Entrenched

It's been a couple of months, and busy ones at that, so today's post will be a bit of a mish-mash covering the highlights.

 

Farm House Fireplace

fireplace surround primed

First, I am realizing that I never posted on our idea to change a blank wall in our living room to have a fireplace. We live on a street with overhead power lines, and we lose power once or twice a winter to ice and wind. We sourced a (Valon H5) gas fireplace and had it installed against and in the middle of that wall in March or April. Being near the end of the cold season, we only fired it up a couple of times. It does not have a fan, so we will be covered in an electrical outage, but we were impressed with how much heat it produces at a low setting and how far from the unit you can feel the warmth.

 

After absorbing that cost, we got our contractor friend, Ray, to do the side job of putting some kind of built-in around it. He did that work a day here and a day there, ultimately finishing at the end of July. I spent this last weekend doing the paint prep and brushing on a coat of primer. I expect to return to that work in a couple of weeks, sanding the primer fixing all the little holes and such that I missed and then applying more paint.

 

Shop Progress

closest thing to "before" image

In an inspired moment in late-July, I emptied the black rolling tool cabinet, pulled it across my hard-as-a-rock clay backyard and into the shop. Once there, I vacuumed it out, Armor-All cleaned it, set it in place and then returned its contents. That represented the last of the things that needed to move. I since have worked through most of the heap, putting like things together on shelving.

 

Electric Hum

While Ray was working on the built in, we noticed that our main electrical panel would hum when his air compressor fired up. We thought that was probably not good and showed him. He agreed and soon we had his go-to electricians over to see what we had going on. The humming breaker ought to have flipped, not hummed. So, soon we were getting the main panel replaced and some outlets fixed and some other lighting things solved. Once we were in that deep, Boo asked them what the incremental cost would be to running electricity out to the shop. Love her. They made us a great deal ($1600US for an active circuit, 60-amp sub-panel wired from the main through conduit in the trench), but the numbers hinged on the trench being dug, and the work starting about a week later.

 

Trenching

cave-in at the turn

This is the lead-in that found me running a 24" trencher on a Monday morning. The weekend before I had cleared all the mulch and other undergrowth, shrubs, etc along the approximate 100' path. I also needed to hand-trench around the french drain I had installed around the shop last summer. Once cleared, I marked the future trench line with spray paint. I rented a trencher from HomeDespot, not because I love that store, but because they had the best-by-far price (like half what everyone else offered) and they would deliver /pick up. So, with that trencher, I dug 100' of 24" deep trench. Considering how many Holly trees, wild roses and other things we have found in this yard, I was prepared for a long difficult day.

 

The trenching started difficult enough. I thought I would do the line from the garage down to the 90* turn south first. That meant starting the trench up against the garage where I found the first foot below the surface was bricks and chunks of concrete. Fortunately, once I was able to get that cleared, the rest of that east-running line was uneventful. I got as far east as I could go, setting my back up to the neighbor's fence and then wrestled the machine to face north. These trenchers do not turn at all easily, you have to muscle them by lifting and shoving. So, once facing north, I started trenching southward, leaning and pushing west to offset the slight pitch of the yard.

 

future trench line

The next 40 or so feet (almost 15 meters) were efficient. I did not hit big roots until I got to the apple tree just outside the shop's main door. Even then, I only need the sawzall to cut a pair of thick roots. The trencher took care of the rest. Once I got to the 90* turn west to get to the shop wall, I wrestled the machine so I was facing west, moved it up to hand-trenched section and ran it east until I hit the fence. Similar to the other end of the long trench, I could not connect the big trench with the shorter sections without trenching in both directions. This meant wresting the machine over a trench at some point. Inevitably, those moves caused cave-ins. Still, the main trench work was completed, so I ran the trencher out to where it was dropped off at the start of the rental and hosed it off.

 

After work on Tuesday, I was out at the trench with a disposable plastic "go food" container, hand scooping out the cave-ins. I discovered that my last "cave in" was actually an incomplete trench where it turned 90* south near the garage (see 3rd picture from the top). I had to finish that trench by hand. It was at that point that I really appreciated the trencher. The clay soil in the backyard is as hard as a rock at this time of year. So just clearing less than a foot deep, maybe 18" long trench was a considerable effort. I was already beat-to-shit from wrestling a trencher in nearly 90*F (32*C) heat the day before and Tuesday was just as hot.

 

black "rollie" in the shop

We passed inspection for the trench this week. So, I will be filling the trench back in and then I will be able to move cars in and out of the shop again. While I did not plan to lose access to the shop this summer, I am so grateful for having electricity, even if it is just a sub-panel with no outlets nor circuits. We will be that much closer to having lights without depending on a partially buried 100 foot extension cord running from the old garage. And, once the trench is filled back in, I only would have had the path blocked for maybe a month.

 

We had a different inspector than we have had with our other inspections. This guy was a bit of a hard-ass relative to the others and inauthentic. I only bring that up because what he said to me and what he put into his report were not the same. He said everything was good except he needed some detail around a ground for the water heater (which wasn't in the scope of the work, but whatever). The report identified a bunch of other things that he never mentioned and were also outside the scope of the work performed. Needless to say, I'm unimpressed and hope he doesn't inspect anything around here again. I would have no reason to trust what he says, and expect him to add things to his report after leaving, including things which may have nothing to do with what's within the scope of the permit. Inauthentic sucks.

 

Wrap 

This got long, and I never got to any car stories. There are a few. I'll post on them, and whatever new ones happen, next time. Thanks, as always, for following along-

More Moving

Today's post follows the last one, sort of. Today I focus on moving stuff basically from one storage location (the attached carriage-house-sized one-car garage) to another (the tool shed or the shop floor). In re-reading it, there is really a lot of history context with some moving stuff mixed in.

