe 6 hours, and a great deal of that was because I used the handsaw, and it was not terribly good. Still, I am very glad it is done and feel comfortable starting to move car parts and my rolling tool cabinets in there.

Thanks, as always, for following along-

Hammered Rims (part 3)

My last two posts on this topic have been epic, at least in terms of time consumed. Much like the floor replacement or the front end rebuild on the MG, the amount of time consumed really hasn't been captured. Still, today, I continue this Odyssey. When we left off, I had the front passenger-side (right) wheel removed. I had test-fit the new rim onto the hub and confirmed it fit properly.

Tires Mounted

Test fit

I'll start with some details around what I am installing. I picked up a set of 15" diameter XXR 533 rims. They are 6-1/2" wide with dual-mount options for 5x112 (fit older VW's like Hapy, Audi, Mercedes, some BMW's) and 5x115 (lots of GM's). For more complete lists, check wheel-size for 5x112 or for 5x115. Onto these rims, I had intended to install a set of highway all-season tires, like the Destination LE. I had looked at the BFGoodrich All Terrain KO and KO2 as well as the Yokohama Geolandar A/T G015 as on/off road alternatives. I had reservations about such aggressive tires, though. The bus is already loud. It was loud before I added the diesel engine to the point where it was like sitting in a shed during a windstorm with a lawnmower running in the far corner. Now, just trade out the lawnmower for a city bus. So, yeah, it's loud. Add road noise from the tires and its like something vibrating on the outside of the shed from the wind, adding a hum to the din.

After running various sizes through a spreadsheet, I determined that the Destination AT in 215/75R15 would fit the rims and fit the wheel wells. While they have deeper treads than a highway tire, they ride quieter, according to reviews and the Firestone guys. I like the extra tread for getting in and out of camping spots and festival grounds too.

hole saw'ing

So with the choice made, I had the Firestone guys mount the Destination A/T onto the XXR 533 rims. I had some chrome valve stems I picked up at a tire-shop closing sale a few years back, and asked the Firestone guys to use them, if they fit and held air. They did. So, once mounted, balanced and filled with air, I hauled them home in the wagon for another test fit.

Fitting
With only one free hub, I can only really test fit that one. Still, that is the rim which needs to be able to turn side-to-side, so it is arguably a more important test. I figured I could consider the straight-mount fit on the front as a rough-guess for the rear. The front was already on a jack stand, so slapping the new wheel/tire on was a simple process of raising the corner another few inches so I could get the wheel on. I fingered on a couple of the old nuts so the wheel was straight and wouldn't fall off. Then, I lowered the bus down until the wheel was holding the weight so I could verify the fit (and the spreadsheet). The tire tucks inside the front lip and rear (near the slider) very well. It appears closer to the front, but the overall arch of the wheel well is fairly consistent along the entire arc, and the tire fills the visual space without overwhelming it.... in my humble opinion.

what lies beneath

Next, I wanted to confirm steering movement. For this, I raised the front corner just a little bit, so some of the weight was on the jack. I didn't want to stress the crappy, barely-threaded lug nuts. I turned the steering wheel from lock to lock, checking how the tire set at each extreme multiple times. When turned such that the front of the tire was all the way inward (steering wheel turned left), the inner wheel wall does not touch anything, including the up-rated sway bar. The old 16" wheels rubbed a little bit there, evidenced by a highly polished strip on the outer edge of the upgraded front sway bar. The front-most edge of the tire, so the outer edge, was well clear of the front of the wheel well. The rear-most edge, so the inner edge, was very close to the rear wheel well, but it did not touch. I can't fit a finger between the tire and the rear well, though, so I will test again once all wheels are mounted, and I'll test with some weight in the front seat to see if compressing the springs matters.

