My Big Fat Renovation

[67ChevyRedneck]

More boring stuff. Didn't get much done again. Friday afternoon was nice, but then it rained all friday night, rained all day saturday, then stormed violently for about 45 minutes Saturday night around 8 PM. We have 50+ mph storm gusts. My tarps lasted all of 3 minutes. It went from nothing to full blown storm in minutes.

I was too pissed to take pics. I did get lucky in a way, it ripped all of the 2x4's I laid across the ridge off... and it only took off the front tarps. So they immediately flopped down to the sides which kept them from getting completely destroyed. With all the weekend rain days coming up I decided to get the windows sealed up get the wrap on.

This was Friday (I did get it wrapped around the corner before calling it a day).

[Palf70Step]

Sorry to hear about the setback. These storms lately have been really tearing things up across the SE

[67ChevyRedneck]

Then storm day came.

I wasted half the day redoing the tarps. I added a row of 2x4 down the middle so they can't "balloon" anywhere near as bad as they did during the storm. I think that's how the top ripped off, they were able to balloon up and down violently and it was able to "whip" the top off.

We're going to get rain again this weekend and probably next weekend, so I'll be using the dry days I get to finish wrapping the windows and sheeting. Maybe I can get a rain free weekend one of these months. We haven't had a rain free fri-sun since... October?

[67ChevyRedneck]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Sorry to hear about the setback. These storms lately have been really tearing things up across the SE

I'm definitely grateful nothing structural was damaged. I wonder what would have happened if I had part of the roof on?

I went home for lunch today to take the pics above. Absolutely gorgeous out. It was 73* and sunny. In January.

I'm going to make use of the rain day. A pontiac 400 is an $$$ motor to build. They way I want to do it will be around 4K, kinda strapped for cash with the garage build, at least for something that $$$. I've been looking on and off for a running 250 OHC 6 to drop in it for at least 7/8 months. Sunday night one popped up on FB Marketplace for $300. The claim is it came out of a running/driving car that's been driven weekends the last few years in favor of a 400. Seller seemed honest, he said it smoked a little on start up but otherwise ran well, and the head was supposedly rebuilt before he got it. For $300 it's complete with a new carb and worth a shot. I can take it apart and sell the pieces for more than that. So, I offered to pay full price if he would hold it for me. I'm going to use the rain day to go down and get it this weekend. That's the sucky part, it's all the way down on the coast, about a 9 hour round trip, not including my usual couple hour car guy BS.

The car it came out of was super nice as well. Still going to build my car into a 400 clone, but I may actually be able to do burnouts and go around the block now

[Scott2]

Originally Posted by 67ChevyRedneck

I cut down the leland closest to the garage, it was just missing too many branches on the garage side (It had a HUGE established tree next to it as it was growing).

I found a new favorite tool, great for working by yourself.

...and I cut my hand open building a Lego Mustang. I thought I lost a piece down in the chair, so I put my hand in there and must have caught it on a staple or nail. I wouldn't close so the wife (veterinarian) stitched me back up. I was her first human stitch.

That's awesome! I need a stitcher in the house, I usually just apply superglue and a bunch of Band-Aids.

[Palf70Step]

Originally Posted by 67ChevyRedneck

.....A pontiac 400 is an $$$ motor to build. They way I want to do it will be around 4K, kinda strapped for cash with the garage build, at least for something that $$$. I've been looking on and off for a running 250 OHC 6 to drop in it for at least 7/8 months. Sunday night one popped up on FB Marketplace for $300. The claim is it came out of a running/driving car that's been driven weekends the last few years in favor of a 400. Seller seemed honest, he said it smoked a little on start up but otherwise ran well, and the head was supposedly rebuilt before he got it. For $300 it's complete with a new carb and worth a shot. I can take it apart and sell the pieces for more than that. So, I offered to pay full price if he would hold it for me. I'm going to use the rain day to go down and get it this weekend. That's the sucky part, it's all the way down on the coast, about a 9 hour round trip, not including my usual couple hour car guy BS.

The car it came out of was super nice as well. Still going to build my car into a 400 clone, but I may actually be able to do burnouts and go around the block now

Hoping to get my 6 back again soon. Those are fun motors, like the 250 Chevy. They make for a super nice cruiser, especially if you hook it to a manual box.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Originally Posted by Scott2

That's awesome! I need a stitcher in the house, I usually just apply superglue and a bunch of Band-Aids.

She did good. It's all closed up now. We used the skin glue after the stitches finally held it closed.

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Hoping to get my 6 back again soon. Those are fun motors, like the 250 Chevy. They make for a super nice cruiser, especially if you hook it to a manual box.

Parts are $ and rare for them, rebuilds are $$, which is why I decided to originally ditch mine. I've never actually heard one run well. Mine sounds like a tractor, it's only hitting on 3-1/2-ish cylinders.