 

But First 

most empty since 2022

Before I get into it, I understand that a blog about fixing cars really ought to, you know, talk about fixing cars sometimes. I get it. I really do. I like working on cars, and when I have time, space and a car that needs fixing, that's how I prefer to spend time. Over the past 2 years, I have spent a great deal of time focusing on creating the space for that to happen. In light of that, I think it is worth noting that I understand the economic space many of us are in. Costs for everything seem to climb more every day while our respective salaries and wages are flat. Affordability may be a catch-phrase for politicians, but for the rest of us its a daily life reality.

 

When I look back on the last year of posts talking about getting a shop built, I recognize how tone-deaf much of that must feel to those in real financial difficulty. I totally understand that. Please consider that I started this before the election in November of 2024 and had committed to $22k of steel building before the tariff wars started in 2025 and had the concrete poured, building installed and the doors started before trump attacked Iran this year, sending our fragile economy skidding into the ditch. I had already started down a path which could not be easily changed before things got really bad.

 

Now, Boo and I are in the same financial binds as most of the US: income flat, outflow increasing. Accordingly, I will not be getting any new-to-me cars/projects nor really invest much in fancy new after-market parts to install on any of the ones I have. What does this mean for a blog about fixing cars? Well, it kinda means that I won't be posting as often and when I do it will be more about repairs than about some new thing except for the parts and bits I collected before we bought the farmhouse in 2022. I have boxes of interesting things that I never got to, like a 2-1/2" universal exhaust kit for the bus, a 3rd brake light idea for the bus (from junkyard parts), a trailer wiring package to go with the tow hitch, etc. So, there will be things. And, of course, I still have the locked up engine on Nina ('64/'65 Beetle) to free, a bunch of little things to finish on Oliver ('78 MGB) and a disassembled '79 280zx (Zed) to put together. Most of that work would require very little in terms of parts.

 

Garage

acquisition day 2022

This 1948 farmhouse has what I would call a carriage-house style attached garage. I say that because only the smallest of cars could possibly fit with the door closed. Oliver, the MGB, could fit. Astra and Nina could fit. That's the end of the list. Hapy is too tall and probably too long. The XRunner is definitely too long. I think even Zed is too long. Further complicating the garage is a fixed work bench along the rear wall that protrudes almost a full meter off the wall and the laundry machines near the front, narrowing at least the feel of the width of the space. I think Astra will still fit, but it will need to be mostly empty.

 

Shortly after we bought the house, before we had meaningfully cleaned anything, Boo and I scored a solid wood, full kitchen's worth of era-correct cabinets from the rebuilding center for $420US. The rebuilding center is not a store room; quite the opposite. Everything you buy must leave the store that day or it's theirs again. So, we lasso'd Boo's ex-husband (and his mini van) and some helpers (our local kids) and ran all of the cabinets over to the farmhouse. And slammed them into the garage on top of one another. The fate of that garage had been written the day we bought it: it would be the staging area for building supplies until the house was livable. Those cabinets were the first but far from the last. And then it continued to be the store room for all kinds of things. Until now.

 

farmhouse at winter solstice

With the shop taking all car-related stuff and car-related tools, almost a third of the stuff in the garage was moved. Over the last weekend in May, I moved everything home-repair related out to the now empty and clean tool shed. That represented almost another third of the stuff that used to be in the garage. As I cleared an area of things, I shop-vac'd all the dust bunnies and old cobwebby string-things. What remains in the garage are camping gear, ski gear, holiday decorations and household goods storage. The rafters are still full of lumber. So, I have to clear that to somewhere and then there is a bunch more vacuuming of ick. I have a couple of extra kitchen cabinets which need to move to the shop and I still have the big black rolling cabinet that needs to move too. Once those three big items move, we can park Astra in there. Boo had been gone for the weekend, baby-sitting our little grand-niece (A) while her mama was at a wedding. When she returned and saw the garage space, she immediately started envisioning a project space for herself. I love that, and if we do it right, we can still move things around and park her car in there between projects.

 

Car Stuff

There has been some car stuff, though. Hapy is my "daily driver" again, getting me to and from a show with Brenda on Sunday. Astra, now that her alternator is keeping her all charged and start-able has started complaining about her power steering. It is making a low hum most of the time and actual turning has gotten harder at the extreme edges of the range. I checked fluid (nothing on the stick: that's bad) and topped it off. I expect one of the rubber hoses is failing so I will need to do a deeper diagnosis this weekend. For now, though, the added fluid appeared to quiet the hum a little bit and the steering is better until the last bit. It could resolve as the air works its way out the hoses, but I think there is an active leak so it will only get worse before I find and fix. Work on Saturday! Yeay!

 

Wrap up

Yep, that was an unusual post. There is a considerable amount of economic uncertainty around us. For some, it is the loss of discretionary spending while others are dealing with food or even housing scarcity. We all can feel some foundational insecurity, maybe while filling your tank or grocery cart, paying utility bills or thinking about how to keep your kids safe this summer. I see it in faces. Fewer smiles, more worry-lines. It is a hard time for most of us. So please, let that person pull in front of you, give everyone a little grace. Grace is free. So are hugs and smiles and waves. Everything else seems to be more expensive than it was yesterday and the shorter-term future looks like it will be more of the same.

Thanks, as always, for following along-

Moving Into Shop

It has been a busy couple of weeks spent mostly moving stuff from the tool shed into a big heap at the front of the shop. I did get to wrench on Boo's car, Astra, though. Today's post is mostly about Astra, but the pictures show the move of stuff as I didn't get my phone out to take pictures of Astra's alternator replacement.

