Advice Needed...Car and tool junk taking my gargae

Hi All,

In the last few years I have lost a storage space I had access to for cheap, and I moved to a nicer area, with a bigger lot, and a MUCH smaller garage. So over the last two years i have been forced to get rid of lots of things that take a huge amount of space. I got rid of some nice workbenches, parts washer, roller tables, etc. I also got rid of clean 327's, 350's, 454's, and a coule of inline six's. The moving of everthing was too much of a hassle.

I loaded my current garage to the top with years worth of old parts I had collected. Now I cannot move in my garage.

The question is how do you decide which parts, and tools to thin from the herd to make room for actually working on your things. Every time I get rid of car parts a year later I end up needing them.

Any advice from you more organized people would be greatly appreciated.

-THANKS

 

Bigger Lot? Get a premade Tuff shed and store the big stuff in there. It will only cost more the next time you need it.

 

If you contract it yourself, a one car addition is less than 10K, two car 15K. A few cases of beer and some buddies in the construction biz can knock a couple grand off of that.

 

The city is a pain to deal with for any permits, and they are really strict on sheds. As you can see in the attached photos, my garage is right on the side lot, and we have to have a 6 foot setback to the property line. The garage door also needs to be 25 feet to the street. I can gain approx. 5 feet if I move the front forward, but that will be expensive because I would have to repour the whole driveway.

The garage was already punched thru, and a slab was poured to fit one car behind the garage. I can't, extend the garage back, because it would block the bedroom windows.

I am stuck with selling / throwing things out to make the garage usuable...I am in a real quandry. How do you rate your spare parts, projects and tools to decide what to get rid of?????

 

maybe some of us could help out if we knew where you lived.

 

Several factors to consider
Size to value ratio. Large and cheap? It's gone.
Replaceability to desireability ratio. Can you find another one or get a fair price out of this one?

And my personal favorite strategy. Find a good friend who's a pack rat and give it to them on the condition if you need it before they do, it's yours. Total win win situation. You're helping a friend and helping yourself. Works especially good if your pack rat friend takes forever to build anything.

 

i cant say i live in a nice area with those rulles and regs, but i feel your pain. i have a 2 car garage and i cant work in it, my 2 cars are jammed in thier i have to work i nthe driveway. it sucks, i got rained out from work friday and today and couldnt even work on stuff, because it was raining. i have room for another garage, but this one is at the edge of the property, a new one would have to be 5' off and id want bigger so it would start to eat up my yard real fast. i have a pretty nice tree id also have to cut down which i dont wan tto . i guess i just have to deal with my issues.

 

have you taken full advantage of all the dead space?
start by filling the rafters in the garage and inside the house (attic).
instead of a 'shed' look for alternative bin storage that can be butted up against the back of the house and fence but not visible from the street.

 

I have the same problem you do. Altered pilot has some good advice.

I have started buying those tool hangers to hang old grilles, steering wheels, etc on the walls. thinking about getting the extra heavy duty ones to hang a pair of truck doors. Doesn't help with engine or trans storage, but gets some big bulky things up out of the way, plus sort of decorates the place. I also got some of those cheap vinyl covered closet shelfs mounted up high to put boxes of lighter stuff in. I am just about maxed out on places to mount shelfs, but could probably get a few more things hanging off the walls.

My dad keeps offering me an air compressor. I think next time he offers I'll take him up on it and figure out how to get it mounted overhead.

 

Yep just start hanging stuff on the walls. you'll find lots of space. And it really does look cool. At least I think so.

 

think enclosed trailer.

 

shipping container?..
POD?

 

You can buy a fairly beat up 48' trailer for under a grand, and you can find a storage lot for probably less than $100 a month. That is the best advice you can get. We have no way to guess which tools are the most important to you, or which parts you will need a year or two down the road. Only you can decide that brother.

 

that's a bigger lot??? looks even smaller than mine! sounds like you screwed the pooch when it came to buying a house. I don't even have a garage yet, I have parts and cars SCATTERED everywhere I can think of. my brothers house, my uncles house, my spare bedrooms I have a two place enclosed snowmobile trailer that my roadster fits in during the winter if I pull off the windshield. go through the hassle of getting a shed. There is definately no reason you won't need it. you need the space and that is your best option. I think around here the biggest problems are distance from home and property. once you get over a certain size you need poured footings to put it on. footings are cheap and easy do if your city requires them.

