***Photos of our DIY Garage Build***(56k Warning)!

Originally Posted by atomicgroove

They must have modified there kit. You have any pics of there setup? What did they use for suspension components?

I don't have any pics but they took the route of scrounging some parts and buying a lot of aftermarket parts to replace the Mustang-sourced components. And they used crate motors and transmissions. One guy has a 427 ci small block, that thing is wicked.

Thanks for the compliment on the GTO. The guy I bought it from paid $3500 for it 5 years ago as a near basket case (except the body was only lightly rusted). There's a lot more in it now

*UPDATE*

Well the first phase of building materials have arrived, and we've started on the first floor framing. So far, my dad has been doing the work alone; he said he was so sore the other night he couldn't even walk up the stairs! I'll be going home this weekend to help him out, but I have a feeling it's going to rain all weekend. Currently, the rain has held up production, but here are some pics of the build in it's most recent stages.











My dad created yet another attachment; he welded some stock hollow steel tubing to some C-clamps. They fit over the bar he uses for the forklift implement, and now he can pick up walls by clamping the C-clamps to the studs on the walls. He's building the walls in 12-foot sections, so they are fairly large and heavy. The other day, the wind caught one of them and shattered his fiberglass tractor roof... but at least he didn't get hurt.

More pics:

wow, props to you and your dad.

It is my DREAM to build something like that one day!

Very nice.

Super awesome dude!

Originally Posted by S54_Mongrel

Super awesome dude!

I am stalking the mongrel

Originally Posted by najeroni

I am stalking the mongrel

Then make your way to my new thread and comment.

Originally Posted by S54_Mongrel

Then make your way to my new thread and comment.

Your dad is a genius. Awesome garage, by the way. The rest of us can only dream of building something like that.

very nice congrats cant wait to see the finished project

Have you looked at Kirkham Motorsports? http://www.kirkhammotorsports.com/
I saw them at SEMA the last couple of years and they make a really nice Cobra replica.
Now back to the original thread, Nice garage! I about three weeks away from moving into my new house here in Austin and after having a tiny 2 car garage in my house in San Diego I decided to upgrade a little bit and this new house has a 1,100 sqft 4 car garage. I can't wait to move in. Living in an apartment since March with 3 cars and only a 1 car garage sucks.

Originally Posted by Lugnut2683

atomicgroove - That's awesome man.

Well when we first started looking at Cobra replicas years ago, Lonestar was one of our top picks. But a lot has changed since then... Lonestar still sells great kits, but we're going to go with the Factory Five kit. I like the fact that it's a tube frame chassis, and I also think the kit is one of the most accurate replicas out there. You'll have to update me more on that build... it's great to see that other E46Fanatics are intersted in Cobra replicas! I've seen those pics of your friend's silver Cobra too... sweet car. That is actually one of the color scheme's my dad and I were considering. I think it would look hot to use the same colors used on Eleanor from Gone in 60 Seconds.

Originally Posted by brew

Your dad is a genius. Awesome garage, by the way. The rest of us can only dream of building something like that.

Agreed, your father is very clever. I like all those rigged attachments.

More updates!

The first floor framing/sheating is complete, although these pictures show the first floor sheathing not fully completed. Everything is perfectly level and square, so the rest of the build should go smoothly.

The roof trusses have been delivered and we expect to have the entire building fully sheathed within the next couple of weeks. I was able to go home for a weekend and help finish up the headers over the garage/entry doors, but it was raining most of the weekend. As you can see in some of these pics, my father decided to work in the rain anyways while I was gone!





My father devised another method for lifting the walls by installing blocks on the top rails of the 12 foot sections in order to allow the forklift to lift the entire wall. The clamp method I had talked about earlier proved to be too weak after many uses. The welds never failed, but the clamps themselves bent in half from the weight of the walls. The tow strap also kept the wall from falling forwards while positioning the wall onto the anchor bolts.

dunno if i should tell you this, i found a fault in your blueprint. it might cause the structure to collapse.




















jk

In the picture below, notice that the tractor is still inside of the garage. We nearly built the damn garage around the tractor! We wouldn't have been able to remove the tractor unless we disassembled the roll bar/roof assembly. Fortunately, we remembered...


In this picture, you can see my dad and I standing in the garage. Not only is the garage wide, but it's also very tall. You can see the height of the walls in relation to our height; the garage first floor is more than 10 FT tall. Keep in mind we have a second story loft, plus a very steep "federal" style roof, so the peak of this garage will be about the same height as our two-story home.






That's it for now! Once the sheathing and roofing are completed, the structure will be fairly weathertight (with the addition of the garage doors and entry way door). The great thing about the garage is that we can use it as soon as the exterior is finished, and simply add things as we go, such as drywall etc. We've already pre-wired the garage for internet and TV, so if we decide to do anything in the future, it will be all ready. The exterior is going to be finished to match our house, with grey siding and a dark red brick. We pulled the bill of materials from when our house was built, so we will have the EXACT roofing, brick, siding, etc to match the house.

Nice, Nice!!

Originally Posted by drg

dunno if i should tell you this, i found a fault in your blueprint. it might cause the structure to collapse.

jk

Hahaha...

As a matter of fact, this garage is built 100X better than our house. Everything is perfectly square and level, and the structure uses all 2X6's with plywood sheathing. Our home builder used 2X4's, and this piece of crap cardboard/insulation/laminate sheathing that you could probably punch a hole through. Once the garage is bricked, I'd say head for the garage if there is a tornado!

Wow, your garage will be impressive. Are you going to have lifts to store multiple cars?

You have a tremendous yard, how many acres do you guys have?

Thanks for the compliments qool -

Unfortunately, because of where we want the garage and the way our house is placed on our property, that is probably the smallest open area we could've decided to put the garage, lol. But it works out because we haven't had our driveway paved since the house was built in anticipation of building this garage and a circle driveway all connected as one. We have 10 acres of property

The left most bay is going to have a lift. We will have to cut out a section of the second floor storage area for clearance, but only one bay will have a lift which will be strictly used for service, as opposed to storage.

We may one day end up building yet another structure, simply for storing cars. Right now, this garage will serve double duty as a working garage/showroom. We are DIY guys so we plan to use this facility to it's fullest extent, so you won't be seeing any car models on the shelves or expensive paintings, plasma tv's and the like.

I've seen some garages where people put in recessed lighting, which I think is retarded since you aren't getting as much light as you could be for the sake of "good looks". We're thinking about going with a halide flourescent setup, like they have in warehouses such as Home Depot.