 

Weather the Weather

shop heap

One of the best parts about living in the Pacific Northwest are these incredible spring days. When I first moved here decades ago, we would enjoy what I called "the weather donut hole" in April. It was a short, maybe 2 week period, when the rains stopped and we got these just gorgeous sunny days. Then, we would descend into another 2-1/2 months of rain until July 5th. Through the wonder of climate change, our spring weather donut hole has grown. Maybe 10 years ago, it would last most of April. As recently as 2 years ago, the donut hole never closed, and we did not get much more than 2 or 3 days of rain a few times before the summer dry season hit. This year is looking more like 2 years ago did, with mostly clear and dry days with a few passing rains to knock the pollen out of the air. While I worry about summer fire season, we make the most of these below 25*C (80*F) sunny days with daylight lasting until 9PM.

 

So, with that backdrop, I had a meaningful car repair to get after.

 

Astra's Backstory

Boo replacing Dude's starter

Well before I met her, Boo used to drive an Opel Kadett. Always generous, she let some friend use it and never saw it again. Years later, when I met her, she was driving a gold Saturn sedan (named "Dude"). She loved that car, doing everything she could to keep it on the road. Again, a friend of my dad needed a car for a while. This friend was running errands for the less-physically able in my parent's building, so she loaned him Dude. It was stolen, and when it was recovered by the police, the ignition and steering column were destroyed. With considerable sadness, she let the car go to police impound auction. She had owned Dude for 18 years.

 

Fast forward a few years and I'm driving along and find myself behind a 4 door hatchback with a Saturn symbol on it. At the next red light, I snapped a picture of it and sent it to her. We were in the market for a new car after the GoRo disaster and had been talking about a Mazda3 or maybe a small SUV. The Saturn appeared to be an intersection of her appreciation of the looks, lines, mileage and size of the Mazda3 with her love for Saturn. I started investigating and learned that the Astra was built with Stellantis/Vauxhall, owner of Opel and original manufacturer of the Kadett. In fact, the Kadett evolved into the Astra. So, the Astra was really an intersection of her beloved Saturn, her equally beloved Opel Kadett and her appreciation of the Mazda3. Of course, now I had to find one. The Saturn Astra was only available in the states for 2 years (2008 and 2009), and not many were sold. We lucked into one outside Salem for literally $2kUS and after applying another $1k of repairs and tires, it has been a fantastic family member.

 

tool shed "empty"

She is not without her issues, though. Sometimes she does not want to downshift and just groans in a too-high gear. This is reset with a restart, but that's not easy in traffic. Over the last 18 months, though, the battery had been not charging enough on shorter drives to start again. She priced having someone replace the alternator, after having it checked, and the $800 price tag lead us instead to get a jump pack to jump start her when she didn't want to start on her own. This lasted over a year until a couple of weeks ago I took on the task of replacing the alternator. By the time I got to step 3 or 4 in reading the online "how to", I understood why shops were giving her a "go away" price.

 

Alternating Astra

In January, Boo and I planned for a trip to the east coast the week before Memorial Day. We were going to visit my sister and her family and then see our son K2 (currently serving in the US Navy at Quantico). Then the trump administration decided to pick a war with Iran, airline prices spiked and our plan was scrapped. Thanks trump. Nature hates a vacuum, so what would have been a trip to the east coast became an opportunity for me to spend up to a week fixing her car with no drive-to-work pressure.

 

shelving starts

The challenge with removing and re-installing an alternator on the Astra is that the alternator only fits out the left front (passenger-side) tire well. Even then, it doesn't fit easily. So, the process is you get the car up on a jack, remove the wheel and the inner wheel well just so you can approach the serpentine belt and alternator. Disconnect the battery. I put the battery onto a charger while I did the rest of the job. I found removing tension on the belt tensioner especially difficult because of the required body positioning to access it and the steel supports blocking direct access. I used a spanner-on-a-spanner (yes, it's cringe-y) for sufficient leverage. If you reuse the belt, mark the belt direction. With the belt off, you can get at the 2 alternator bolts. With the alternator loose, reach around the rear and unplug the 2-pin socket. It has a latch holding it on. I palmed a small bladed screwdriver around everything and got the latch to release without breaking it. Then, remove the nut holding the main cable to the rear of the alternator. At this point, some folks have posted that they have been able to worm the alternator through the wheelwell. They must have a different engine than we do (2.0L). I needed to remove the air box and then the engine mount bolts underneath it, so the engine on the left side was no longer attached. I did set up the TravisJack under the engine so it didn't lower at all. Then, the engine itself needs to move as far forward as you can manage it. I just grabbed onto it from over the radiator and pulled. The alternator drops down and out behind the engine and out the rearward end of the wheelwell opening. I found that if the alternator is in the same orientation as it was when installed, it does come right out. Any other orientation and it will get stuck. Yes, this happened to me many times until I figured it out.

 

end of day 1

With the old alternator out, the install is mostly the reverse. Alternator enters the wheelwell oriented as it will be installed. I plugged in the socket and nutted on the thick cable before then attaching the alternator to the engine. Next, I put the serpentine belt back on. It has maybe 20k miles on it since it was replaced by the yard we bought the car from. With the belt tension restored, I moved the engine back into place and re-connected the mount. Then, I put the airbox back in and returned under the car to put the inner wheel well back on. I finished up with putting the wheel back on and the battery back in.

 

I had read online that this was a 8+ hour job, so I had set aside 2 days, hoping that I'd be done by Sunday in time to see our friend Maldarine play a show. It took me 6 hours, start to finish, backing her out of the shop and the lane way back into the front well before dark on Saturday. 

 

Moving In

With all the extra time I now had, I decided that I would get as much of our summer project done as I possibly could. I figured that it wasn't raining and every nice summer day I could save by doing things now, would make for a better summer. This year's project is getting everything car-related into the shop and everything home-repair related into the tiny shop (tool shed). Then, the only stuff in the garage is camping and ski gear, leaving plenty of room for Boo to park Astra when the fall rains return.

