Small interruption (that lasted almost a year)

We interrupt this blog to bring you a quick update on my project.  As you'll learn in future posts, I had to put the Hellcat back together (spoiler alert) with bent fork tubes, to make a rolling frame, so that I could do a garage reno.... full story of the reno follows.... The bike will return in the future.

So in March of 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, I broke my garage door opener chain.  Being too cheap to hire a specialist, I fixed it myself.

I knew that there was something wrong when, upon testing, the motor box made a regular thunking sound, but "no problem", I thought, the chain is just too tight.  I loosened the chain 3 times, each time hearing that wicked thunking/chunking sound.  On the 4th try, my sprocket sheared.  Ok, a new garage door opener was now in order. 

The previous owner had gerry-rigged a standard garage door opener into a space that was 5 inches too short, because of a ceiling support joist and post situated right in the middle of my double garage door.  I have hated it since the day that I moved in, so 18 years later, I finally got to install a new wall mounted opener.  

The LiftMaster rep then told me what I didn't want to hear:  "The door tracks that you have are low-profile and our opener won't work with them."  

Undaunted, I called a door guy (not-coincidentally, one that sold LiftMaster openers) to see how much the damage would be to get a new door and opener together, with the appropriate track system.  The price was right, and I was about to say yes, when I mused that I had planned to do this reno in three years, not now, but the cement floor, the driveway and the retaining wall could still wait.  I was then deflated when the door guy told me that the cement replacement was guaranteed to change the height of my floor, so I should do the floor before I replaced the door.... DOH!!!

For you Canadians, in he 1980's, Gordon Pape published a book in Canada called the $50,000 Stove Handle, in which he described how a simple trip to an appliance store, to get a replacement handle for his stove, spiraled out of control into a full kitchen reno.  This was my Gordon Pape moment. 

I was very lucky.  I did some research on cement contractors in my area, and there is one that stands above the others.  It was mid-March, and usually cement workers are inactive in my northern climate, but a warmer than usual March had gotten their attention.  It was Friday afternoon when I called the really good guy... and he agreed to come and take a look.  He told me that if I could completely empty the garage within a week, then he could do it in the last week of March, but if I couldn't then I would be in July as he had work scheduled from April 1 until then.

My basement and cold room are still (December 2021) stacked high with shelving, bike parts, tools, and everything else that I could move into the basement.  My bikes, workbench and tool chest were distributed amongst three neighbors houses as the work began...in March.

The space before construction began.  Note the old opener offset to one side of the post (connected to the door on the other side of the post.

 

Ready to pour!

Not really part of the garage, but if borrowing to do this, you may as well go all the way:  New garage door, new driveway and new retaining wall pictured in August.

Once the floor was in, the reno moved outside, where I finally have a retaining wall to keep the garden out of my driveway and a new driveway.  But I digress...

Blocking out the cold:

My garage used to be damp and cold in the winter.  It was so cold that once it got below minus 20 degrees Celsius outside, I had to wear a jacket and sweater, with my space heater going full blast, just to work on the Hellcat (or the other bikes).  This was not optimal, because I would much rather work on mechanics during the winter than during riding weather, but not at the cost of the feeling in my fingertips! (Yes, I'm being dramatic, but you get the point).

If you look closely at the first photos above where the floor is gone, you will notice that the un-insulated foundation of my house formed 4.5 feet of the bottom of my interior walls, so I framed them, installed foam insulation and drywalled:

The last step was to clean 60 years of grime of of the ceilings and walls, then to paint.  I had an idea about how I wanted it to look when finished, and I trusted nobody else to do this, so it took me a very long time (by myself).  I really like the result.  Please let me know if you do!  

The work area.  The wall around the corner to the left had not been painted yet.

The completed job.  You can see the Hellcat on the very right, dwarfed by the bigger bikes.

I just finished the painting yesterday so now the stuff in the basement has to be cleared and put back into place. School ends in February, so I will likely not get back to the Hellcat until then!