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 So, not too long ago I was renting comfortably in a condo with a one car garage in the bottom level. I have enough space to work on things, even though only one car got the privilege of covered parking. Unfortunately, the landlord sold the place. Long story short, I was thrust into home ownership sooner than planned! The house is about 100 years old, and full of the  you'd expect. Here's the business end:  I've got a carport, two one car garages, and a slab between them big enough to park a car. Mind my lovely camera  The first garage is big enough to work on the e30 at least. I need to move some of the shelves to garage #2 to make some more room. It was a fairly recent construction and seems well built.  Fender flares!  Not too much space in front of the car, but it's workable.  Garage #2 is an old cedar deal that was built decades ago. It's too narrow to really pull a car in, so it's going to act as workshop and part storage space. At some point, the back wall was bumped out a bit and they must have done a lovely job with the foundation back there.  I don't think I'm going to bother fixing that - this thing will get torn down sometime next year to make room for a proper 2/3 car garage + shop area. I'll use this thread to document my lovely home improvement projects, and all the poo poo wrong with my cars that I can't get around to fixing. I've got a camping / driving trip to the Tail of the Dragon with some fellow bimmer bros planned the first week of November, and all three of these bastards are in some state of brokenness!
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Oct 12, 2016 03:57
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| # ? May 4, 2024 22:19 |
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First problem: I've got very little in the way of power and lightning. Garage 1 has one wall outlet, a ceiling outlet for the garage door opener, and a light switch going to a single 100W bulb. Some backstory: During inspections, we found no power to the garage. P.O. claimed ignorance. She called her ex-husband to find out why - apparently they had cut the power to the garage purposely but could not remember the reason. I had some suspicions at this point, but figured the electrician they were having repair it would find out the truth of the matter. Apparently he hooked power back up and found nothing of note, besides the janky way power was ran. More on that later. When I came to do my walk through, the garage once again had no power. The breaker was popping instantly. Traced a short to garage 2, disconnected it, and was good to go.  Here's where power comes from - a hole from one of the basement windows. Buried with no protection who knows how deep.  This line reappears at garage #1 and is stuffed through a wall.  After routing through the few boxes in the garage, it exits stage left!  Note that there is no strain relief on this cable, and it's shorted at the clamp holding it to the roof of garage number two. Here it powers one light fixture and one outlet - that's it. This all USED to be on breaker #1, which happened to power most of the outlets in the house including the microwave. They kept popping the breaker, but instead of fixing it just cut power to the garages, and claimed they could not remember why it was cut. The previous owners thankfully were only there for 5 years, and didn't do lasting damage (aside from painting over some beautiful wood trim and NEVER CLEANING ANYTHING  ). The old couple that came before them took good care of the houseRight now power to the garages is just sitting on its own 20 amp breaker, and I still have yet to hook up power to the 2nd garage (hereby noted as the shop) Run down on the issues with the cars: e30 needs the head removed and a valve job - bad valve seats that I didn't catch before the motor rebuild. Shame on me for just cleaning the head and shoving it back in untouched! It also has some rubbing issues in the rear, and some other random crap. I've got a junkyard S52 (also bad valve seats!) to grab cams out of to shove into the hi comp aluminum 2.8L 24v that's in it right now when the head is back on and good to go. e34 clutch master has started to take a poo poo on me. I've got a replacement intake boot to install, a bad aux fan to gently caress with, some window motors to rebuild, CaTuned coilovers to install, an oil change to perform, and a washer fluid pump to install. It also could really use a goddamn detail. It's the beater. The e82 just rolled over 100k miles. I've already roasted the rear tires, and I want to do a bunch of preventative maintenance / upgrades to get it ready for TURBO BOOSTU POWER UPGRADES. Low priority. Right now it mostly sits there and drains money. Parts are on the way for the e34 and I expect to address most of its issues this weekend. Once I get the garage more workable I'll rip the head of the e30. I'm also going to shove a bore scope down its throat and make sure it's valve seats, and redo the leak down test just to be sure. Party Alarm fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Oct 12, 2016 |
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Oct 12, 2016 04:13
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Glad to see you have decided that one massive electrical project isn't enough so you've picked up at least three more.