 

partway day 2

I had started with the garage, moving the red rolling tool cabinet before I even had the doors installed. This renewed effort was about getting anything else car or tool-related from the garage into the shop. This included my jacks and stands, the hypersonic-cleaner and lots of random parts. All that remains is my big black rolling tool cabinet. I hope to move that this week.

 

Next, was the tool shed. I regret not taking a genuine before picture. The shed was so full, the back half was out of reach, blocked by stuff. So, those large items blocking the floor were first, rooting through them a little bit looking for junk before moving the keeper-bits to the front of the shop floor. I noted that there was evidence of rodents, so I spent the next few days wearing a dust mask, shop-vacuuming a lot, and generally moving at a slower-than-hoped pace. I would vacate a shelving unit, dismantle and wash it, move it, and finally re-assemble it inside the rear of the shop. Most of the stuff that were on the shelves ended up in a heap at the front of the shop, or a heap for the dump. The exceptions to this were solvents and cleaners, which went onto freshly cleaned shelving, and everything painting related, which went into an old kitchen upper cabinet the kids used to use for skate and snow gear repairs and parts.

 

Those with a keen eye will see (in the shed heap picture at the top) that I put Zed on furniture dollies so I could move him around a little bit. These dollies are the $30, 1000# max variety found at Harbor Freight. The genuine car dollies I've seen cost up to 10x that much. Are they 10x better? Unlikely, except they work on heavier cars. I was able to move Zed by myself, one end at a time, so I could fit a shelving unit against the wall beside him. I used another pair of those same dollies under the paint cabinet.

 

paint cabinet on wheels

Boo and I agreed that the Tetris I did to get Zed's entire interior onto the high shelf in the tool shed could not be easily repeated (see the upper deck in the tool shed "empty" picture above), so that stuff stayed. Otherwise, the tool shed is clear of car stuff, the shed is cleared of all evidence of rodents and the shop vac has been emptied and washed. Next, I will be moving home-repair stuff from the garage.

 

Wrap Up

This got really long, but a lot gets done on a full week stay-cation. I hope to get after the big black rollie cabinet and the garage-to-tool-shed over the next couple of weeks. Then, our summer project will have been completed before summer even arrives. We all know nature hates a vacuum, so that time will be filled by something. And that something will probably be either home improvement or car-related. Once that happens, I'm sure I'll post about it. Until next time, thanks, as always for following along-

Returning to Oliver

The last week or so has been busy with lots of not-car stuff. We have had our young niece over a bunch while her mom had surgery on her wrist, and a bunch of social events. Of course, with the return of spring comes the return of recurring yardwork as well. So, I have not had the dedicated time for wrenching that I always seem to think will be available. I was able to get out to the shop for a few hours on Sunday, though. I focused on Oliver, the 1978 MGB, letting Hapy ('72 VW microbus) sit until Justin has his time with the injection pump in April. The rate at which the price of diesel fuel is climbing (passed $6US/gal around the corner), I may find that it costs more to fill his tank than to pay Justin for his time. That's totally upside-down. Anyway, back to wrenchin.

 

Voltage Gauge

remember Oliver?

I installed a Smith voltage gauge into Oliver where the original analog clock used to sit. The clock didn't really work very well, and it ate voltage from the battery when I let him sit for too long. This made the clock less accurate, leading me to pull the positive cable off the battery while not in use. This led to the clock being completely worthless. So, I pulled it out and swapped in the voltage gauge. It seemed like a valuable bit of info to have, but I had wired it into the "purple" or always-hot circuit. Like the clock, the voltage gauge slowly drained the battery down, albeit not as quickly. So, again, I pulled the positive cable while not driving. I changed that on Sunday.

 

Bearing in mind that any entry back into working on cars may not seem like a big deal to regular wrenchers, but I have really not done much car stuff in over a year. So, any steps taken are a big deal. Removing the gauge was simply unwinding the knurled nut holding the rear support and the gauge flopped forward out of the dash. I removed and taped-off the "purple" wire and started seeking a viable switched "green"source to tap into. Switched is available at a few spots, but I decided to run a dedicated line from the fuse box instead. I could say I did that to remove variables or variability in the voltage signal. The truth is that Oliver is parked so close to the side wall of the shop that getting in and under the dash was virtually impossible. I was not going to just start grabbing an unplugging things.

 

Smith voltage gauge

Running another wire is simple enough. I started at the gauge and worked my way behind the dash, center console, and glove box to the firewall pass-thru. From the pass through within the engine compartment, the bundle of wires run along the left fender to the fuse box. I tied the new wire into the existing green bundle and tested continuity with the multi-meter. Success! I installed the gauge, hooked up the battery and tested by turning the ignition to "run". The voltmeter slowly crept up and I could hear the fuel pump banging away. I recall that it used to get quieter with fuel in the pump. Satisfied, I turned off the key and looked for any other parasitic drain on the battery. The wires in the engine compartment need some containment. I am not liking the scattered multi-colored angel-hair look in the picture below right.

 

Battery Drain?

technicolor angel hair pasta wiring

Testing for a parasitic drain on your battery ought to be relatively straight-forward. Disconnect one cable. Set your multi-meter to test for Amps and then place one probe on the battery post and the other on the cable end. All 0's? Switch to milli-amps and try again. According to the internets, if the drain is less than 50mA, it is not enough to drain your battery. I got 0mA, which, honestly, I do not believe. I tested it multiple times, and even after cleaning the cable and the battery post, I still got 0mA. So, I checked voltage across the 2 posts (12.08V) and left the cables attached. I figured if the voltage drops overnight then my battery-drain test will be proven faulty. I have since tested the voltage the last 2 days. The battery loses 0.02V overnight, which I think I can attribute to the stereo. Regardless, I will need to add a float charger.

