During the many years that my car was left, unloved at the barn my spares, and the few bits already taken from the car (roof trim and indicators - that kind of thing), had been stored at a council lock up I rented on the other side of the town where I lived. These had been transported to the lock up in shallow, stackable cardboard vegetable crates - secured from a well know high street supermarket chain. Probably eight or nine crates.
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| The Lock Up. Body panels stored in the rafters |
When I woke up and decided to restore my car, the first plan had been to bring the car back to this lock up and work on it there......somehow.....I was going to figure out a workaround for the lack of space and electricity later on.......
Anyway, with space clearing in mind, I retrieved the boxes of bits to the wooden shed at the end of our garden. I was always worried about them being stolen from the lock up, so this was no bad thing. I also took the wooden work bench I'd been storing at the lock up and, by cutting 18" off the end and 4" off the back, manage to shoehorn that into the garden shed too - turning what had been a bike and lawn mower store into....... you've guessed it: a Man Cave!
I managed to do some initial work on car bits in that shed (and fill a couple more veg crates with more bits removed rom the car) but it wasn't very satisfying and the car itself was still many miles away. One of the best things I did though, was to empty all the boxes out over the lawn and to catalogue everything. EVERYTHING. Every rusty nut, every perished grommet (almost). I maintain this as a spreadsheet to this day. One or two things still go astray, but generally I can lay my hands on the things I want or remember having.
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| Zinc plating action in the Man Cave - April 2016 |
When we moved to our new, bestest, house in May 2106, the garage here served as a holding point for our household belongings as we settled in. The workbench and DS veg. crates were un-ceremonially dumped in a corner. Low down the list of priorities.
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| DS Bits - August 2016 |
As the garage gradually began to clear, I started to trickle in all the other big bits and pieces that had been left at the lock up - seats, wheels, wings and doors. It couldn't happen soon enough as I was worried that someone would break into the lock up and sell everything for scrap. There was a lot of stuff....
Wings and doors went into the new shed at the end of the garden. Leather seats and soft stuff were quickly relocated to the spare bedroom before Gayle could object. Veg crates stayed on top of the workbench........
I got by for a while with the veg. crates stacked on top of each other, but it was inconvenient having to get at that crate right at the bottom..... I needed a better solution.
I had brought with me a couple of cheap DIY store shelving units and had inherited several home made shelf units made from angle in my new workshop. Initially I was using these for little odds and ends, but felt I could make better use of them.
After a little bit of planning and measuring, with a day at home to myself, I set about turning these into some more useful storage down one side of the garage. I dismantled everything and re-assembled to optimise the space.
There was a lot to accommodate.
Some of the inherited angle was very hefty and I used this to make an extra strong run of shelving with strengthened shelves for the heaviest pieces - such as engine blocks. Deep bins underneath for those handy to have spare gearboxes.
All the shelving was fixed to the wall and stood on feet to minimise the chance of the legs buckling. As part of the wider reorganisation I found a safe home, away from the kids, for the engine crane. I chained it to the wall to stop it falling over.
Most spaces are filled with DS things of one sort or another.
And a lot is still in the workshop too.
