building perfect workshop

I had to do repairs on my jeep last night and was dreaming that my unorganized garage was set up like a shop. Has anyone set up a great workspace in their garages or built a good workbench and cabinets? What about that floor paint or coverings they sell? any experience? I would love to see pics for ideas on how to set up my garage better.

Well, if you can still SEE the concrete floor of your garage, and if it is somewhat less than overfilled, I suppose there is hope ... gray or white gloss paint that I have seen in shops sure made it easy to clean and find dropped or 'identified flying objects' that got loose on you!

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Warren Hall
1973 911S Targa

HEAT! Gotta have heat. I note you are in NY - I find that it's a major dis-incentive to work on the car, even simple jobs, when the temp is 40 degrees or colder in the garage - laying on a cold floor, etc. burrrr. I think Rennlist and the BMW list had considerable discussions on various heating options for cold garages - electric, gas, oil, - - - suspended heaters, in floor heaters, etc.
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Also, a nice $2k or $3k car hoist would be great. And of course, a good air compressor/tank to drive the tools. (Gotta torque those lug nuts to at least 300 lbs so the wheels don't fall off )
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Chuck
83SC

HomeDepo has a nice 2 part grey epoxy paint for the garage floor. I am putting it down on mine in the next couple of weeks. Cost is about $25.00 per two gallons.

Space! Especially here in SoCal, where garages are at a premium. It's tough to find a respectably sized garage! I like to set mine up so that one car is in there for storage, and can be rolled out of the way when I'm working in there...

-Wayne

I already have an image of my dream garage, for when I settle back in the UK.
It will probably be on the lines of 'Home Improvement' sitcom, clean and shiny with good heat,good stereo and plenty of tasteful Calendars on the walls
In this shrine, will evolve the most incredible track P - car built only by me -'from the ground up!'.
My dream car in my dream garage
Mean while back to the grindstone, so I can semi- retire and do this by the age of 40!.



[This message has been edited by 86ragtop (edited 03-20-2001).]

What? You mean you guys don't all have garages fully outfitted with "Griot's Garage" accessories? No Ferraris or McLarens sitting on that shiny checkerboard floor?

Some of us (myself included) are "organizationally challenged". People who do not suffer this malady have their tools neatly organized in drawers or on pegboard and return the tools to the proper places when they are done using them. A sturdy work bench and good lighting are essntial. Tires, floor jack, and welder will fit under the bench. Cans or bottles of oil and solvent can be organized on shelves, as can spare Porsche parts.

I have had lots of bad experiences with paint on concrete. If you paint your floor, you will probably need to clean it using a degreaser followed by muriatic acid etching. The most durable paints for floors are two part epoxy based. If you use standard paint, you will probably be scraping/sweeping up big flakes of it for many years to come.

Heat and ceiling/wall insulation are essential for working in a garage here in Minnesota for about 4 or 5 months each year. Check with your homeowner's insurance and your local Building Inspector before buying and installing any type of heater. My insurance company threatened to cancel me if I installed a wood stove, which is what I wanted to do. Electric, propane, and natural gas heaters are options to consider, depending upon how often you will be heating the garage, fuel prices in your area, and cost to install.

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Bob Thayer
1971 911T
rthayer@hdrinc.com

Originally posted by patalive:
HEAT! Gotta have heat. I note you are in NY - I find that it's a major dis-incentive to work on the car, even simple jobs, when the temp is 40 degrees or colder in the garage - laying on a cold floor, etc. burrrr. I think Rennlist and the BMW list had considerable discussions on various heating options for cold garages - electric, gas, oil, - - - suspended heaters, in floor heaters, etc.
-
Also, a nice $2k or $3k car hoist would be great. And of course, a good air compressor/tank to drive the tools. (Gotta torque those lug nuts to at least 300 lbs so the wheels don't fall off )
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Chuck
83SC

Tell me about it. Lying on the cold concrete last night was so much fun especially because I had a fuel leak problem and had to keep opening the garage door to avoid asphysixiation. Nice refreshing breeze. Luckily I have an old pair of GM coveralls to insulate me from the cold concrete and a winters worth of dirt. My space is also limited so I am going to design a workbench-storage type cabinet setup. Has anyone did this and have the plans?

Wayne, of course, is right about SPACE! Now, if anyone can tell me how to fit a 6-bay garage, equipped just like the one on the cover of either edition of Bruce Anderson's Handbook, into a two-car garage, please, do tell? I already have air, sand-blasting and painting equipment, plenty of Fluorescent lighting & Texas heating, but the room for the paint booth, surface plate & laser alignment erquipment, hydraulic lift, body rotisserie, machine shop, and wheel & tire changing & balancing equipment ... I guess the engine & chassis dyno rooms will have to wait a few more years! Rarly ... forget 'Griot's, Ferrari's, and McLarens ... Porsches, Mopars, and VW's keep me busy enough!

