Click here to see the new Aluminum Race Jack!

The old floor, the old garage, and Old Bill about to fix that.

OK, so you think I've gone over the deep end 'cause now I'm posting pics of my garage...well you're right. I'm telling you I just couldn't take it any more. The winter salt eating away at the surface of the floor, leaving that neat salt dust to permeate everything. No. We are now done with that.

After 13 years of "living with it" I finally decided it was time to do something about it. Enter Doug Arndt from Concrete Technologies, Inc. I called them after hearing their ad on talk radio AM1500 up here. I told him of my vast irritation with the existing floor and he told me what he could do for me; grind of the surface of the floor, fill the cracks and holes, lay down epoxy and no slip and top off the whole works with your basic impregnable surface layer. Chickens couldn't even scratch it out. Total time 3 days, total cost $1320. Count me in!

Looking better all ready after the first base coat.

After calling to find out when I was scheduled for install, I had to remove everything from my garage. Have you ever done this? After 13 years? Good grief the selection of crap that I found in there! I thought it was clean! I had a pile of trash for the garbage truck this morning that was as higher than the NSX. Well it needed to be done! While I was at it, I had these huge steel shelves taking up a significant area inside the entry door that my bro Mike is going to remove and put in his new "Garage Mahal" he just built. So commences the saga.

Day 1: 8:05am. Call to find out when the installers will arrive. No answer at CTI. They open at 8am. I leave a message. Their installer Bill calls back at 10:30, and say they are on the way! Life is good. They get here a little after 12pm. I'm glad I was working in the office today. In no time flat the floor has been ground down to REAL cement again, vaccu-sucked clean and the base coating applied. As I have a few significant cracks and a bunch of spalls, this step will be done twice.

Day 2: Around 7am the crew shows up again to lay down the final patches and smooth out the floor before the final top coat. They are in and out in a couple hours. I go to a client, come back around 3:30pm and they are done! Now it's the drying stage for a couple days and we are back inside!

It turned out pretty good. There are a few uneven places around the floor (mostly where patches to the concrete below was done) but overall it's mint and a far better floor than I had. No comparison really, as the photo's show.

The finished product. It's almost too nice to park a car on, well not an NSX...

I tossed out all the cheap Home Depot fluorescent fixtures I had (10 of them) and replaced them with top of the line commercial grade twin tube jobs. The old ones had over half the ballasts burned out and I was going through tubes at a frightening rate. Now you flip the lights on out there and it's like you are standing in an operating room, the way it should be!

So now the back wall with all the peg board has come off, insulation and sheet rock are going up. I just ordered a pack of cabinets for the wall with the Veedol sign (top picture) and some Craftsman benches and rolling tool cart. Now we are talking! It should be complete soon and I'll take a couple pics of the completed garage.


Phase Two Has Begun!

Here's a shot of the newly updated storage wall.

So after the new floor and lighting went in, it was time to deal with storage issues. I have a pull down stair that allows me to get into the high peak area above the garage roof joists, so anything I don't need every day goes up there. Next I insulated and "started" sheet rocking the walls. I installed to wooden cross bar on the back door to keep out the pesky gophers and called Concrete Technologies, Inc. again for a little assistance on wall mounted cabinetry. Having around 17' from the stairs to the back wall, I decided on the 2 tall cabinets and 4 shortys as seen above. They all "hang" on a rail that is bolted to the wall behind, and can be slid around, arranged or removed as necessary.

I stopped in at the local Sears and picked up a few "on sale" items, like the black rolling cabinet and gray steel top bench for $99ea! While I was there, the red tool chest was $49 and the big boy compressor a mere $189. They were literally giving the stuff away, you just have to love sales at Sears! The peg board is screwed to the wall with sheet rock screws at 6 locations each with 3/8 stand offs behind for hook clearance. I'll paint them shortly, though I'm not sure of the color scheme out here yet.

Next came the stools, $19ea (yes, nineteen skins) from a liquidator in Chicago, brand new in the boxes. One is from NAPA, the other is Spicer. I saw an ad for RaceDeck on the Viper Club, checked out their web site and ordered a 14x4' set of diamond tiles in graphite and silver with edging for $253.06 delivered. It went together in about 2 hours and looks/feels mint. Talk about a neat "dress" item, it's also plastic so unlike the cheese grater cement floor, I can set parts/wheels on it and they won't get scratched! Life is good!

I still need to extend the speaker wire leads so I can move them around a bit more, add some electrical outlets and task lighting by the bench, and get rid of a whole bunch of tires. A couple more hunks of rock and slap on a bucket or two of paint and little by little, it's turning into a room worthy of the Red Car.

Living large in the new garage! Now to add the TV and wet bar...


Davis Motorsports US General #40105, 3000 LB. Capacity Aluminum Racing Jack $199

Super light aluminum racing floor jack. Two piece aluminum handle is knurled to help prevent slipping when grease is on your hands. Quick lift feature--6 pumps and you're at maximum lift. Simple turn of the handle and you can lower the unit quickly. Easy to transport and store in small spaces. Simple handle design for easy handling. Rubber saddle prevents marring and rotates 360°.

* Minimum saddle height: 3-1/2''
* Maximum saddle height: 17-1/2''
* Hydraulic lift: 14''
* Handle overall length: 47-1/4''
* Overall dimensions: 23.62'' L x 11.81''W x 6.1''H
* Tool weight: 37.40 lbs.



It comes very well packed, though my blue anodized handle has a couple small scrapes on it -
not like I'm not going to do my own later...

Man is this thing light! The two piece handle is great for putting in the trunk. The rubber saddle pad
is great because now I don't have to live with the "metal on metal" unit I had. To make the old one
low enough I had to remove the saddle - not very safe.

Testing it out showed that my stock suspension NSX measures 5-1/4" from the floor to the center jack
point and it easily cleared. Two full pumps of the handle got my wheels about 1" off the floor! The big
diameter 1-5/8" handle is easy to turn slowly to lower the car, unlike my old jack that kind of had an
"on" and "off" position that was not very fun to work with.

So there you go. Out with the old tech, in with the new...anybody want a used floor jack?