The ultimate garage

[Scott Fisher]

In addition to what's been said, here are some
observations I've made while working in a selection of
garages, my own and friends', over the years.  Note
that these suggestions go way beyond what tools it's
useful to have -- sure, it's great to have a cherry
picker and a welding setup and unlimited air tools and
the like, but the items on this list make working on
cars something other than a chore.  They're the
infrastructure that makes the difference between being
comfortable and being miserable.

1.  If it gets cold where you are, get a heater.  It's
worth it if you spend a lot of time rolling around on
the ground when it's 20 degrees outside (or even 35
and drizzling as it is here in Portland).  Likewise,
if it gets hot, install a big fan (if not actual A/C)
to keep the air moving.  (You'll want that even if
it's cold, to keep fumes from collecting from various
solvents.)

2.  Paint everything white.  Better yet, put up
dry-erase marker board on the walls.  You can buy it
cheaply at all building centers (Lowe's, Home Despot);
it's brighter than white paint, it cleans up easily,
and if you keep some markers around you can make
checklists for lengthy projects (and erase things when
they're done).

3.  Lots of lights.  Overhead fluorescents are good,
but be sure to add some positionable incandescents for
task lighting under the car.  I have a caged-in
halogen that doubles as a space heater on cold days.
:-)

4.  Running water in the garage/shop area.  Hot and
cold, preferably.  The best such setup I ever worked
in had a big concrete utility sink with a high faucet
so you could get things into/under it.  Having a
hosepipe outside the shop/garage just isn't the same,
especially when it's 35 degrees and raining and you
want to wash your hands.

5.  A refrigerator, preferably with a freezer.  Not
only for a frosty refreshing beverage on hot days, but
also to keep an ice pack if you bump, bruise, or burn
yourself.

6.  Lots of table and bench space.  There's really
never enough -- it all gets covered with stuff you're
working on.

7.  Enough electrical outlets, built to handle the
load.  When you can flip the circuit breaker in the
dark after the air compressor kicks in and overloads
the circuit because you've done it 250 times (bashing
your shins, toes, or other tender areas on unseen car
parts, tools, or other immovable objects 236 of those
times), you'll know why.

8.  An ethernet connection, so you can keep hooked up
to audifans to ask pertinent questions ("hey, what
size spark plug wrench does a '93 100CSq take,
anyway?" :-)

9.  A bubba ring.  This is a circle of friends who,
collectively, own at least one of Every Conceivable
Special Tool you or your car might require.  You know
how that works -- Joe has the special valve-removal
attachment, Jeff has the air compressor, David has the
special clamp for keeping the sleeves down in the
blocks when you pull the head (no, not for Audis, but
Tess knows what I'm talking about), I've got the
offset 10mm wrench for adjusting the distributor, etc.
 (My role in the bubba ring of late has been The Guy
With The Car Nobody Wants To Work On, but that's
another story...)  I first read the concept of the
'bubba ring' from a guy who wrote a great book about,
of all things, old Allis-Chalmers tractors; he took
the concept from the trade ring societies of the South
Pacific, where one island specialises in shells and
another in coconuts and a third in fish, and they
trade as required so that every island has all the
stuff they need.  Note that the dry-erase board is
useful for keeping track of who has what tool when you
lend them out.

10.  Towels.  Douglas Adams was right, these are the
most useful items in the universe.  Buy a pack of 150
cotton-terry hand towels and keep them on one of the
shelves that Huw said you should have lots of (he's
right).  I usually have two on my person when I work
on cars: one clean one to wipe my face and one dirty
one to wipe my hands before grabbing the clean one. 
(Which reminds me of the way you can tell you've been
spending too much time working on cars: you wash your
hands BEFORE going to the bathroom...)

--Scott Fisher
  Tualatin, Oregon



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