 

Red Rollie

new lock, locked

I have this old red Kennedy tool cabinet we call "Red Rollie". It houses a bunch of tools, and for most the nearly 20 years that I've owned it, the lock didn't work. Well, I didn't have a key for it. We got the cabinet at an estate sale without the key. Anyway, some tools were stolen from my next door neighbor's yard a few months ago, so that changed our vector regarding the shop. We were perfectly fine using it without doors, but I can't leave entire tool cabinets unlocked if thieves have found our quiet little neighborhood. While I think the theft next door was an inside job (they run a construction business out of their home), one can never be too sure. So, I found a lock that fits this old Kennedy cabinet (Kennedy 80403 High Security Tubular Lock), and replaced it.

 

Replacing one of these locks is actually easier than on newer cabinets. The lock is held on with a U-shaped tang that slides off to the side. The hard part is you can't see anything. With my fingers I was able to determine which direction the tang needed to slide to be removed (facing the cabinet, slide right), and then set a stubby slotted screw-driver against the lip of the tang. It only took one well-leveraged push to get the tang removed and the lock to pop out. To install, orient the lock so the little inner divot on the outside facing part of the lock where the key goes in is facing down (unlocked). Set the lock into the hole with one hand while guiding the locking rod into the rectangular hole on the back of the lock. Then, push the U-shaped tang in place to hold it.

 

Red Rollie

This worked great, and effectively locked the top 2 drawers. The 3rd drawer down, however, had been bent where the little hook pokes out the back. To remedy, I got a framing hammer and a 1/2" ratchet extension and beat on it until it was more-or-less flush with the rest of the rear of the drawer. For years I wondered why that drawer always set deeper into the cabinet than the others. Now I knew. Once the drawer had been persuaded, the drawer fronts lined up and that 3rd drawer locked as well.

 

Wrap

That's how I spent my Sunday afternoon. The shop still needs the 2 largest doors, but my tools are secure, and I am really starting to get comfortable in there. For example, there was a period of time while working on Oliver that the skies opened up and it started pouring rain. I never felt it. In fact, I could only hear it hitting the trees. The insulation on this shop stops the sound of rain on the steel roof. I absolutely did not expect that.

 

That's it for today. Next week is Easter, so I may not get out to the shop for much. I hope to put a little gas into Oliver and at least back him out to where I can give him a deep cleaning. 

Shop to ToolShed

Clearing the old (previously called "existing") house has lots of sub-topics. I think, for this blog, moving tools and parts from a 2-car garage into an 96 square foot shed might be most on-point of what's left for a targeted post. So, I cover that today. 

Garage

our humble beginning

We start with a sub-sized 2-car garage. I say "sub-sized" because a full-sized car could not reasonably park in either spot if you were also using that bay for any storage at all. The former owner had a BMW SUV parked in one bay, where we parked Oliver (1978 MGB). Otherwise that side of the garage was completely empty, including the back wall. The other bay was filled with shelving. The other bay was also where the laundry area, the furnace and the hot water heater were located. We set it up in a more standard way, with shelves along the side-walls, leveraged the laundry space in the same way and added some storage along the back wall nearest the door to the inside. So, basically, wall-to-wall shelving where some major appliance wasn't already located.

Facing the garage from the driveway, the bay on the right was filled with Oliver and shelving. The shelves he was parked up against were used to store recreational equipment (skiis, camping gear, eg) and household spares (light bulbs, batteries, paper products, eg). Oliver barely fit and access to the shelving was accomplished by shimmying sideways along Oliver's passenger side. His rear bumper was less than an inch from the garage door and there was, maybe, a meter and a half (5 feet) from his front bumper to the garage back wall, and the entrance to the house. We had a small storage cabinet there which jutted out, maybe 8 inches from the wall to further constrain passage, but a person carrying a laundry basket could easily pass through without touching anything. An MGB is not exactly a huge car, measuring in at just over 4 meters (13 feet) so a more typical car could prevent door access. A VW bus, for example, is almost 4.5 meters (15 feet), which may have been too long to park there. When you add a spare tire to the nose, like Hapy (1972 VW camperbus) has, you lose another half a foot, so Hapy stayed outside. Anyway, the non-car-ish contents of the shelving next to Oliver are eventually routing to the NewOldHouse garage, once that garage is cleared of the new-to-us kitchen cabinets earmarked for the kitchen rebuild. So, we got creative for temporary storage, putting that stuff into the NewOldHouse attic.

a "before" image

In the other garage bay, I had all of my car/bus/truck parts and my tools. These things were relatively well organized until the furnace was replaced last Summer. Okay, maybe that's being a little generous... it was semi-organized chaos, but I knew where everything was. The furnace installers needed access behind a shelving unit full of parts so they just moved things around, putting things in a heap until they could do what they wanted. This left a huge mess in the middle of the walkway from the rear of the garage to the driveway. On top of that mess, a handyman we hired plopped another mess of scrap wood and drywall. So, before I could move anything, I had to clean up and reorganize a little bit. Remaining Agile, I dealt with just enough for tools and parts to be moved, leaving a larger organizational effort to happen at the ToolShed.

ToolShed

Ah, the ToolShed. In my last post about the ToolShed, I had just dropped all of Zed's interior onto the floor (see "before" image on the right). Those items needed to be sorted and, as much as possible, stored on the mezzanine before anything new arrived. Well, as I was preparing for this, we had a freak snowstorm drop 4+ inches of snow. The snow and rain and melting took out my last remaining canopies, leaving considerable wreckage, and blocking both the doors to the shed and the egress from the driveway to the shed. So, the daisy-chain of mess grew by one more.

Zed parts up, one shelf in

On a Saturday morning, I disassembled the canopies and moved as much of Zed's interior up onto the mezzanine as I could fit. I also took apart the table that I had set inside the doorway for a temporary work table. The table went into the demo-in-process kitchen and the stuff that had sat upon it got piled on the side. Now, I could consider a shelving solution.

