Sunday, February 9, 2020

Garage Got Fixed... (Garage Series)

In my last post, I mentioned that I was having the house builders redo the garage floor. Am I being too OCD? Well, take a look and you tell me.
Unacceptable!!
As you can see, this garage floor is not flat. In fact, from the midline there to the back side at the shutter door, there is a height difference of about 10cm! So if the two concrete panels are about 300cm (guess), this is approximately a 3.3% incline! (10/300=0.033).  Actually, if you look closely at the panels - the first one (from midline to where the black box is) has a drop of 6cm! And the second one (black box to the door) has a 4cm drop.

The house builder tried to explain this by saying that the incline was built in because this way, any rain water/snow/whatever that got into the garage area would run off.  I reminded him that I had specifically told him that in this space I would be working on my cars. And, by using a small ball, showed him how anything small that I dropped, like a bolt or screw, would start rolling...fairly quickly... plus, if I ever decide to get a lift, a 10cm difference MIGHT be dangerous. And if anything ever happened to me...

He then tried to suggest that they fix the rear two panels. The idea would be to make the last two panels flat, for the lift idea. However, the problem here is that, the rear shutter door when opened would have a 10cm drop to to the rear yard area, which right now is flat with the rear most panel. The solution of course was to fix the two MIDDLE floor panels. Yes, the rear panel might have a drop of 4cm but I think if I DO decide to put a lift back there, I can figure out a way to adjust for that.  But whatever, I may not even get a lift so...

And so, in the end, the builder agreed to redo the middle two floor panels for free!







And the end result:

So this new concrete should be completely flat. Or at least flat as humanly possible. Yes, the front and rear panels still have a decline of 4cm to the doors, but I can live with that, I think.

So am I happy? Well yes and no.  The next step is an epoxy coating, however now I have to wait for this middle concrete to dry. Meanwhile, a friend sent me this photo of my car BACK at Nismo Omori Factory...

This means that it's now a race to finish the garage as Nismo begins to wrap up the work on my car. I DID reach out to Takasu-san and so I am going to go check out my car later this week... hopefully he can give me an idea as to when the car will be done... and an update on the work they have done so far.

6 comments:

Spiidfriik said...

You should absoluty get a lift installed. Best tool i ever bought!
/Daniel in Sweden

Aki said...

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for the comment. Question is - two post or four post? Two post would allow me to have more vertical space, but then earthquakes here in Japan have me worried...I think I have about 3.1m of height. So two low sports cars... any advice? Thanks!

Aki

Anonymous said...

I did a lot of research into this a year or two ago.

If you want to use the lift for storage do not get a two post lift. There is a lot more room for error that can cause the car to fall off the lift. Lots of videos of this happening online, the car is 100% totaled in these cases. Adding an earthquake to the mix would pretty much guarantee it.

If the garage door track interferes with the lift area then you may not have enough space. But 3.1m of open ceiling will definitely fit one car on the lift and another below it safely, you will just have maybe 6 inches of slack left on the top car. For long term storage you want to have the lift bolted to the concrete securely and the car strapped down to the lift to keep it from moving on the lift.

Aki said...

Wow, awesome! Exactly what I was thinking (four post), and hoping for (that 3.1m is probably ok)! The garage door is a roll up shutter type so there are no tracks on the garage ceiling. So, I just have to figure how which brand to get and yes was planning to bolt down...Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Good luck. If you do get a lift it was wise to make a bit of a fuss because these lifts require a flat concrete surface.

Kunal said...

Maybe consider this as a portable solution for quick projects: https://www.quickjack.com
Have heard great reviews so far and can easily store away on the side when not in use. Just an idea!

Congrats on the new house build! That home office view should be very nice👌