More Rim Removal
With the one tire test fit success, I switched gears again. I put the new tires and wheels away, and put the rest of the bus back on jack stands. Once in the air, I removed the remaining lug nuts so I could start cutting with the 7/8" hole saw. In a marked contrast to the 2 days of cutting and sledge-hammering to get the first rim off, the other 3 rims were removed in about an hour in-total with the hole saw. Part of that is the bit, I think: a Hole-Dozer from Milwaukee Tools, and part of it was getting the smallest size I needed, allowing for the least amount of material to be removed. With each rim removal, I could see the broken-off stem from the lug nut and a little bit of aluminum rim left clinging to it. With a pair of channel-lock pliers, I was able to grab the leftovers and un-thread it from the stud. After a quick brush, the studs were ready for re-use.

Aw Nuts

So, this all started because I bought the doubly-wrong lug nuts 3 years ago. How doubly wrong? First, they had an extension on them that was supposed to help hold the rim firm, by running between the hole in the rim and the stud. I have since concluded that the shaft wasn't necessary, and helped create the jammed-on condition. That's wrong once. Wrong twice: they were made of cheap metal and the little extension broke off on every one of them. This time, I was very careful and confirmed after measuring multiple times with a digital caliper. The rim has a "conical seat". This is not the same as a stock rounded ball seat nor washered straight mag style. Because of the narrow hole, a thin "tuner" style nut was needed. There are many available, but I got a name brand set of nuts this time: KSP Performance. These have a 19mm wide shaft terminating at a nut diameter of 23mm. Unfortunately, these require a special tool for installing and removing the lug nuts, so I bought a set that delivered with 2 of them, planning to keep one in the tool box and one in the garage tool cabinet.

Rims On

destructo-tools

With the nuts sitting in a box to my side, I started installing wheels. First, the fronts. These were easy. Following the advice on the internet, I put a thin coating of copper anti-seize on the back of the rim. This should reduce the probability of the rim rusting / seizing to the hub. Most folks advise to coat the hub or rotor of drum, but since these rims are universal fit with a second set of holes, I didn't want the copper showing through the unused holes, so I painted on the rim. Once applied, the rim easily popped on, and the lug nuts threaded right on. Once hand tight, I moved to the rear. I inspected and adjusted the drums, but I'll post on that another time. To get the rear rims on, I needed to get the back end pretty fair into the air and then raise/lower the drum with a floor jack on the lower shock mount. The drum had to be low enough to tip the top of the wheel under the lip, then, I raised the drum so I could slide the bottom of the wheel under the drum, and align the studs with the holes. Like the fronts, the wheel fit the studs and the nuts tightened by hand easily.

Tight Fit
With the wheels on the hubs, and the lug nuts tightened by hand, I was ready to drop the bus and torque the nuts down. This represented the final fit test. I knew the fronts were good so I lowered that end first. Check. No binding, nothing touching, nor even close. Next, I lowered the rear, driver side first. To get it off the jack stand, I raised it up by the lower shock mount. This slowly compresses the shock so the wheel presses into the wheel well. By doing this, I could see how the wheel would behave through its entire motion. It never touches anything: suspension, nor lip... but it gets super close to the lip. I can barely get a finger between the rubber and the lip, but it never touches. Boo even jumped up and down on the rear bumper to prove it.

We concluded the effort with a test drive around the neighborhood. We took the same loop I always test the cars on, and Hapy was fantastic. These tires are quieter than the worn-down 16" ones he had, even though the tread is much more aggressive. With all of the steering work I did last fall, he handles very well, allowing me to drive over 100' without a hand on the wheel. That would have been impossible a year ago. When we returned, I checked the tires for wear spots. I couldn't find any. So, I conclude that this mash-up of parts is a winner:

15" XXR 533 rims (less than $100US each)
Destination A/T 215/75R15 tires (about $125US each including mounting, balancing and warranty)
KSP 14mm 1.5 thread-pitch (conical seat, 51mm long, tuner-style thin) lug nuts. Slightly shorter (40mm) would have fit.

Tires any larger would have rubbed and died prematurely. That's it for this saga. Thanks, as always for following along.