Sunday, April 12, 2020

So as We are All Stuck Inside These Days... (Garage Series)

So with COVID-19 wreaking havoc on the world, I think most of us are stuck (mostly) inside or working at home during most hours of the day. Hopefully none of you (or your family) are adversely affected by this pandemic.

Normally, I would welcome being at home (so long as I am healthy) as I can sneak off in my free time to the garage to work on the car, but right now, having just brought the car back from NISMO, AND how we are STILL unpacking from our move into the new house, the only thing I can do is to continuing organizing my new space. Still can't find all of my tools and car cleaning stuff...

First order of business was to find a place to store parts, both old and new, which I probably won't be using in the near future. The garage is still a work in progress, and I plan to order some cabinets to place along the wall here:
And yes there is a sink with hot and cold taps there too... he he he 
As you can see right now, I'm using some of my old racks to hold mostly car cleaning related equipment in this area.  Some equipment is still missing, most likely still at my mother-in-law's house where we kept non-essentials while this house was being built (and as I had no space at my temporary rental house).

Given my limited budget and how garage cabinets aren't really sold in Japan, I am thinking about ordering something from Alibaba. Can anyone recommend any decent quality garage cabinets/garage cabinet makers? More importantly for my Italian (and other color coordinated talented) friends, COLOR? What COLOR?

So that's for storage. What about a proper work bench?
Damn fish (bought for the kids who now don't care) won't die...

Over here in a corner area, I have just enough space right now to set up an old aluminum rolling cart from IKEA as a mobile work bench of sorts.  All of my hand tools are currently on the tray, and yes that is a fish tank... there are two cory catfish that refuse to die, all the other residents have long passed away but I'm not into pesca-cide just for the sake of clearing space. And so the tank stays until  I get a proper work bench here and then I will come up with an alternative plan.

Anyway - so I have a bunch of old parts taken off both cars, as well as new parts never installed. Eventually if I get the cabinets, yes there will be space between the cabinets and ceiling so some stuff can be stored in that space. Meanwhile...

I did some research and found these DIY assembly storage sheds from Takubo Mono-oki. Just like IKEA, except it's much more solidly built.

So it arrived in several boxes, forgot to take photos but basically after laying the floor piece and making sure it's flat, you build the walls up, then the roof on top. Pretty straightforward but not fun as a one man job (especially when the walls are over 2 meters tall and it's a windy day).
 People usually place these sheds on blocks that themselves are on flat land. I had to get creative due to limited space.
So the rear sits on 3 blocks, but the front side rests nicely on this low wall.

This really isn't a one man job but somehow I managed
I chose the 3/4 shelves style unit as I wanted to be able to vertically store long items
Yep, the oem sideskirts and rear sfrom my car

I have to say the paint quality on this shed (for this price) is impressive.
Made In Japan...
Anyway, now that this lockable shed is up and is now storing a lot of car related parts I won't be needing in the foreseeable future, I need to turn my attention to getting the interior of the garage improved... and at the same time quietly gathering the parts I will need to continue fixing the interior of the GT-R. Stay tuned!
It's almost like owning an EV...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I joke with my friends that they own EVs as well, many of them live on battery tenders.

Hope you manage to set up your garage and get to enjoy working on your car as well. Yesterday I bled the clutch fluid on a 1993 MR2 Turbo, the brake fluid looked like espresso in the master cylinder which was quite a shock. A few bottles of brake fluid later and it was finally clear and the pedal functional. Unfortunately the bleeder cap flaked to dust as soon as I pulled on it so I'm waiting for a replacement cap to show up tomorrow before I can test drive it.

Aki said...

Thanks for the comment! What I really want is a QuickJack or similar, would make things so much easier...anyone with experience good or bad with these?

Yep, I think this forced staying at home is having a good effect for us garage/mechanical types. So long as we can get the parts delivered, that is...

マット said...

I heard these fish outlive humans.
lol, just kidding.
That's a lovely garage. Great to see it coming together.
Since you have KTC tools, maybe you can get a KTC roller cabinet or their 'mecha-desk'?

Anonymous said...

I've heard the QuickJack has gone through a lot of growing pains. The company was not used to selling to consumers that just want to unbox and get going, B2B tends to be more tolerant of QC issues. Early on people were complaining about leaks leaking to ATF spills + nonstop bleeding required as a result of air getting into the lines from said leaks:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/cfkq7o/quickjack_is_leaking/

https://rennlist.com/forums/997-forum/980906-quickjack-leaking-while-in-storage.html

I was thinking of getting it but all the reports of issues like this gave me pause. It's already an unending battle when I work on cars to prevent fluid spills, I would just toss the thing in the trash if I came down to the garage to find a giant pool of ATF to remediate.

Personally after I got used to it I like using my two piece race ramps for anything that doesn't need the wheels to come off. If the wheels need to come off I use a harbor freight low profile jack and some Torin jacks with a rubber jackstand pad that is notched to avoid putting direct pressure on the pinch weld. The ramps also help if the car is very low and you need to raise the car a little to get access to the suspension crossmember when jacking the car.

Anonymous said...

Regarding lifts though - I have yet to find a satisfying solution to the problem of how to drop an engine/transmission with anything other than a 2 post lift. So you may want to just cut out the middleman and use a 2 post lift. As for seismic safety with such a thing, I'm not sure any real assurances can be made there, so it's probably best to just avoid storing cars on a 2 post lift.

Aki said...

Wow, that is some good information, thank you! Hmm. Maybe I will have to see if there is a more reliable made in Japan equivalent? And as for your dilemma - for one I don't think I will ever be as brave as you to try for an engine/transmission swap in my own garage! I just want to be able to change the oil, brake pads, OCD cleaning (yes!) with as least hassle as possible. For both my cars...

Anonymous said...

For oil I highly recommend race ramps, I just drive up onto the ramp (with a spotter) and then with a creeper it's very easy to access the underside of the engine. For anything that requires both ends of the car to go up into the air I just use a jack + jack stands, a little slower than a two post or similar but not terrible now that I've had some practice.

Funny story, a coworker of mine has actually dropped the transmission on his 996 turbo in our workplace's parking garage, then packed it up and sent it out for rebuild. Then had it delivered to the office and reinstalled it. I'm pretty sure he's going to be buried with that car now. I'm not quite as hardcore as him, so I may never actually do such a thing. But I have been thinking about how I would do it if it came down to it. The MR2 turbo I've been working on recently has a bit of a crunchy 2nd gear, it's gotten better with new transmission oil but it's definitely something on my mind, probably a new transmission is in its future...

Aki said...

Yeah, that is... hardcore! Ah, so the 2nd gen MR2? Not the first gen with that scary supercharger...

Anonymous said...

It's a 1993 SW20 with the turbo. Fun little car. The engine really, really dates it though with the distributor and potentiometer-based AFM. Even older tech than the RB26 in many ways. I'm dreading the day that the AFM dies, the last few ones from Toyota new are over 700 USD.