pboehmer.com

2016.01.11

Hope everyone had a good new year! I finally got to use the lift to change the oil on two of the cars over the weekend. To make things even better, my wife got me a 20 gallon oil drain tank for Christmas. This made changing oil probably the best auto work experience yet. No more laying on the ground, everything at head height, it was awesome (yeah, still talking about changing oil). Also made rotating tires extremely painless as well. Still looking for an impact socket for the new(er) rims. Seems the only size that works is a 9/16in spark plug socket (non-impact).

I've developed a minor leak in the garage with all of the rain we've been having over the past couple of weeks. I noticed a small line of water running down the wall. I got a ladder and started poking at the drywall and it was complete mush. I cut away a section to take a look, and it appears by the amount of mildew/mold the minor leak has been going on for quite a while now.

2015.12.07

I was able to take last Thursday off work and spent the day hooking up the lift. Had a small issue with a hydraulic leak after the initial bleeding when I lifted my daughter's car. The way the hydraulic lines are ran, the feed and column lines meet up at the center top of the cross member into a T fitting (which sits in a U channel), there is no easy way to tell if there is a leak until its too late (which is what happened to me). The unit takes AW32 oil, which is just a bit thicker than water, so cleanup wasn't too horrible. Over the weekend, I was able to get things cleaned up enough to put my car on and get it to maximum height. Everything stayed plumb and solid, which is great, though I'm still a bit nervous working underneath it.

2015.11.24

Last week I finally pulled the trigger on an Atlas 9OHSC automotive lift from Greg Smith Equipment out of Indianapolis. The packaged lift measured at 14x3x3ft and weighed slightly more than 1400lbs, so it made shipping directly to the house nearly impossible. I opted to have the lift shipped to work, broken down to individual parts and then brought to the house. I was able to bring everything but the two columns and cross member with the car. I timed the delivery with my on-call schedule, so I was able to use my work service truck and borrow a trailer from a co-worker to get the rest home. I had a couple of friends help me offload the columns (~600lbs each) to the garage. We got the columns upright where we had a �pucker� moment when we put them upright only to find that there was only 4in of clearance with the ceiling (was supposed to be over 10in).

Over the weekend, I was able to get the lift lined up and bolted down. I still need finish putting in the hydraulic lines, hydraulic motor, and locking mechanism. I think the hardest part other then getting the columns home, was drilling into my beautiful garage floor.

2015.09.04

The unofficial end of summer is this weekend and for once, things are pretty quiet around here on all fronts. Next major update won't probably be until November when I'm hoping to purchase and install a two post Atlas lift in the garage. I'm going to have to have 240v service put in, something I put off during the wiring phase due to the cost of the 8 gauge wire needed. I'm hoping that I can put in a 240v single outlet to power both the lift and in the future, a MIG/TIG welder. I can't imagine I'd use both simultaneously even if the car is in the air, it wouldn't need power to keep it in place. I'm most likely going to outsource the electrical since this is just beyond my capabilities, maybe, we'll see. Other than that, just small projects here and there to keep me busy. I still need to finish the garage to basement stairwell. I'm opting to just put OSB sheathing up as opposed to drywall so I can hang garden tools and the such off season.

One big announcement is that my daughter now has her temporary driver's permit. We've been teaching her how to drive the wife's 2006 Toyota Matrix, which hopefully by this time next year, will be hers (wife will be getting a new car). Not a big deal, but keep in mind that the Matrix has a 5 speed manual transmission. Apparently, driving a manual transmission is a lost art nowadays. The girl has actually caught on surprisingly fast, but I think she's still a little overwhelmed by the number of things going on simultaneously. So far we've been practicing in parking lots, but we did managed to get her on side streets for a short drive from the local school to home.

I've been back on the MAME cabinet off and on for the past couple of weeks. Just playing a game or two for a half-hour or so. I've been playing mostly Robotron 2048 and Time Pilot 84, but if time allows, I'll mix in a quick game of Kung Fu Master and/or Karate Champ. I've actually finished the 5 levels of Kung Fu Master when I was a kid, but I haven't been able to accomplish this yet. I'm actually looking to upgrade the joysticks when I have the funds available (for the frivolous stuff).

2015.06.12

Now for the big surprise that I couldn't wait to unveil. I had Ideal Garage Solutions at my place to coat the garage floor. A little pretext... for the longest time I was sold on the gray epoxy w/chips as the solution, but the more research I did, the more options I uncovered. I had joined the Garage Forums and it opened me up to the pros and cons of different systems: epoxy, polyurea, polyaspartic, and various tile types (porcelain, composite, rubber) to name a few. I had heard a lot of horror stories about the big box store epoxy �kits� and decided that while I was perfectly able to do the job, I'd be better off having a profession do it with professional materials. Talking with IGS, which offered the standard gray w/chip epoxy coatings, I asked about metallic polyaspartic and found out they could do it. Metallic polyaspartic was my top choice (you'll see why below) and just outside of my budget, but with the wife's blessing, I pulled the trigger. We had a little mishap with the original coating, but IGS fixed the problem without hesitation and I can honestly say, pictures do not do justice! Here are the before, primer, color application, and finally the end result:

I'm so stoked on how awesome it turned out. The color is Caribbean Blue. I had looked at multiple color samples (there are 50 colors, I looked at 6 actual samples) and quickly decided against gray. I needed a KAPOW! Color. I saved a little bit of money painting the stem wall slate color using Rustoleum's Restore 10x product. I used the same product, but in Porch blue for the stairs. If I could do it all over again, I would have used the standard Restore instead of the 10x for the stairs, as the finish is really gritty and almost looks fuzzy.

I still need to finish the trim, but the biggest hurdle of the garage is now complete.