Garage Changes
So while I was not spending time on the car over the last two years I did put some time into the garage...
The company i work for moved to a new building that was previously owned by an oil company. They left tons of heavy duty filing cabinets behind, I work for a tech company, we dont have much use for paper... so i was told i could take some home... cant argue with the free price tag. I have hundreds of pounds of tools in the drawers and they still roll smooth. I then took boardroom tables (also free) and cut them down the middle to create the counter tops. Each filing cabinet is bolted to the wall and to the cabinet next to it. There is also a slab of marble at the bottom of each filing cabinet. This all makes for a very solid bench that is at the perfect height for me.
If you look close you can see all the magnetic labels, these were made by taking magnetic white boards (left behind by the oil company again) and sticking label maker labels to them then cutting them out. Now i can find any tool fast. I then mounted an all in one computer to the wall for bringing up the GTM manuals and searching the internet for wisdom.
To mount tools on the wall i found a company that was going out of business that had painted slatwall in their space that they had to remove at the end of their lease. I did the work removing the slat wall for free and used the best sheets in my garage. I found that slatwall hooks are easy to find at most hardware stores and many specialty hooks can be found online for things like drills or paper towel, etc.
I built some shelves at the end of both sides to house my larger tools and a mini-fridge for some beverages. I'm not sure if you can see them very well but i also added some hanging retractable systems from the roof that include an air hose, 2 power cords and a trouble light.
I added an Amazon Echo, and wired her into the roof speakers for some tunes and quick unit conversions.
Some car photos taken today... Kooks Exhaust
Fuel pump mounting, the wiring is temporary until my fuel pump controller comes in
Today was seat day... this proved to be more challenging to do alone then i though so i had a friend come over to mark bracket positions while i sat in the seat while working the peddles. I am a little over 6 foot 2 and found that no matter how tried to position the sliders they took up to much valuable seat height. On top of that my legs require the seat to be as back as far as possible anyway... so i ditched the sliders and used the brackets i bought (i think i got them from Shane) without the sliders. now the seats sit perfect all the time. I don't plan on letting anyone drive my car anyway 🙂
You cant see it in this photo but we also got the AC Accumulator bracket bent, painted and installed.
Last month i finally got around to buying my own welder, its a small gas MIG, should be good enough for what i need to do.
So I had some time today to run the engine long enough for the coolant to start pumping, everything seems to cool just fine. Engine maxed out at about 210 degrees while idling, the fans never kicked on but i think that's because it didn't get hot enough. I also routed the shift cables further away from the exhaust, melting those wouldn't be good.
I have to say, i have never actually seen a finished GTM, never heard one run until yesterday... The LS1 with the Kooks exhaust sounds amazing, youtube videos do not do the noise justice.
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