The Pink Mustang Waiting for it's new garage
Having a love for old cars carries with it an inherent problem: Where do you keep them all? For the odd junker or parts car, indoor storage may not be a necessity, but for an antique that’s in decent shape it’s a different story altogether.
Unfortunately, I purchased the Mustang without a garage space waiting at home. I was simply out of space, and until I found more, I was forced to let the car sit in the driveway, tarped and rather neglected. The immense rush of self-guilt that came from not having a proper garage space for the old car served as excellent motivation, and within a week of purchasing the car I started construction on a new single car garage.
I priced out pre-built garages, and compared with what it would cost me to hire a couple guys and buy all the materials myself. As it turned out, the cost to have one delivered was with about $150 of what it would cost me to build it myself, but the delivered garage would have no windows and would be 60 square feet smaller than what I would build on my own. In addition, the flooring of the delivered garage would be lumber, whereas if I built it myself the slab would be concrete.
We poured a concrete slab instead of wood flooring
The construction itself was incredibly quick. It took about 6 hours to dig out the foundation and pour the concrete. We built a slight ramp into the slab at the garage door, and decided to go with a 9′wx7′h garage door which ran $138 from Lowes.
The framing for the garage took about 8 hours, and then another 8 hours was spent finishing out the roof and walls. For siding I decided to use a smart siding instead of T1-11. It was my first experience with the material and I can’t say enough good things about it. For starters, it was roughly $9 cheaper per sheet, it has a hard primed exterior surface, and it takes paint much better than t1-11 does. If you’re looking to build a cheap shed or garage, check that stuff out!
The garage walls went up fast!
Putting up a garage like this was remarkably easy. I didn’t purchase any construction plans, all the construction was done from memory, right down (or up) to the roof rafters. I still need to build parts shelves in the garage and put up some finishing trim, but as far as storing the car is concerned, the mustang has a pretty new garage to rest in, safe and sound!
The Mustang and the Manhole
I have to give a big THANK YOU! to the guys over at the Brandywine MD fire house for helping me out with my mustang this afternoon! I was worried sick that I might have caused serious damage to the car, but they really saved the day!
You see, I went out to a cruise-in at the fire house this afternoon, and as I was parking the car at the show, I drove over a manhole cover that collapsed beneath the weight of the car!!! Apparently the welded steel tabs that hold the cover snapped, and the front end of the car sank into the hole! I immediately froze, terrified I had snapped the A-arm or wrecked the suspension, and imagine my shock when I stepped out of the car and found this!:
Of all the places for it to happen, I was lucky it was at the fire department! Aside from the hideous embarassment of it all, at least they had airbags on hand to lift the car and get it out without causing any damage! Believe it or not, I didn’t have any damage to the body panel or paint, and only a slight nick to the lower chrome trim. I did catch serious hell from the Chevy guys there, but I was just glad there was no serious damage! It could have been a whole lot worse, and the guys at the fire house did decide to put cones up around the manhole cover after the little run in with my car!