Neil's Motorsport Shed

[Neil]

 So here's a build thread on my Motorsport shed, the whole idea of this shed is that nothing that's not motorsport related has any place in there. At the moment I have wood tools and other junk in there but they will get the flick when it’s finished and relegated to the front garage.

Just a little background to start with, We moved out of Sydney and up to a town near Tamworth, the old place was a 5 x 5 converted carport with a sloping floor so when it rained it was like a river and water ran under the 2 slabs and it had starting to crack the slabs. Try working on the Skyline and the Radical with a work bench, tools and fab stuff, it was simply a nightmare, rust being a real problem. Bankstown council were just a pain in the arse, they would only allow a 6 x 6 but I had to remove the carport and leave the fascia, pack of dreamers.

I now have a 7 x 9 proper shed up the back of the property that doesn’t leak a drop, bloody paradise. I purposely wanted this size shed to stop me from buying anymore race cars, yes I know too many is not enough but one has to have some control. Mind you I’ve always wanted a very very quick open wheeler but age is telling me maybe not.

9 metres wide gives me 3 sections, 1 each for the cars and the 3^rd for tools and equipment.

So here’s some pics of basically what I started with. Much more to follow.

[Dale FZ1]

Looking great Neil.  You'll be feeling like the king.

Plans for a hoist of some sort too?  My shed got a couple of strategically placed windows for natural lighting to make life easier when doing certain jobs.

Bring on more pics and story on the setup.

[fatz]

Sweet

where is the beer fridge

[DaymoR32]

whats the height of that shed to the eaves? will be building my house in 6 months once the land gets titled and want to build a big shed at the back with side access past the house similar to you. 

[Neil]

12 hours ago, Dale FZ1 said:

Looking great Neil.  You'll be feeling like the king.

Plans for a hoist of some sort too?  My shed got a couple of strategically placed windows for natural lighting to make life easier when doing certain jobs.

Bring on more pics and story on the setup.

Thanks Dale, It's been a while buddy. I'm in love with my shed. Ah a hoist, thought this question would pop up, the simple answer for now is no as it would allow me to add another racecar. It gets bloody cold up here so windows are not on my radar. Instead of a hoist I bought this.

[Neil]

On 16/07/2020 at 12:14 PM, fatz said:

Sweet

where is the beer fridge

Hey big fella, you know damn well there is a beer fridge, all will be revealed.

[fatz]

Dam straight can I come up and sleep with the dog

[Neil]

6 hours ago, DaymoR32 said:

whats the height of that shed to the eaves? will be building my house in 6 months once the land gets titled and want to build a big shed at the back with side access past the house similar to you. 

Hey Damon, internally the side walls are 3m and the peak in the middle is 3.8m. If you look at the 1st pic you can see my neighbors sheds roof is the other way, that's a much better way of doing it, he has a hoist that fits perfectly.

[Neil]

11 minutes ago, fatz said:

Dam straight can I come up and sleep with the dog

No way are you sleeping with my girl, she sleeps next to me on her own bed, piss off Mr Kinko.

[Neil]

This is all bit of a learning process, so one of my 1st jobs was to simply get all (well nearly all of my race stuff in there) so it wasn't in Sydney and I could prep the Radical for racing. I still have 3 pallets loads in storage in shitville. I also needed to fix some of the previous owners stuff up's, check out the water in front of the personal door in pic 1, my god he laid a slab and didn't bother with doing that. Also he had gravel down the sides and back, which is okay but the right hand side was sloped to the slab and even had a partition across the front to stop the grass from growing up there, another swimming pool. So out with the gravel and partition and in with a crap load of dirt sloping away from the slab. Fatz I used a 20 litre keg to roll the dirt, pity it is empty, will make a great fire pit. I will and am growing grass up there now and buy some more bloody dirt to put if front of the garage doors. So now I need air/nitrogen for the Radical, here's what I came up with. Now I need the beer fridge, Lathe and it's bits, all made from stuff I had in Sydney, yes I a hoarder.

Enough for now

[Neil]

Next job is to fix the past owners short sightedness, why would you insulate the roof but not the walls. No way can I now remove the walls and install the thin stuff the shed builders use. So after much thinking, many beers and the odd fag I decided to frame the walls with wood with the intention of using proper insulation and lining the walls with wood paneling. Now up here we have a country auction place that sells once a month and they had 3 bay racks and bugger me they were the same height as the cross beams so I bought them and made a mezzanine floor, my god that took some work, but I’m happy with how they worked out. The plastic boxes in the pics are Bunnings again and fit excellently. Also he installed led baton lights, 2 per bay, no idea what he was thinking as you can’t see for shit and me getting old I need lights lights and more lights. I had acquired some years ago big hi quality led down lights, so I made wooden mounts and mounted them to the roof beams using Bunnings chain, for me a very scary job as I hate ladders after falling off one some years ago. I have moved the 6 batons to my work area and am installing the down lights above the cars with much thanks to my neighbour for wiring up all the lights and heaps more power points.

Enough for now.

[Duncan]

jeebus you have been busy, I thought you were bludging up there! good use of space....

[Neil]

Duncan, busy is an understatement and bludging, are you kidding, I've never put so much manual labour into anything in my life, sitting behind a desk yes but this is madness. This is our last place of residence so I’m doing what I’ve learnt after way too many years working in BMW dealerships watching them build workshops. I’ll give them something, they know how to build them properly.

 

One job I had to do was make wheel trolleys, Miss Skyline has 2 sets and Miss Radical has 3 sets and moving them around is a real pain in the arse. Originally I made them square with 2 revolving wheels, stupid idea, I have since modified them to be round with 4 revolving wheels which is so much better as no more skin off the ankles. Jobs not finished yet as I need poles though the centres to make them all easier to move.