The side walls of the shed are just shy of 12 feet long and less than 7 feet high before the ceiling pitch starts. The mezzanine juts out 4 feet from the rear wall. With the mezzanine location, it does not make sense to put shelving all the way to the rear wall. Besides, the standard shelving system is 4 feet wide, and the interior of the shed is just shy of 12 feet so you can't fit 3 shelves side-by-side anyway. So, my plan became setting 2 shelves along the wall width-wide and a third shelving unit turned sideways nearest the rear wall. After measuring it out, I was left with over 3 feet of space behind the turned shelf. Into that space, I set the old Westfalia closet, and used it to protect Zed's window glass between the closet and the rear wall. Ultimately, I will probably share that closet with someone else who will put it to use, but for now, it is helping protect Zed's glass. If you're local, and you will use it, please message me.

Moving Shelves and Parts

end of day 2

That afternoon, I started moving things. My process was fairly obvious, and repeated a few times: empty a shelving unit into large plastic tubs, disassemble the shelving unit, move the shelving and the tubs, assemble the shelves, and reload them with the tub contents. This cycle took a couple of hours per shelving unit and lasted the rest of that Saturday and all of the following day. 

Once the shelves and their contents were moved, I shifted to the heaps of stuff left by the HVAC folks, the handyman, and, honestly, me. I ran out of energy, daylight and give-a-crap before I got all of the remaining stuff out that day. As you can probably see in the images, it was raining (of course, it's Oregon) by the end so I left wet footprints as I went. Still, you can see I had quite a bit of available shelf-space after moving over 80% of the stuff. I returned after work the following few days to move things like the car jacks, ramps, jack-stands, random larger car parts, sound absorption materials, etc so all that remained were my rolling tool cabinets, and their contents. It was this 20% that unraveled the organize-as-we-go model I had been following. These things, unfortunately, ended up where the tool cabinets are intended to go.

Moving Tool Cabinets

rollin'

The documentation for the tool cabinets say to empty the cabinet before rolling it. I don't know how much people actually follow that advice when you're moving it around your garage, but I followed it to move the larger one to NewOldHouse. I do not have a liftgate nor a very low-floor trailer. Even if I did, the mud bog in the backyard of NewOldHouse prevents driving anything back there. We already got ToyoTruck stuck when spreading bark chips, requiring a visit from AAA to pluck him out. A truck hauling a tool cabinet would definitely get stuck. So, I started by emptying the cabinets into a pair of large blue tubs, like you can see in the various pictures. These buggers got so heavy, I needed to use a wheelbarrow to move each tub from the ToyoTruck in the driveway back to the ToolShed.

Once the tools were moved, we considered the remaining space in the ToolShed and how overgrown the assortment of to-be-shelved pile had become. Boo and I considered that the organization would take away from our get-out-that-house velocity. So, we decided that the tool cabinets would temporarily live in the attached garage. We just had to move them. The red-rollie is an older Kennedy upper/lower cabinet. I moved the upper cabinet with the large blue tubs. I use the lower for holding my larger power tools, and electrical stuff. Since that cabinet is so much lighter, I did not empty it, we just pushed it. The larger black cabinet is the one I bought a couple of years ago (see $50 Tool Chest). It's a Harbor Freight / US General 44" that weighs 300 pounds when empty. I had pretty much all of my hand tools usually stored there (wrenches, sockets, body hammer/dollies, tap/die kit, etc) and I still had a couple of empty drawers.

cabinets at NewOldHouse

To get the cabinets to NewOldHouse, we hand-rolled them down the street to the end of the NewOldHouse dirt driveway. That's our friend John pushing red rollie in the picture above-right. We were blessed with 2 dry days, and did this move mid-day on the 2nd dry day. We brought some wood planks with us, strapped to the top of the 44 with a plan to lay them on the driveway for ramps to run the cabinets. We figured we would try simply running without the ramps first... and we made it without incident. I was super-concerned about moving these cabinets, so the fact that they moved so easy and fast was a great surprise.

Once the cabinets were moved, everything tool or car/truck/bus part related had been solved for. The garage still had camping gear and other not-car stuff, I'll touch on that as part of a larger "we're out" post once we're actually all the way out. Of course, the cars themselves remain. Each of them presented their own challenge to move, so I'll tell those adventures in the next post. 

Reflecting

Thanks so much for following along, and staying tuned during this move. I can't really describe how difficult this has been other than list out the challenges: no help from my family; little help from friends and Boo's family; my folks stuff was added increasing the overall amount of stuff we needed to resolve; my father died; we moved my mom into assisted living; both Boo and I are suffering at least one arm with tennis elbow; record-setting cold/wet winter; our only vehicle to move our things is an open 6-foot bedded pickup truck.... and, of course, the NewOldHouse hadn't a bathroom nor kitchen (still hasn't a kitchen). These are not complaints, rather, I am reminding myself that our success in light of these barriers is all the more worth celebrating. We are very close to being done, and then life will start to return to normal.

Again, thanks, as always, for following along-

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-

$50 tool chest

This Summer, I got an unsolicited offer for a massive tool chest/cabinet for around 6% of something smaller at Harbor Freight (like this base and this topper ~$850US as of this writing). Curious as to what $50US can actually buy in terms of a new tool chest/cabinet, I ordered one. This post covers that mini-adventure, as well as some thoughts on tool cabinets, now that this adventure has me thinking about it.

What They Said

Let's start with the product description. They said a lot, but the key points were

Milwaukee 56 top
and bottom cabinets

• Ship within 24 hours after payment, Free Worldwide Shipping
• Assembled in La Palma, California, USA
• 150 lbs. rated drawers
• 2-deep bottom cabinet drawers have double drawer slides, offering a 300 lbs. load capacity
• 18-Gauge steel frame and drawers with reinforced 6-Gauge angle iron cabinet base finished with rust-resistant red and black powder-coat finish
• digital locking system, no need for keys
• 6-outlet/2USB power strip mounted inside chest till and on exterior cabinet side wall, cord hooks included to wrap the power cords for storage
• Assembled dimensions with casters installed (approximate): 56 in. W x 22 in. D x 64 in. H and weighs 643.8 lbs.

