Projects bilding a motor inside your house

I built about a half dozen motors in my front room when there wasn't a woman in the house. Back in the 70's & 80's I used to lug quarters of beef off a semi so it was no big deal carrying a 300 pound motor from the garage to the house in the fall to be rebuilt over winter. Now I'm 60 and have a hard time lifting 100 pounds. And my girl friend says no to that in house project

 

I built a rigid frame chopper in my living room after i divorced the first bitch, when i met my current wife she thought it was cool that i was buildin a bike in the house where it was warm and she helped me with it instead of freezin our asses off in the shop!

 

I once rebuilt a Muncie 4 speed in the bathtub of a motel room so I could race the class finals on Sunday, I won.

I knew another racer that left a bare Chevy block in the living room and went on a two week business trip. His wife painted it green and planted Ivy in the cylinders and put a glass top on it. It sat in front of their couch for years and he never brought parts in the house again.

 

I have found that this dodge works much better when you don't have a female in captivity! Mine moved in with me two years ago, and that put a kebosh on all indoor drive train related building! In my defense though, my '53 Triumph 6T stayed in the side room on the coffee table until Christmas time. Prior to that it was almost twenty years of single hot rodder happiness! So the short answer is hell yes! Quick story though - with the last then future ex I lived with twenty some odd years ago... She headed back to old Hong Kong with her family for a six week visit to the home land. (coincidentally, the current female's home town too... hmmmm) she was supposed to be back on say the 25th of the next month, and I would have the place to my self. Great time to build that 2180cc VW engine right? Great time to dissect and go through the '48 plymouths dash too! Hell let's go through the weber IDA's for the V - dub too! All was well in our third story apt until the 22nd of next month... A phone call at work "Guess what - we came home three days early - come pick us up at the air port - I've missed you!!!" AAARRRGGGHHH!!! Amazing how well you can clean up four or five project in just minutes including cleaning grease spots in the living room carpet, when there is homecoming sex on the line! - And it would have been the perfect crime too, except I forgot the 1200cc cases and heads in the dishwasher! Ya know, she was gone for good not too long after that! Damn, I miss that bug with that 2180 in it! Still look at the dashboard every day though...

 

When I was first married I had a short wheelbase fuel rail and no heat in the garage so I assembled the chassis in the living room through the door and into the kitchen to fit an aluminum body to it.My motherinlaw came in and asked my wife why she would put up with this and my wife told her she thought it was cool and was helping me.

 

put together a 56 chevy pu in a duplex once,entire truck,,less engine an trans ,then left it for the landlord'''' shoulda seen his face when he found that in da living room

 

Here's my dining room at the moment.

 

Haven't done any rebuilds but the house is definately FULL of parts. All the girls never seem to understand, maybe need to find some new girls?

Brian

 

As i was reading this i turned in my chair and took these two shots of my almost complete chopper in the dining room. On another note i just recently removed the T cowl, quarter panels, blower, carbs, wide 5 wheels two drilled axles, drilled wishbones, drums, and T grill from the living room. My wife is cool with it she is just like me lol.

 

One of the guys in my club ( Trompers of Eagle Rock ) lives in a single room apartment in glendale and he completely assembled his '31 roadster in his living room and then re-assembled it in the car port, now thats dedeication!!!!

 

I built a 427 chevy in the basement years ago. It was a good plan until i had to re-enforce the steps to get it back out. The steps made some god awful noise with 3 guys and a big block going up at once.

 

Ahh, college. Had a datsun truck engine in my bedroom...good place to store clothes. We would work on roomie's savage in the living room. Rode bikes in the house. BB gun target practice in the house....that doorbell never rang quite right after that. Time to install engine, drilled a hole in the beam at front of carport, ran rope through, 2 white boys as counter weights. Good times.

 

thats cool!