Mine is a 3 spd column shifted manual. I'd love to put a 5 spd in it, but the info out there on a trans that will swap to the bell housing (unique to this motor only) is sketchy at best. When I put the 400 in it will have a Tremec 5 spd.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Finished taping the windows on the muddy side and started to go around the shop. Didn't get a lot done Friday afternoon. I got a little more done saturday morning, but it starting raining around 11 AM, so I loaded up and cleaned out the trailer to get ready for driving down to the coast to pick up the Pontiac OHC 250.

That was a loooooooooooooong day. It was right around 500 miles round trip.

The weather around the upstate is so funky. I got rained on until I got 1/2 hour away from home, it was cold, rainy, and like 45*. I get a little east and it was gorgeous all day, even hit almost 60*. Sunshine. It was actually a nice drive, boring, but nice (not a lot to see, it's pretty flat and everything looks the same). Nice drive back... got 45 minutes from home and got rained on The wife said it rained all day, the storm just parked itself I guess. We're at double the normal rainfall for January and there's still a couple weeks left.

Motor looks really good. Oil looks old but good. Carb appears rebuilt. Supposedly the head was redone 3-4 years ago. The balancer looks fried. Those have to be sent out and revulcanized, no one makes them. I think I'm going to redo the gaskets (only has a few small leaks now), get the balancer redone, clean up, paint, and throw it in the car and see if it works or not. Huge added bonus, it has the complete power steering set up, pulleys and all. This stuff if rare. These motors were only around for 4 years. The only aftermarket support is for internal engine parts, everything "outside" on the motor has to be sent out to be rebuilt.

Seller was a cool guy. He had a nice new shop too, I think 30x40. Motor came out of a 69 Firebird that got a v8 swap. He was also nice enough to make a little stand for it. With the stand I was able to strap the crap out of it and it didn't budge over the 250 miles home.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I guess I met my goal for a weekend for once.

Motor is bought and home.

Windows are all sealed and taped up.

Lowes Advertisement complete

I found a couple small tears in my tarps that let a lot of water in previously. Got them taped up friday (new to Gorilla tape black... awesome stuff) and while it didn't rain hard, it did rain pretty much all day saturday, and there was only a few small wet areas, to be expected... With the new found dryness, and because I ran out of time, the trailer was backed into the garage and the C10 was put in to block the trailer.

I guess if I can get a dry weekend, back to building the eaves, then sheeting!

[mongocanfly]

What you need Jesse is to spray it down with flex seal....that stuff works wonders in the commercial..haha

[67ChevyRedneck]

I actually bought some for the first time. The "old" huge tarp was the one covering the trusses for a couple months. As they were stacked, we got some heavy rains and the tarp sucked down into the cavities of the truss stack and made a big pool. I had to slit it to get all the water to drain. That flex seal stuff stuck right to cuts I made and hasn't leaked. However, the gorilla black tape seems to be almost as good and you get 90' for the same price as 10' of flex seal.

[67ChevyRedneck]

I finally had two beautiful days in a row... and I get slapped with a horrible sinus infection saturday night. I've already missed a day and a half of work this week. I have no voice and it feels like I'm swallowing razor blades. MD360 people gave me a steroid shot in the ass and a few meds to ease the pain. I have no fever, and supposedly they claim not contagious, so back to work...

I had to steal my scaffold from the front, so I had to open an access hole for the upstairs. This is about where the staircase will go, it will end about where the blocking is. I'm really hoping I can leave the vertical bracing, but I have a feeling that will have to go. I'm going to make it 4' wide and bring the wall all the way up to support the roof/floor and create the compressor closet below. My staircase won't exactly be to code, but since it's not a registered living space they shouldn't be able to say anything about it. The upstairs ceiling isn't to code anyway, so it can't be a living space.

[67ChevyRedneck]

My baby spent her first dry week in a garage in at least 9 years.

And these new silverados will eat the piss out of the sides of the front tire's if not rotated. My old truck wore them a bit, but nothing like this truck. It does have a really good turning radius for something of it's size.

Of course, I wanted to burn these tires up so I could install my new (old 2011 Z71) wheels, but now I don't want to spend the money for tires ($$$$) so I put the baldies on the back. I thought it looked kinda cool floating, like it had a Hover Conversion done

[67ChevyRedneck]

And this is all I could get done. I was able to throw up two more sheets before the cold slapped me down and I had to call it quits and cover everything back up. I've got my trusses string lined for trimming (my wall is bowed a whole 1/8" out in the middle, oh no! ) - pretty proud of how "square" this thing turned out for just one dude measuring and lining up everything.

I don't know if I'm going to able to work outside this weekend, and as always, weather channel is showing rain for all of next week/weekend.

We've received 6.7" of rain this January, which is double the average amount.

February is not looking much better.

I also took the time to separate and dry out all of my siding boxes, then stacked them out of the weather inside the garage.

[67ChevyRedneck]

It finally got me. Half my office, most of my wife's office, have seen sick for months. I fought it off as long as possible. I was actually starting to get sick the weekend of my last post. It was a nasty sinus infection that kept getting better/worse/better worse. It lasted almost 3 weeks. I missed 2.5 days of work.

