Official Quarantine Project thread

No car projects?

Put my 6 month old VW Golf Sportwagen on the lift yesterday, took some alignment measurements, and started pulling it apart.  Strewn across my garage:

• is38 turbo (from the Golf R)
• clutch from an Audi TTRS
• Koni SA shocks (struts incoming)
• about a million must-replace nuts and bolts
• brake caliper brackets to fit 1" larger front brakes

Just ordered:

• 18" VW 'Pretoria' wheels (an 18" version of the 19's used on the Golf R a couple years ago)
• Golf R springs
• Golf R rear antiroll bar
• front brake rotors

I previously updated the software to Unitronic's "1+", which made an amazing difference.  A sweep through 3rd gear went from 12.9 to 9.8 seconds.  The marketing materials claim I'll see 350hp with this set up but it's clear they use correction factors that are pure fantasy.  I think 320 is doable though, up from 170.  It's about 500lbs lighter than my 300hp V70R so it should be plenty adequate.

I built monkey bars in the basement. 

Do all the stuff on my honeydo list? It's awful. 

I did cut a giant hole in the garage ceiling to start installing attic stairs to add another 400+ sqft of storage. 

I got stickers made and stuck them on mine and my wife's vehicles because the cops follow me everywhere and well I needed a little humor during this. Otherwise I'm still working and so far my downtime has been used to clean up!

Finished painting dining room last night, so here's a before and after from roughly the same perspective and same lighting.

before:

and after:

still have some arranging to do, but "all the hard work's done" and I definitely know what I've got.

Next stage of rockpocalypse completed.  The landing pad where my dogs leave the patio has been a muddy mess.  Hoping this sorts that out.  Just need to fill in the cracks and all done.

In reply to captdownshift :

That is BEGGING for an engine swap.  Caddy 500 maybe?  mini turbine to a go-kart centrifugal clutch?

captdownshift said:

In reply to Curtis73 :

Curtis, if you DON'T pick this up, I'll be disappointed in you.

 

Even if the motor is trash and a junky motor needs to be swapped in. 

Orrrr.... Linky

I've posted about this stuff in other threads, but so far, I've been keeping busy:


Rebuilt my decrepit wheelbarrow


Serviced my Strat! New strings, bridge adjustment, rounded the fretboard edges, and oiled the fretboard


Made the defroster functional again in the Power Wagon




Replaced the rear view mirror, valve cover gasket, and the rear calipers on my Mazda 3


Cleaned the 2nd bedroom where I keep my drums, and hung some music stuff up that's been kicking around for years

Fixed my long-broken double bass pedal


Not pictured: we've been going through our "stuff". You know, the crap that just accumulates over the years that doesn't necessarily have a home; we all have it. So far, we've brought three truckloads of that stuff to the dump, and trash pickup has picked up even more. We also re-organized our main storage closet and set it up with a closet rod (never had one for some dumb reason) and used vacuum seal space saver bags to pack away out of season stuff, linens, and more.

Future projects:
-Cleaning the garage and tool shed
-Replacing the side door on the garage and fixing the sills
-Fixing the overhead ceiling fan in the bedroom
-Various car projects, like replacing the d/s floor on the Trans Am
-Servicing my lawnmower

Got the duster un fuel injected and reverted to carb. And running. Necmxt is driving. 

Also finished tye 65 mustang. And started poking around at E36 M3box. 

We're both "essential" employees, so unfortunately no quarantine dedicated to project completion for us. But I did sneak a couple of hours in the shop this weekend to get the mower prepped for duty and started hanging sheeting on my walls:

The original "lets get rid of the 20 year old carpet in the living room" has turned into a new floor. baseboards, paint trim, paint living room.  Good times.

Furniture refinishing. You can probably see me doing this in the GRM Zoom chat if you join in tonight.

I'm not sure how old they are. There are no maker's marks on them, and while the craftsmanship is good, the overall finish level isn't as polished as I'd expect from a high end furniture maker. They were rescued (for FREE) from a cabin/lodge in New Hampshire, and may have been made with wood that was cleared to build the place 100 years ago or so, they could be older, they may be newer. No idea. Each one weighs about 100 pounds- these are solid hardwood! 

These have been painted at least four times. White, gray, white, green. I suspect, based on thickness, that they got multiple coats of white paint the first few paintings.

Here's one that's a bit further along. 

The wood isn't first quality, but I don't care. I'm going to sand them very well, do some structural rehab, and then stain (Colonial Maple) it so that the wood's character is on display. I'd rather see the character of the wood, blemishes and all, versus painting it because it isn't perfect.

