...and half a year goes by.
Well, I didn't pull the motor in June. At the time I was living in Squamish BC, halfway between Vancouver and Whistler. Housing prices are insane, and while I would have loved to buy a house...there was no hope. About the time I was making my last post, I was looking around at houses for sale in another town, very similar to Squamish but 4 hrs away on Vancouver Island. The price was right, I worked out that I could actually afford it, and put an offer in. Whelp, there goes the next German Look project budget, my offer was accepted. So in August I bought this:
The house came with this out back, but please note two of those 'doors' are white tarps. It's just a bare shell with 2 pads concrete, one dirt. Still, it's an 800sqft shop divided into two halves. The small door has a single bay, and the two larger doors are one big room with a post in the middle.
The house was also being sold with the lot next door, which has a gravel driveway to access the shop in the back of the house. It also has three large carports and a storage shed on the lot. I managed to scoop all of this up for less than an apartment would cost me in my old town. True, I'm on an island and ferries are crazy-expensive to get on and off ($80 one way)..but it's a BIG island, and anytime I have to travel off the island it will be a business expense.
I closed in August, but didn't move until October once all the Classic Car Adventure's events were done. The rally bug couldn't be trusted for the final two events of the year, so I ran my 1958 Beetle on the Hagerty Fall Classic in WA, and my Dad's '79 Beetle convertible on our Hagerty Maple Mille in Ontario. October, November and December were spent finishing the shop. I had the floor poured, doors installed, and then did all the electrical, insulation, walls and painting myself. Turned out pretty stellar, and I'm super stoked on it.
Bay One is the "storage bay", I've got my shelves of frequently used items, the '58, my woodworking bench and left over wood supplies in here. I also build a super-hefty storage shelf above the garage door that's 8 feet wide and 8 feet deep. Currently it's unorganized crap, but eventually I'll clean it out and store less-frequently accessed items. In some ways, bay one is a bit of a wasted space. It would be FAR better to have this room set up either as a "clean room" for building engines and assembly of cars, or as a dirty room where all the grinding, welding and other dirty work occurs. But, despite all the space I managed to stumble into, I have a space problem! I'm using the garage in the house to store my best friend's Audi Coupe Quattro, and I'm no longer keeping a storage unit where lots of my 'crap' that I don't want to throw out would be stored. In a few years, once the budget recovers, I will probably close in and insulate one of the car-ports and move all my storage over there, thus giving me a clean and dirty side of the workshop.
Bay two and three, the larger half of the shop, is where my general work will occur. I've also brought my 1975 Standard Deluxe out of storage...figuring that now I have the space to finally decide what to do with it.
Security Cam shot with all three cars jammed in, while I finished out Bay one:
Workbench & Cabinets
FINALLY, this week, I started to use the shop for what it was built for. Pulled the motor on the rally bug and tore it down to find the valve-train noise. Turns out it wasn't a lifter bore, they're all tight and happy. The timing gear on the crank, however, was loose. I've never seen one come loose before, and neither had my buddies. Keyway in the crank was okay, but the key was pretty hammered out. Also discovered that after 92,000 miles on the 2110cc engine, it was time for bearings. Rod and cam bearings all looked worn but not damaged. The crank bearings, however, weren't so lucky. Definitely starved the middle (split) bearing for oil at some point!
So, while I wait for new bearings to arrive, I thought I'd go back to the hydraulic clutch conversion...the new adapter is 120 thousands thinner than the original, and so now I just need to figure out what box I packed all the flywheel, pressure plate and adapter stuff into. I know it's around here somewhere...
I keep looking at this box on the shelf wondering if now is the time to do it...
-Dave