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Congrats on the house purchase. Garage space is critical. Coming along nicely it seems. That cig residue is naaaaaaasty.
Is your '13 Nebula Grey Pearl or that Meteor color?
By odd circumstance, I spent three years owning a condo with no garage. I needed a place to live and it was cheap / good investment, so I bought it. Hated it every day because of not having a garage, but I saved up enough to buy what I really wanted... a necessary evil. The car is nebula grey pearl, all the trim is satin black from the previous owner.
The nicotine is very, very gross. One garage door scrubbing results in 2 full bucket water exchanges. The water becomes so dirty that you just start spreading the filth, so I have to swap the water. It’s 24 years of cigarette buildup. I’m having the floors power washed tomorrow. There is the same buildup on the concrete, which is the last source of nicotine stench in the garage. Then I can move on to making it look good.
Originally Posted by Hardrvin
If it’s an event I can commit to hitting, let me know and I’ll bring the trailer. As long as only one of us has issues, we can figure it out.
I was going to text you today. I want to sign up for an event at Putnam that you can be my instructor for the day in the beginning class. We can also collaborate on mid-Ohio days. Do you know your instructing schedule already for the spring/summer?
I need to ditch my drag radials and get a matching set of tires for the rear, or just buy a whole new set of tires. What’s a good beginner grade tire that isn’t silly expensive, and what brake pads and fluid do you all run? My car sees a lot of street use in the summer, so I don’t think a full track pad will be great for my use. I have a daily, so I’m not worried about tires that can handle bad weather. I’m on the fence on an oil cooler. I’ve never seen a 12 plus isf complain of oil overheating, and I won’t be pushing it hard my first year out. When I do buy one, I’ll buy figs.
Hardrvin and me in his mostly stock (at the time) ISF summer of 2020. He instructs, and let me ride along in the advanced class. It was very, very fun, albeit a little scary since that class runs close together and I didn’t have any prior track experience. So, I jumped in the deep end on day one.
As a novice, any tires and pads should be fine. I ran on all seasons, cheap stop tech sport pads and OEM fluid for the first 1-2 years. Though I strongly recommend fresh high temp fluid.
if you want a "budget" summer tire, the Firehawk.Indy 500 seem to be a popular choice.
choce.
let me know if you guys sign up for any track days. Right now I'm signed up for NCM August 8 and Mid Ohio Sept 18 and still looking to sign up for more.
Even after the entire garage was scrubbed and walls were sealed, it would smell of nicotine when you pulled in a wet car. We realized the floor was harboring just as much, if not more, nicotine as the rest of the place had.
So I had my friend that does commercial floors come in and scrub the place. He used some pretty strong cleaner and a nifty pressure washing device.
Here is the final result, still drying. It smelled and looked much better. Made my entire house smell like citrus for about a week.
I am glad to know that my days of wrenching in the cold are mostly behind me. This ventless heater can turn the garage into a Florida summer.
Getting the first coat of Lexus racing blue on the accent wall.
It’s actually a lighter shade than Lexus blue, as I didn’t want to darken the room. It works for me, though. This wall will have a lot of stuff on it, so it won’t be so overshadowing when the garage is done. It should match (ish) the Bendpak lift as well.
For good measure, I sealed the floor with a penetrating sealant. This will keep any remaining nicotine locked in. This dries without changing the appearance of the concrete.
I did half the garage at a time, as my ISF has drag radials and they should not sit outside overnight. It’s too cold for that here.
The ISF side of the garage is already sealed, so it cures without any tint.
I may like shop builds more than car builds. I follow them on the garage journal. When you grow up playing in shops, they quickly become a natural environment for someone.
Take a look at this: High Lift Garage Door Conversion to get some more room to raise the car. I'll be doing this in my 3 bay garage before getting setup with a lift. I suspect I have a little bit higher ceiling at 11'3". Don't bet on the floor being 4 1/2" thick. Standard residential pour is 4" even. I know mine is. My garage is 30' 10" by 20' 11" and will be getting a similar makeover, hopefully this year. I don't plan to do a permanent lift. There's not enough room to put one in and still be able to let the kids open the car doors. Even when you're careful, opening the doors in the lift bay will be an exercise in patience. Unless I find a good reason to go with something else, I'm looking at a MaxJax set up. They say you can install it on a 4" pour floor, but I'm not excited about that. I plan to cut squares in the floor where I'll have the lift and make some rebar forms about 48" tall with the bolt holes I need welded in place, sink those in the cut holes and concrete over leaving the bolt holes exposed so I can bolt the units down and never think about safety. What's funny is the wife said the garage had to be adequate to support having a lift. We've only been here 13 years, and still in the planning phase...
Take a look at this: High Lift Garage Door Conversion to get some more room to raise the car. I'll be doing this in my 3 bay garage before getting setup with a lift. I suspect I have a little bit higher ceiling at 11'3". Don't bet on the floor being 4 1/2" thick. Standard residential pour is 4" even. I know mine is. My garage is 30' 10" by 20' 11" and will be getting a similar makeover, hopefully this year. I don't plan to do a permanent lift. There's not enough room to put one in and still be able to let the kids open the car doors. Even when you're careful, opening the doors in the lift bay will be an exercise in patience. Unless I find a good reason to go with something else, I'm looking at a MaxJax set up. They say you can install it on a 4" pour floor, but I'm not excited about that. I plan to cut squares in the floor where I'll have the lift and make some rebar forms about 48" tall with the bolt holes I need welded in place, sink those in the cut holes and concrete over leaving the bolt holes exposed so I can bolt the units down and never think about safety. What's funny is the wife said the garage had to be adequate to support having a lift. We've only been here 13 years, and still in the planning phase...