Company Policies

First, it should be noted that on the anthead.club (seller) website, it is indicated that all shipping is done through 4PX, order processing can take 3-10 days (as opposed to within 24 hours as mentioned above) and delivery time is 3-4 weeks. I translate the 3-4 weeks to 21-28 days from their warehouse to my driveway. Last, it says worldwide shipping is free.

So, all of that sounds really great, right? Like, within 38 days after placing an order, you get this massive tool cabinet/chest combo for $50US. But, of course, how could this possibly be? And, free shipping on almost 650 pounds? This can't possibly be right. For just $50US, though, seemed like it was worth spending the money just to see what would happen. Besides, I figured this might make a good post. So, I ordered one.

Tracking

The timeline for my order is below. We should probably start with the fact that the website said that this was "Assembled in La Palma, California, USA". Not sure how that works if it is shipping from Guangzhou, China. For the benefit of the doubt, let's pretend that it ships as a pile of bits to an assembly space in La Palma where it is assembled into this final shape before continuing on its way. As I document this, it would not be fair to at least recognize that supply chains are a mess around the world. So, delays could be attributed to that. Still, the data is the data:

12-Aug: ordered, paid for

20-Aug: (8 days later) order accepted and shipped out of warehouse in Guangzhou City, China by China-Post (not 4PX). This is within the policy time window, just not the designated carrier.

23-Aug: arrived / departed Chinese port (Shenzhen) on a ship

 5-Sept: (13 days at sea) arrived in USA. Port unclear, but let's assume Los Angeles, since they're the biggest US port for ships from China.

29-Sept: (24 days in US, 41 days since left china warehouse) Message from vendor rec'd. Cabinet still not arrived, current shipper unknown. Could be languishing in a warehouse, shipping container, customs, or maybe it's with USPS and they didn't know how to provide a tracking number to me. Yeah... right...

12-Oct: (54 days since left China warehouse) posting published. No further updates from vendor nor on the trackers.

Learnings

After over 40 days days of waiting and multiple requests-for-update, I finally heard from the vendor. They indicated that there was a "problem with logistics" and that they would cancel my order, returning my $50. I wonder if it will be another 40 days before I see my $50, if ever. So, what did we learn from this? Well, I learned how to track a shipment from China using AfterShip and Track17. I think we all also learned that no, you cannot get a 56"W x 22"D x 64"H, 645 pound tool chest shipped to you from "La Palma, CA" (read: China) for $50.

Husky 52 top
and bottom cabinets

I do wonder what was actually shipped from China, where it US-landed on 5-September, and what its final destination was / will be. I mean, the tracking number was valid for something leaving China for the US. I suspect, whatever was sent will not go back to China. Instead, will end up in a LA-area warehouse for local sale, covering the real cost of manufacture and shipping with some profit cooked in. Maybe it was pre-arranged swiped off the dock a-la the second season of HBO's "The Wire". But, why the internet ruse for $50? Perhaps there are import limits placed on the local-to-LA-area seller, and this is an end-run around that? Maybe what was shipped was something else entirely, and they just needed a cover story for customs. I don't know, but there is a reason the too-good-to-be-true tool cabinet/chest combo experienced a "problem with logistics" when I have never had that experience with Alibaba or other clearly-direct-from-China orders from, like, eBay or whatever. I did discover, however, that this exact tool chest set up is available from Home Depot for $1500, and most of the images on the 2 websites are identical. Before you ask, yes I have been watching the account I used to place this order, looking for suspicious activity, and no, there has not been any.

Cabinet Options

Husky 41 bottom

I realize that I will have to break down and buy a real tool cabinet (maybe a topper chest too) if I intend to get my tools in order. The combo bottom/top "red rollie" I have now is too small (27" wide), to the point where I have tools sitting on storage shelves.... or worse, sitting in a pile on the crowded garage floor. In short, the current-state is not sustainable. I learned that too: thinking about tool storage opened my eyes to one of the underlying factors to my garage disarray. So, what are the real options out there?

Like I said, Home Depot has this exact unit for $1500. Home Depot has a Husky (this, pictured alongside "Learnings" above) that's 2/3 the price (at $1000US) of the Milwaukee brand, but 52" wide rather than 56. Of course, for 1/2 of that, I could just get the bottom 44" deal from Harbor Freight I linked at the beginning, and get the upper later, if I feel the need for more. For that matter, I could look at Husky's 41" (picture on the right) for about the same price. The Home Depot models have things like integrated power strips, a bottle opener and soft-close drawers. I figure you're paying for those, so if the prices are otherwise close, where is that difference getting made up?

 

US General "44" bottom

I have been unable to find drawer spec's on these US General "44" cabinets. So, I went to Harbor Freight with a measuring tape. The cabinet is genuinely 22 inches deep but only 42" wide, not 44. I know. It puzzled me too, so I measured twice. The image on the right here has the measurements I took. The drawer width measurements are the inside space, between the sidewalls. For height, I measured the distance from the deck with the rubber mat installed to the bottom edge of whatever is above it, be it another drawer or part of the cabinet. By measuring the actual usable space, I hope these measurements help others. I expect that as I plan my shop tool storage upgrade, these will be useful.