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Oct 12, 2016 04:34
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Love me some 50/50 pre-mix garage & auto project fluid Subscribed fo sho
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Oct 12, 2016 13:07
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I had a second meter installed on my last garage. I didn't have the juice to spare from my house. A bonus was the utility paid for the wire from the transformer to the garage it saved me $1,000 in wire, but I have to pay $5 a month for a second meter plus some bullshit minimum monthly amount even if I don't use any electricity. Worth it to have 200 amps of current available for car fuckery and EV recharging. So nice to not have to worry about running welder, air compressor, and table saw at the same time. Also hilarious that the electric car would trip the meters power outage signal to the utility so they replaced it with one that doesn't phone home. It would be perfect for you to join the two building with a high roof in the center for a lift.
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Oct 12, 2016 15:35
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Well, the far building is so drat old and the way the slab is poured that wouldn't really work. Right now I'm considering leaving the good one car, knocking down the shop garage, and building something reasonably sized. I've got quite a few options really.
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Oct 12, 2016 23:11
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Both garages now have some level of security! They had no locks to begin with, and that didn't sit right with me given all the tools I was shoving in them. Immediate plans are to move some of the storage over to the workshop area to make more room around the brown car. I need to get working on the car soon.  Here's a picture of it this spring up in the Smokies.
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Oct 14, 2016 01:05
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 Got some lights in the garage and switched up some of the storage. Got some more room to work around the car now. Before I go do some major work, I felt like the brown car needed a bath    Been busy on the house side of things. Whipped up a small fire pit and been working on the kitchen. The yellow crap was the old stank - new coat of paint and new floors made it a lot nicer.   Old Stank  New hotness (WIP) Also some dingus backed into my 135i and put a bunch of cracks in the paint.  Stuff like that just ruins your day
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Oct 24, 2016 02:14
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Started reading due to e30, stayed for GroverGarageLean (Two), and drunklectrics.
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Oct 24, 2016 05:22
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I just dropped my 335 off at the body shop, an old guy took his foot off the brake and rolled his camper van into my bumper last month. His insurance is covering it, but ugh. Still sucks. You get the other guy's info, or was it hit and run? Maybe time for an m sport bumper?
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Oct 24, 2016 15:42
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Hit an run  MORE LIKE TIME FOR A 1M CONVERSION
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Oct 24, 2016 17:31
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Awesome thread, bookmarked. So how does 135i ownership stack up these days, for the enterprising diy owner? I had a nearly new 09 128i, and the amount of stuff that broke within the warranty period, and the amount of electronics that were tied to the body computer scared me off from keeping it.
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Oct 24, 2016 17:37
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Ive had it from 57k to its current 101k. My water pump went bad as expected and I lost a window regulator. That's it 😃
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Oct 24, 2016 17:43
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Are there any options for talking to or editing the body computer? I remember when my radio screen died and the dealer caught hell pairing a new one (or so they told me).
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Oct 24, 2016 17:48
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Almost anything electronic on them needs to be coded. Just look up BMW coding tools - there are all sorts of ones for not too much $$$
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Oct 24, 2016 17:50
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Looks like a sandstone foundation. Pretty common on houses that are 100+ years old around here, in some cases the stones were cut from the river cliffs a few hundred meters away. If well maintained and in good shape they last a long time.
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Oct 24, 2016 18:57
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| # ? May 4, 2024 22:19 |
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Limestone actually, and it seems to be pretty solid. Shouldn't have to worry about it any time soon. Just replaced the bad window reg in the 135i. Surprisingly easy!
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Oct 26, 2016 00:24
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