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Warren Hall
1973 911S Targa

Warren's post reminded me of a friend and neighbor back in the mid 1970s. We both lived on a small dirt road, just south of Alexandria, VA, right on the Potomac. (and north of Mount Vernon) The houses were very small, built in the 40s and 50 - real small.
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My friend, a true Porsche fanatic, built a separate garage structure - four bays wide and two deep. It probably had triple the floor space of his house. It was fully outfitted and simply beautiful! Around the same time, his wife left him, but he was never without "company". That was a garage! It always had interesting cars stored in it, his own, and his friends'.
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Interesting guy - - he and a friend, in 1974 I think it was, ran a 911 in the real, orgininal Cannon Ball Run, from NY to Calif. Had pictures to show the PCA region meeting.
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By the way, the garage is long gone - the houses all along that dirt road have been purchased, torn down, and in their place, multi-million dollar homes built on the Potomac. (We were renting at the time. Wish I could have afforded to purchase something down there!!)
Chuck

For those of you with big budgets...

http://www.ultimategarage.com/

I went with the middle-of-the-road using modular closets, shelving, and cabinets (forget the name of it, they have a web-site too). The ones I used are made with particle board, with white veneer. I found mine in O.S.H., and Home Depot.

Nick

That ultimate garage and griots stuff is awesome. Alot of great stuff. Do normal people ever buy that stuff? The Porsche emblem decal under clear epoxy garage flooring is the best. I would never leave the garage, all I would need is a fully stocked wet bar to toast a job well done.

I assume that no one has ever actually WORKED in a garage that looks like that.

I have a freind who re-defines anal. This guy designed and built a house based on a six car garage! Now, by itself that doesn't sound so bad. But if you ever saw how it looks on the inside... not a spec of dirt anywhere. Mr. Griot's kind of guy. This is the same fella that used to drive to work (in the dark) with only his parking lights on so as not to attract bugs. Also used to take the fenders and bumpers off his car to wax it. I'm not kidding.

My own garage is just a mess. Parts bunched together on shelves everywhere. BUT - it has natural gas heat, A/C, water, and a drain. Screw the gas company. I ran my own lines. It's my damned house. Maybe when I get old and anal I'll put checkerboards on my floor. Naaaaaaa.

[This message has been edited by RarlyL8 (edited 03-20-2001).]

My father has just completed his new workshop. My mother swears that THIS is the last building she will allow him to put up on their property!
It's 28'X40" with an 18' drop ceiling. Completely drywalled and painted with epoxy coated concrete floor. Compence drooling.
He's got like a 150 gallon stand up air compressor with plumbing and unions all over the place, he even has wall outlets every 24 inches or so, they are all color coded for 120V, 220V and some sort of two phase current or something...
He just recieved his new 9000lb. car lift last week and got it put in over the weekend.
There are huge doors on either end of the shop so he can put their 32' Prowler fifth wheel camping trailer in with no problem.
He bought these neat plastic, wall mounted cabinets which go all the way around. He is also planning on building a real heavy duty workbench out of plate steel on which he can mount one of his monsterous military surplus vices.
The craziest thing of all is the fact that he built every bit of it by himself. Every bit.

I'll have to email my mom and get her to send me a couple pics of him placing these huge A frame sections that he pre-assembled, up on the wall sections by himself.
He had to weld an old engine hoist onto a lift implement on the front of one of his old tractors... then he lifted them up diagonally so they'd fit between the walls... then once they'd cleared the walls he manipulated them using rope tied on both ends to get them straight then lowered them onto the stud walls and nailed them down.
Pretty crazy for one old dude!

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Leland Pate

___79 SC Targa

[This message has been edited by Leland Pate (edited 03-20-2001).]

Planter91C2,
where did you see that Porsche decal on garage floor thing? I'd love to do that!

Leland,
when you get those pics, please post them!

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Jeff
1976 911S

pbs911:
That floor paint that Home Depot sells is crap.
You are gonna spend a lot of time and effort, and be VERY disappointed in a few months.
You heard it here first!

A couple of Snapon tools and oil co calendars should also be discreetly installed for aesthetics sake!!!! Garages should never be politically correct!

Friend of mine has an awesome shop up here in Northern Michigan. The floor was painted off white with a little splattering of other colors. Not good enough! Now his multi thousand square foot shop has WHITE vinyl tiles!
My garage gets carpeted from the university salvage for real cheap. Disposal might cost more than the carpet. I use painted sheets of plywood under project areas and seem the joints with duct tape. So far, so clean.
Dan

Rufblackbird,
click on the ultimategarage link in above message, then click on 'Workshop Design'from menu on left, then click on 'Guidelines to Building your Dream Garage'. They show a pic of D. Earnhardts shop and then the flooring is near the bottom of the page, after you read about that flooring and see that pic you will have to wipe the drool of your keyboard.