Comparing

As a way to consider the various options, I took the published "cubic inches" of storage and divided that by the price to get square inches or storage space per $1US. In all cases, when just the lower cabinets are considered, the square inch per dollar is lower/worse than when the top is added. For example, the upper for the US General "44" costs $330, but adds 11700 cubic inches of storage space (35.45 square inches per $1US). Since I don't know if I need an upper, I just considered lowers. In order of most to least (square inches per $1US) with some other data bits:

1. Husky 52           - 22934 cu in -  9   drawers (35.28)  - $1000US
2. Husky 41           - 17221 cu in - 11  drawers (34.44)  - $500US
3. US General 44   - 14000 cu in - 13* drawers (28)       - $500US <- $600 as of 6-Nov
4. Milwaukee 56    - 23583 cu in - 10  drawers (26.2)    - $900US
5. US General 56   - 21500 cu in - 11  drawers (25.3)    - $850US

Unless you are just going to throw everything in your cabinet with no organizational thought, overall capacity is not terribly informative. The number and shapes/sizes of the drawers really speak to use more than an overall number. So, I need to consider that against what I need. For me, overall footprint and how well it will compliment my existing "red rollie" are also factors. I intend put hands on examples of the Home Depot offerings before making a decision, but I am leaning towards the US General 44 (asterisked) because of the 2-3/4" most-shallow drawers compared to the 2" most-shallow from Husky and Milwaukee. And because there are more of them. Impact drivers and some larger wrenches would not fit the smaller 2" clearance without laying them down, defeating some of the storage "gain". Also, those other cabinets offer a few large drawers that the US General does not. For me, those big drawers may not be very useful, or space-wasteful, attracting something that could just as easily sit on a shelf (like my MityVac or Dremel, still in their plastic carrying cases). Last, I have seen negative reviews about the plastic bits in the soft-close drawers breaking in a couple years, so that might be influencing my thinking too.

That's it for today. When I get to solving my tool storage, and sorting the garage, I'll post on it. I do have to spend some weekends organizing in there. You'll know when that's happened by the lack of interesting car-related posts... like this one. Hahaha. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Snap Ring Pliers review

I don't usually review tools.  Usually, I research a bunch and then pick whatever the interweb tells me to buy.  I wasn't able to get a good direction from the web for Snap Ring Pliers, so I bought a couple pairs and experimented.  Today's brief post summarizes those experiments.

Why Bother?

In my previous post, I talked about solving a leaking oil seal.  Some of my research on that issue pointed me to believe that the input shaft was loose and needed to be removed and re-installed.  To do that, a circlip needs to be backed off so a thick lock-ring can be pulled back (see picture to the right. The input shaft rises from the center of the picture to the left).  Then, the input shaft can be threaded off the reverse gear.  First step in that process requires a pair of Snap Ring Pliers.

Size
Some things about the old Volksies are very well documented on the web.  Arguably, some are over documented.  If you want to know what kind of oil to run, for example, you can go through literally hundreds of opinions.  Tires are equally well-opinion'd.  Getting something as simple as the size of the tip needed to remove the circlip on the input shaft, however, can sometimes prove impossible.  Hours of searching netted no useful information.  The size is 0.07 (US), by the way.  This is the largest size available in the standard multi-tip Snap Ring Pliers sets, and individual pliers with fixed-size tips can be found.

NAPA

boink! tip fail.

Off to the friendly local auto parts store (FLAPS), I went to find a pair that would work.  Since I'm only really doing this once, I didn't want a spendy pair, just some that would do the job.  So, I tried the tip-adjustable set available at NAPA.  Using the largest tip (0.07), I was unable to open the circlip wide enough to get the circlip out of its seating channel without the tip failing.  The tips are held on with small Phillips head bolts pressing a removable plate against the plier arm.  The removable plate is slightly bent, presumably to best fit the tip on, but the engineering is flawed such that the final bit of torque needed to hold the tip is robbed from you by the curve of the plate.  Neat.  I tried to undermine that torque-robbery by jamming a finish nail under the plate on the opposite side of the bolt, increasing the torque on the tip.  That didn't work either.

mod no worky

Net-result: not good for this job.  Maybe, if the circlip you need to remove requires less than 10 foot-pounds of torque it would suffice, but for real automotive situations, its junk.

Husky
After setting the NAPA pliers aside, I hit Home Depot looking for a pair of Husky one-size-only 0.07 Snap Ring Pliers.  While their web site showed that they were in stock at the store (for $13), neither I nor the clerk could find them.  I'd love to review them, but instead I offer just a head-shaking at Home Depot.  Either offer the product or don't; don't post it on your web site if you don't have it.  Boo.

Channel Lock

Channel Lock works!

Home Depot did have Channel Lock 927 Snap Ring Pliers (for, like $23).  These are multi-tip pliers like the NAPA ones, but are clearly better made.  They are much heavier.  They have a flip-switch to set inner or outer ring direction.  Oh, they're made in the US, so somewhere my countryman benefited from my buying them, so that's nice.  But do they work for this?  Why, yes, they do.  Unlike the NAPA pair, the ring easily opened up enough to slip out of the channel and out of the way.  Like the NAPA, Channel Lock 927's are sold with a collection of smaller tips, and are delivered with the largest (0.07) already installed.  This made the test easy, removing the possibility of me putting the tips in wrong.  I didn't bother removing and re-installing to see how bad it was, but the engineering is very different.  Unlike the NAPA which has a plate screwed on, leveraging the friction created to hold the tip in place, the Channel Lock has a hole in the plier arm to slide the tip into.  The securing bolt simply prevents the tip from falling out, so the arms need to be able to support far less torque.  The arms are much thicker too, implying that they can handle far more pressure than the NAPA tool could.

In the end, I didn't need to remove and re-install my input shaft.  After I installed the oil slinger and input shaft seal (see: Transaxle Re-Assembled), I re-tested the wiggle in the input shaft.  It barely moved.  I concluded that the input shaft was appropriately loose, and some additional digging into theSamba verified that conclusion.  I'm keeping the Channel Lock's with the car tools, and returning the NAPA's.

That's it for today.  I'm working on a post summarizing the engine-trans re-mating as well as the adventure of raising the engine-tranny unit back into the bus.