 

The grinders had to be installed as I needed them to make stuff as well as my old drill press, I have mounted it on an old BMW display stand which is on big castors with a vice as well, works great at the moment.

[fatz]

Love the wheel

trollys

 

looks like a 5-7 slab job just them

[Victory]

The shed looks great Neil and you time in BMW workshops is evident in the layout.

I hate to say it but you are the first person that I know who is more organised than me. I love the use of the same storage boxes as I have and the layout of the shed.

I really hate it when you are looking for something that you know you have and you cannot find it. You then go and buy some and sure enough you find it the next day. This is only compounded further when you have a lot of stuff.

It gets seriously cold in your part of the world so lining the walls and installing insulation is a great move.

Keep up the good work because I need some more good ideas to copy at my place.

[Neil]

On 09/08/2020 at 12:05 AM, Victory said:

, the The shed looks great Neil and you time in BMW workshops is evident in the layout.

I hate to say it but you are the first person that I know who is more organised than me. I love the use of the same storage boxes as I have and the layout of the shed.

I really hate it when you are looking for something that you know you have and you cannot find it. You then go and buy some and sure enough you find it the next day. This is only compounded further when you have a lot of stuff.

It gets seriously cold in your part of the world so lining the walls and installing insulation is a great move.

Keep up the good work because I need some more good ideas to copy at my place.

Thanks Charles, yes my time in dealerships is paying off as well as spending many hours at BMW Australia's training facility, oh and not to mention all the private workshops I would visit on a regular basis. Wouldn't big extractor fans be great so you could run engines with the doors closed, that one is rolling around in my head at the moment.

My organizational skills come from being in parts depts for 40 odd years and of many many training courses with both BMW and Nissan. Those storage bins were quite amusing, Bunnings Villawood bought about 60 of them and couldn't sell them so they put them on special and I bought 20 at 1/2 price, Ha Ha 10 for free. You might notice that the boxes whilst numbered are out of order, it didn't matter at the old place but light to heavy stuff is now top to bottom and just need the numbers changed. Also everything is on my racecar laptop which will live in the shed and is all on an excel spreadsheet.  It probably helps that I am very anal about all my race care stuff.

Yep it sure does get bloody cold mate (-4 the other day) and hot up here, not leaving out I'm very nocturnal, so air cond will be going back in and when the cold weather pisses off I might start looking at a wood fire for next year.

Here's a pic of one of my girl bosses making sure everything is going smoothly.

[Neil]

The previous owner had comm cables, phone cables and TV aerial cables running everywhere in the roof and walls, and we had to go NBN when we bought the house, so I decided to gut almost all his cables and run my own or modify his. I ended up with so much excess cable that I thought why not run them up to the workshop because the Radical gets ECU updates these days out of the UK and I really need a good solid signal with no drop outs. The NBN is fantastic up here.

The boss of the house demanded I didn’t run a steel cable from the back eave of the house to the top of the shed, so I had to go underground, I thought this would be relatively easy running 2 x comm cables and an aerial cable from the house and would be trouble free, code says it has to be 450mm below ground, and mine is a 12 metres long run. The 1^st 200mm deep was simple, the rest was a real pain in the bum, oh and a TV aerial is purer indulgence. Another job was trying to get good radio reception, so I’m testing all sorts of homemade aerials, this one is still a work in progress but I’m getting there before I spend real money on something permanent.

No pics of any of that stuff, like who wants to see a trench dug or a pole up in the air, suffice to say I should have hired a digger.

While I was up the top doing the wood work framing I could feel a massive breeze coming between the steel frame work and the wall sheets. After much thinking, again many beers and smokes I thought why not use the old roll cage foam, turns out it’s still to dear, so I looked at pool noddles on eBay, shit me they were like 4 bucks a length out of china. One Saturday when we went shopping we went into Kmart and I shit you not they had Aussie made pool noddles for a dollar each, I bought all the red ones and asked the chick there if they had any more reds, the look on her face was priceless. I'm slowly but surely getting there.

I have also finished 2 of 4 Tyre trolley's which have turned out sweet, all nicely painted in shit supercheap  paint.

 

[Shoota_77]

Pool noodle draught stoppers, brilliant!

Please feel free to send me some of your neatness and organisational skills. My shed is a bloody disgrace!

[Neil]

17 hours ago, Shoota_77 said:

Pool noodle draught stoppers, brilliant!

Please feel free to send me some of your neatness and organisational skills. My shed is a bloody disgrace!

Hey Ewan, the pool noddles work fantastic, what a bloody coincidence we spotted them in Kmart and I lied, they were 2 bucks each, my bad, but still great value. 

Neatness and organisational skills, my simple answer is I'm very anal, tools go back cleaned in the tool box and all the other shit finds a place somewhere.

 

[Shoota_77]

8 hours ago, Neil said:

Hey Ewan, the pool noddles work fantastic, what a bloody coincidence we spotted them in Kmart and I lied, they were 2 bucks each, my bad, but still great value. 

Neatness and organisational skills, my simple answer is I'm very anal, tools go back cleaned in the tool box and all the other shit finds a place somewhere.

 

Having been an incredibly tidy mechanic in my early working days I’m now TERRIBLE at putting my tools away.  I have about 6 different jobs on the go so I’ve got tools spread from one end of the shed to the other! I actually don’t know if all of my tools even fit in all my toolboxes as they’re never all there at the same time! ?

When (if) the GT-R gets finished that will be the trigger for an all out shed cleaning onslaught!