The furniture refinishing is a large part of garage cleanup. There are two more pieces (also free) that need to get worked on beyond these that are taking up valuable floor space. 

In reply to Brett_Murphy :

I really like refinishing furniture.  If the living floor gets done I have adresser for my wife that needs redone.

I'm trying to "work from home" which means monitoring and responding to email and doing some remote busy work, so I have to do bits at a time.

Today I pulled all the bow rails and hardware off the boat. Over the next few days I'll buff the front deck and add the Seadek I've had sitting around for a year.

I fixed some minor stormdamage on my roof for my w.f.h. lunchbreak activity today.  Which is nice.

Been working from home for two weeks now (get to go back into the plant next week because "I'm essential" lol), and I've been trying to make the best of being home way more than I ever am.

So far:

• Cleaned, re-strung and tuned the guitars
• Swapped out upper control arm on the F-150 that I tore the balljoint boot on while installed bilstein leveling shocks a few months ago
• Ran out and bought three new trees to make some new bonsais.  It's something I really find relaxing, but I never make the time.  I spent all day Saturday doing the initial trimming, training and potting.  It was a great way to decompress after a pretty hectic work week
• Lots of yard maintenance/landscaping
• Finished welding and detailing a firepit for a friend that I've been procrastinating heavily on
• Began some sourdough starter, hopefully we bake this weekend

Still to do:

• Deep clean the garage
• Glueup some cutting boards
• Assemble and setup new road bike that arrives tomorrow

Wet sanded 800 and 1000 grit, first buff with an orange pad and heavy cut. 

Probably do the fine cut and blue pad / green pad steps tomorrow and maybe get the pattern cut for the seadek 

Final buff out and you can read the reflection of the bottle.

Next started laying out the scrim to make the pattern for the seadek pad.

Real quick one here: We'll call it

The Shrinkenator or The Other Kind of Slapper Bars:

First clean some pointiness off some yard sale wood rasps.

Heat em, beat em,

  Since it is you guys, I'll admit, I ran out of acetylene, and the one in my hand got bent wrong, broken, and welded back together. These are meant for light slapping, so it should be fine.

Test run was a success.

The theory is all those little pokey bits dig into the metal, effectively shrinking the panel. it straightened out this water heater skin as expected.

I cut the section of Seadek, applied it and then trimmed around the fittings. When Amazon drops off my hardware I'll be able to snug down the bolts and wash everything down. Then I'll wax the exposed fiberglass..

my wife and I are also both working from home, so not exactly quarantine project full bore, but diving into some things to keep sanity.   Also I usually have an hour commute each way, which is now 0 minutes, so there's more time to jump onto things right away.  

Project 1:  Divide a large upstairs room into two rooms with a dividing wall to make a formal bedroom for my son, and build in a murphy bed on the other side of the wall for an upstairs den area/guest room.  Bought a Rockler queen murphy bed hardware kit, and studding the wall out to contain it within the wall to hide it better.  

Project 2:  Finish insulating/plywooding the garage walls.  I picked up all of the material for this project already, and am about 1/3 the way around the garage currently.  

Project 3:  A bunch of deferred maintenance on my BMW since I don't have to drive it anywhere (belts/vacuum hoses/trans service/etc.)  

In reply to STM317 :

Is that subflooring that you are using? I ask because I am using subflooring with the tounge and groove. I got a little more done. Put up the pegboard to organize stuff, dug out the dirt lump in the floor that has been there since I build the barn 15 plus years ago, Packed a couple of layers of clean gravel in. Pegboard hooks won't be here until the 27th.

In reply to Bent-Valve :

Not tongue-in-groove, just half inch OSB. With studs 16" on center and poles every 8 ft for most of the barn it should have enough support that I didn't feel like anything more than half inch was needed or cost effective. But, I bet the tongue-in-groove stuff goes up nicely!

Just got an email that my hours are likely to be cut by 10%, and the wife's are guaranteed to be cut 20% through all of Q2 at a minimum, and potentially all of Q3 as well so I might get more time to work on it after all (yay?).

So far, we're patching and painting a bathroom and I've been tinkering with cars as time allows since we're (thankfully) both still working full-time.

I threw the fuel pressure tester on the Fleetwood Brougham and figured out that I'm going to have to drop the tank. Argh. (photo taken on my property, for those concerned about safety.)

Replaced the battery and tie down in the Land Cruiser (one step closer to selling it--- yay), then unclogged the rocker drain on the driver's side. The body on this thing is so clean that it actually held water.

Yesterday I did the valve cover gasket, plug well seals, top engine mount, and an oil change on the R53 Mini. The pressure is off to have it ready to autocross this year, but I still want to drive it.