 

my wife laughed when i built a harley motor in my kitchen

 

rebuilt the sprintcar motor in our office a few times, and in hotel rooms a couple times..i think i have a picture in my profile of the motor getting rebuilt in the office haha

 

Haven't rebuilt an engine in the house... yet.

Stored heads under the bed; tools and parts all over. Done the indoor carb rebuilds, and parts in the dishwasher tricks, too.

Started building an 850 foot garage in 2005; got it finished in 2007. Left it with the wife a couple years ago.

This is my living room today... condo life sucks.



By the way, that's an STR14-4 base beside the box, with the lid on top, and some Ball & Ball carbs peeking out from behind the coveralls.

-Bill

 

Two brother in my hot rod club built a flathead in their parents 2nd floor unit of a 3 family when they were in high school.
These guys are into their 70's now, older but wiser.
They got it running after school (INSIDE) when no one else was home that afternoon.
When their mom arrived home unexpectedly they booted it out, still running, thru the 2nd floor french doors.
The stench and smoke gave away their little maneuver.

 

great stories, keep them coming!

 

When you don't have a heated garage & it's the middle of winter . . . why wouldn't you bring the 8-71 Blown 426 inside to rebuild it?

This was the scene at a good friends house last winter.
Apparently getting "UnMarried" a few years ago allows one to make these sorts of logical decisions without fear of reprisals.

 

You're my hero.

 

We once went to visit some friends of ours and they were rebuilding an old three wheeler in the living room and a dirt bike in the dining room. My mom and dad were speechless and thought that it was crazy. Funny thing was, it wasn't a couple months later that my dad and brother were rebuilding a carburetor on our kitchen table.

SpeedAddict001

 

I used to but my wife put a stop to it. Sometimes when shes not home I sneak parts into the dishwasher.

 

Motor in the house, yeah plenty in the basement, standard procedure, but...

How 'bout;
A quickchange on the kitchen table. Sweated the new tubes in by putting the center section in the oven. Who knew it was going to smell that much, and for that long?

Fiberglassed a nose and tail back together in a hotel room at the 24 hours of Daytona a few years back. Resin mixed in the sink doesn't really come out.

Does cutting up deer in the spare bedroom count for anything?

 

college room-mate did. Bad deal. Volkswagen air cooled are meant to leak; and oil eats many types of linoleum.. Deposit covered it; but I really would have liked the cash back!

 

This is a big reason I race midgets: In the winter we could drop the axles off, pull the motor, and carry the whole thing down into the basement for freshening. The landlord freaked the first time he saw it down there but was a racing fan eventually.

Also assembled a 4 cylinder Chevy II on the 2nd floor kitchen table. Once was enough for that. Took the head off at the first landing.

Actually built an entire chassis in the basement once. Grinding tube intersections with a body grinder sure was messy.

 

HA, not with my wife, she says thats why they envented GARAGES, LOL

 

short blocks arent too bad, had to do a few in the kitchen.

Actually if you have water in your garage you can buy used dish washers and use them as giant parts wahsers, need hot water for it to work best but dishwashing detergent is good shit on greasy parts. when it finally dies just scrap it out.

 

Easter morning about 10 years ago.
I shoved my headers into our kitchen oven to bake some space age coating I bought from Summit.
Totally smoked us out of the house for the entire day.
My wife, son and I spent the rest of the day OUTSIDE raking leaves because the stench was so overpowering.
I had to buy her a new oven too.
I also tried converting the white tiled bathroom into a spraybooth...............every item in there turned freakin' pink!
Amazing that were still married.

 

Around 1970 we had a 327 under the kitchen table for the entire winter. Wife left the next year. She found a guy with a garage

 

Rebuilt the motor out of my Karman Ghia on the dining room table of my second story apartment. If the landlord would have seen it my ass would have been out the door. I did try to keep it as clean as possible thou. the dirty part is the disassembly and cleaning of all the parts. Once it's clean it should be like doing surgery...clean as a whistle. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who has never done it before.