It actually didn't matter much, it's rained so much here. We've received over 16" of rain since January 1st, which is our yearly average through the end of April, yep, 4 months worth of rain over 6/7 weeks.

All I was able to do was get the yard cleaned up on one of the days I felt decent. Got up all the leaves, cleaned up around the garage/house, got all my siding and soffit materials in the garage, and I got the cars moved over into the garage and out of the weather.

[67ChevyRedneck]

And finally, I think for the first time since October? we had a weekend where it was dry Friday-Sunday. Of course it was stupid cold. I wore long johns for the first time this year, saturday only made it up to 42*.

[67ChevyRedneck]

And finally, progress. Real. Progress.

I also got 3 rows of the underlayment down before it got dark on me and I had to drop the tarps back down. I was hoping to get it all down.

I'd also like to add, there's no way in hell I'm shingling this thing. As much as I'd like to, it would probably take me 6-8 weekends assuming good weather. And my ass kept sliding down the roof (6.5/12). It's hard to see in the pic above, but the rope is a safely line with a sliding latch. I was hooked into my harness anytime I was higher than the first bottom sheet.

I'm still going to finish the plywood and building the eaves, I'm pretty sure that will still save me a couple grand. If the weather can be decent I *should* be able to finish in 3-4 weekends and get someone lined up to get the roof done. Realistically, early/mid April would be awesome.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Moving along. Another nice weekend. Would have been great if I didn't slip in mud, hyperextend my foot (up) and literally pop something in my calf. Felt and heard an audible pop, going to get it looked at today. So that slowed me way down.

I did get the underlayment down and another 9 sheets of plywood on. I also worked on some of the interior bracing.

There seems to be quite the argument online about the underlayment (felt) going on top or under the drip edge. Everyone agrees it goes under on the sides. People are split (or it depends on roof pitch, code, etc) on the face edge. The stuff isn't that expensive and I figured out I'll need an additional roll anyway, so I stapled down a layer that goes under the drip edge and used cap nails to nail down a piece that will go over the bottom drip edge. Problem solved

I did replace some rotten face boards under my soffit trim (none of my felt was installed under the drip edge) but I think the biggest factor in that was gutters that were slam full of leaves. When we bought the house it was apparent the gutters hadn't been cleaned in years and were overflowing.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Not quite where I ended the day, but I started to run out of daylight and wanted to get the tarps back on good. Only about 7 sheets shy of finishing this side. The eave will take the most time to do. I hope to get this side completely finished this upcoming weekend.

I also replaced the "oldest" tarp on the front left side. It was the original tarp that covered the trusses on the ground. It was "weeping" quite a large bit of water. The other tarps are barely letting a cup of water in during a good size storm, that one was letting in buckets. I watched during a storm last week. It was literally just letting water "weep" in. No actual holes.

It's so awesome to look up from the bottom floor and see plywood all the way down the bottom side.

[mongocanfly]

Dang Jesse...hyperextended anything sounds painful...

[Palf70Step]

Heal fast bud!

[67ChevyRedneck]

Oh, I got an earful too...

"You could barely walk last night what the hell are you doing up on scaffolding" (on saturday morning).

"This garage won't build itself"

"If I wanted you to go to the grocery store I bet you wouldn't be able to walk still."

"Touche! You are correct."

I really don't want surgery... fingers crossed.

If you ever have a minor muscle type injury, these things are awesome. Expensive (about $2 each) Some pain killers, one of these, and a compression wrap on my leg had me go from hobbling around to almost walking normal in a couple hours.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Oh, that wasn't the best part. On Sunday I dropped my tape measure off the roof - this happens 2-3 x a day ( ), went down to get it. Had to step over the 10' long scaffold platforms I had taken down and leaning against scaffold. Was trying to be careful with bum leg. Slipped AGAIN, did half a split and landed on my inner thigh on top of the sideways platforms. I missed my boys by like an inch. That hurt.

I'm so, so, so tired or rain and mud. We're over 17" for the year (our yearly average is 51", we're almost halfway there after 8 weeks) and it's raining again today.

[mongocanfly]

Haha...your wife sounds like my mother...I had major knee surgery couple yrs back and a week later I was putting tin on my pole barn...
Counting today were over 20in on the rain scale this year...

[FleetsidePaul]

Originally Posted by 67ChevyRedneck

Oh, that wasn't the best part. On Sunday I dropped my tape measure off the roof - this happens 2-3 x a day ( ), went down to get it. Had to step over the 10' long scaffold platforms I had taken down and leaning against scaffold. Was trying to be careful with bum leg. Slipped AGAIN, did half a split and landed on my inner thigh on top of the sideways platforms. I missed my boys by like an inch. That hurt.

I'm so, so, so tired or rain and mud. We're over 17" for the year (our yearly average is 51", we're almost halfway there after 8 weeks) and it's raining again today.

OUCH !!!! That was painful to even read that.

Be careful on those roofs. My buddy is a roofer and he did a swan dive off a roof and broke his arm. He's lucky that he didn't break his neck.