Lots of great points. I want high lift bays, but they aren’t necessary for my lift, so on the back burner a bit. You have 2 more feet of clearance than me, but about 2 feet less depth. I’d have loved taller ceilings, but was lucky to get into here. The ceiling height was a give. For that reason, I’m getting the bendpak 9 ft ceiling lift. I have read up on lifts a lot, and like their products. https://www.bendpak.com/best-two-pos...-low-ceilings/
I considered raising the ceiling in that bay... but I have no idea how to safely do that.
The max jacks are nice, but I feel
comfortable with a permanent lift. I have a bit more width, and I’m installing the lift at exactly half way depth in the far bay. This will allow me to lift bigger vehicles, such as trucks. It also will put the posts at about my fender / door hinge when I’m not using it, as I only pull in far enough to close the bay doors. That bay also doesn’t have an opener. I manually open and close it to drive the ISF, so no opener clearance issues. It’ll eventually get a wall mounted opener and a high lift in that bay.
I have to measure my concrete. My driveway is garbage and completely destroyed. It was not poured well. However, my garage floor has aged very well. So, it was prepped better and likely poured deeper, or it has been redone at some point. I can’t tell. My lift will require 4.25 inch depth. I’m hoping I can avoid footers, but may have to put them in like you described above. Concrete has gone up about 40% around me... so that’s a cost I hope to avoid.
I bought the 6.5 mm depth industrial grade Supratiles made by Armorproxy. I was going to buy the residential (4.5 mm), but they had a bunch of this in overstock. Their overstock is DEEPLY DISCOUNTED.
I wanted a black and dark grey checkerboard floor. They did not have enough, but they had enough if I took some light grey as well. The light grey looks good, but hot tires can potentially transfer black marks onto the light grey. It is not noticeable on the darker colors. Since I had to use a color I didn’t want, they discounted it even more. SOLD!
Read up on this stuff. It’s cheaper than professional epoxy application, and lasts way longer with a 25 year warranty. I couldn’t not buy it at the price they offered.
That said, I can do the checkerboard pattern I wanted with a light grey border. This will keep the tires mostly off the light grey. The few feet in front of the cars will also be light grey, which is more of the workshop area.
Or, I can do a 3-way checkerboard pattern throughout the floor. What are your thoughts?
This is the 3-way mock-up. I have enough to do this pattern throughout the shop. I may actually like it more, but the downside is I may have a light tire mark transfer onto the light grey tiles. They said it would be minor.
I have also learned, while mocking these up, that my garage is not square. I’ve never laid flooring before. I intend to lay as straight a line as possible across the 35 ft wall with the bay doors and work my way backwards. As I come to a wall that a tile won’t fit up against perfectly, I’ll trim it. That may happen pretty shallow into the garage, because it’s just not square. Let me know if you have a better idea. I want to avoid waste, as I don’t have much spare flooring.
I never posted the finished paint job. It is below. I never, ever, want to paint in a heavily
smoked room again. These walls soaked up sealer and paint in a way I couldn’t believe.
Don’t mind the mess. I’m constantly moving things as I work on different areas.
On anchor bolts: There are many factors that effect anchor bolt capacity, see ACI 318. A preliminary investigation by a non professional may indicate a slightly thinner slab would be considered safe. If so, contacting a friend with a professional engineering license in your state would probably be less expensive than slab modification.
I have a very strong sense that general guidelines like 4.5” are very conservative.
A wider base may also be an economical solution.
A home gamer that performed this analysis would need to remove the lift before selling the house.
On anchor bolts: There are many factors that effect anchor bolt capacity, see ACI 318. A preliminary investigation by a non professional may indicate a slightly thinner slab would be considered safe. If so, contacting a friend with a PE in your state would probably be less expensive than slab modification.
I have a very strong sense that general guidelines like 4.5” are very conservative.
A wider base may also be an economical solution.
A home gamer that performed this analysis would need to remove the lift before selling the house.
This coincides with my research. Overall, I couldn’t find any pictures or stories of a lift breaking concrete or tipping over, but the internet is filled with pictures of cars falling off and tearing stuff up. I did find guys who used less than recommended concrete thickness with zero issues, and even posts from people in the know suggesting that the tensile strength of concrete is so strong that it’s unlikely a 4inch floor will break.
I work in the corporate legal field, and I recognize that if 4 inches is safe, many manufacturers would say 4.25 is required just to build in a liability buffer. Then considering it’s a 7k lb lift and I would not be using all the capacity, that adds even more of a buffer. Overall, I’m going to drill a pilot hole and see how deep it is, then go from there. I have a gut feeling my floor is deeper than 4 inches. If not, it was installed very well. It’s aged and still almost completely flat and crack free.
12-31-20, 07:00 AM