 

As noted, go vertical.
Hang stuff from the walls, build or buy shelves.

One of the best things I did for my present garage was to buy a couple of heavy duty commercial type shelving units.
$100. each, and it hurt a bit, but it was worth it.
Found at Home Depot etc.
They're 8' long, 6' high and 18" or so deep.
Nice part is they have adjustable for height shelves which is nice when you re-arrange.
Got a bunch of double stacked plastic totes in the shelves, labeled with a Sharpie and easy to access stuff.

A really good one I did was to build a light duty almost-a-table frame from .060 wall 1 1/2" square tubing for the legs and horizontal runs.
Also has a 1 1/2" piece of tubing across the middle and some 1/2 square angled braces.
Ended up fairly lightweight.

It was designed to hold the 31 roadsters body when it comes off for plumbing and wiring.
To that end it's 8' long, 42" wide and 43" high with no top.
After I did a couple of small jobs with a 1' x 4' piece of MFD strung across one end it struck me that it would be a good light duty workbench.
It ended up with a 4' 8' piece of 5/8" MFD on top.

The table was built high so my power tools - disc sander, belt sander, bandsaw, parts washer etc. could roll under and not take up any more floor space than they already were.

The table has worked out well and right now it's storing some heavy stuff at the corners, pair of mounted slicks etc.
Only bad part is the drill press is somewhat inaccessible, but is usable, just not real convenient.
Surprisingly the height of the table makes it a good workbench for some things.

Since my 24' x 28' garage with two 9' doors can hold two roadsters, the 19' long pickup and all the other stuff, I'm thinking of swapping the table to where the 31 is parked and vice versa.
Would be a little more flexible and the same amount of room would be used.

An additional trick is to store the 31 roadster up on 4 ramps.
That way, my trans jack and a couple other easy to move things are out of the way under the 31.

There is a lot more room in a small garage than you think there is, just gotta think about it a bit....

 

I've made room in my Garage for yer stuff. You could crank out Junk Trophies, copy mine real simple, real live Hot Rodders love em. Later, Angle Grinder

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26504628@N07/show/

 

I had a similar issue, I lined my garage attic & moved all my panels, seats etc up there. Racks and big shelves are good, made my own work bench with shelving underneath, only thing on the garage floor is car, chassis, welder, grinder on stand & drill on stand ... tight but I can work.

 

I had a similar problem, so I moved to a bigger place in the country with a 30x56 building. Now all my Pontiacs, Parts, toys, and misc crap that didnt make the cut in the house are stacked in the building. My wife wants to write Opra as she thinks I have a hoarding problem. My advice, work with the space you have, bigger space, more to fill. Kinda the Make more spend more, never enough theory. But if someone has a solution without selling, scrapping, or just quitting the hobby, Im listening too!

Im going to have to build a 2nd floor, just so I can get to my rafters!

Ed

PS: show this to your wife next time shes bitchin about your shit!

 

I just purchased a truck/van cube at a wrecking yard for $150.00 and had a buddy tow it over on his flat bed tow truck. This will free up some garage space and I plan on putting wheels, fenders, and things I don't really need in my main garage. Should work out for me and my junk, or should I say "Empire"!

 

Hey pontiacres, I need a pair of those T/A Fenders !!!!!

 

The area at the top of the walls, about 18" to 2ft. down from the ceiling is wasted space. I made a shelf about a foot wide all around the garage. It is up high enough that you don't knock your head on it, and that one foot shelf will hold a lot of stuff!! That saved me when I moved into my one-car garage.
I made wall brackets from 2x4s with 1x12 pine shelf, a 2x4 ledger board, and a 1x4 facia that added strength to the 1x12. They are very stout, and you can really load them up.
Bob

 

I'm guessing you have shelves in there. You need to maximize your shelves. I bought a bunch of plastic tote boxes, and I load them up with parts, label the box, then put the box on the shelf. The shelf above that is right on top of the tote boxes--no extra, dead space. Do you have a lot of cylinder heads, valve covers and intake manifolds? If so, and they're sitting on a shelf, how much dead space is between the top of the intake and the shelf above it. An intake or valve covers don't need more than 8-10 inches of vertical space.
Look at it this way: If you have 8 foot ceilings, and your shelving unit currently has 6 shelves on it, if you move those six shelves 2 inches closer together, you've just picked up enough space to add another 12-inch tall shelf to your shelving unit. That's a lot of storage.

Shelves around your work bench and tools works too. Get two metal shelving units from home Depot, put them on both sides of your bench, tool box or whatever, and then run another shelf between the two of them, above your bench.

Space above your garage doors is probably obvious, but I'll throw it out there any way.

You said your city is a real pain about sheds. Put up with a little pain. Even if you need to have a custom-built shed that matches the house, investigate that to the fullest. Make it as big as the rules allow, and maximize every square inch of it inside. And then put a little lean-to roof off the back of it when it's done, and set bigger body panels, wheels and tires, etc. behind it, out of sight.

If you have an air compressor inside the garage now, put it outside. I've also seen them put in the attic above a garage.

Good luck.
-Brad

 

Get some school busses and gut 'em for storage. Yer neighbors should really love that. Move to Wyoming, plenty of space and every one has "junk" sitting around. I've built a heavy steel bench about 4' X10" on heavy wheels. You can wheel it outside and use it. I've got a vise, grinder and all the other stuff mounted on it. It freed up a bunch of space for storage.

 

Have you thought about using a boxcar detached from its wheels? Apparently those things get tossed by railroad companies every so often.

 

How about a second story on top of the current garage for use as storage.

 

Hi all,
Great advice so far. The city will only let me build a 10 x 8 shed with a permit....anything beyond is an outbuilding that must get a zoning variance. The city also will not let me add a second story...that was my first request to the city.

I started the process by cutting all the trusses and putting in new load bearing beams across the garage. I am now building cabinets that face the openings. This makes it easy to get to the attic. The new shelves are coming, but they are slow going. I think I am going to dump a few cars, and I guess the next step is to relocate my blast cabinet and my compressor outside. I already put my frame dolly outside.

I guess I need to get more organized before I start tossing things...

 

Mine got so bad years ago I borrowed the phrase my employer pulled out every December.

"Spending Moratorium"

Every 18 months or so I announce one (literally) and don't buy ANYTHING unless it's a nut, bolt, or gasket that allows me to install parts already sitting around. Til a couple bulky items get installed and breathing space returns, the spending ban stays intact.
It won't work in your case today, but might be worth considering as a maintenance plan. Good luck.

PS it could be worse. You haven't stranded a vehicle on the lift yet by packing junk underneath it. We've all met that guy.

 

Please make sure you know what you're doing, or had an architect or engineer check it out. I'm an architect and have seen where people have altered or removed structure (columns, beams, rafters, etc.) from their homes and create some dangerous conditions that were expensive to fix. You may know all this, but thought I should mention it just the same.

 

Yes, make sure you put the new ones in before cutting the old. My Shop used to be a practice spot for some kids in a band. They cut all but 2 Joists on the hip style roof on 1 side. I was told by the person I bought the place from that it was looked over by a professional. Shaaaa...As IF! When I started my re model, the the roof and come down 10 inches, pushing the South wall & East Wall out 4 inches at the top. Turned into a real project. I ended up tying the North Wall to the Ground, pushing the roof up with a bottle jack. I put 8 feet of 4 inch angle iron on the outsides bolted to the top plate with 1 inch eye bolts and Pulled the S & E walls in with industrial strap jacks borrowed from a buddy at the power company. Tied the plates together with Guidewire, 8000 lb test. 3 North/South 26 feet, 2 East/West 36 feet. What a fight!

Ed

 

Yeah....I am in the business, so I had one of my structural engineers do all the calcs, and the city rejected it....They said I had to go 2" Thicker on the paralam beams. So I had to go back to the engineer, change to bigger beams and restamp the drawings to get the permit....A real pain in the butt.

As you can see from the photos, i have boxed the whole structure, and I left an open face where shelving with cabinet doors will be installed as time goes on.