Garage Organisation Intermezzo

A business trip to Munich with the Morgan, a family weekend and a bunch of other obligations kept me busy the last two weeks. There was no time to continue on the Mini overhaul. Additionally the clutter of parts, tools and other stuff in my garage started to bother me too much.

An  eagle-eyed reader of my blog spotted an OM616 engine in the back of my garage. My young neighbour and his girlfriend needed space to fix up a new engine for her Mercedes T2 (407D ?). For this I cleared the rear half of my workspace about a month ago. Along with this a small used refrigerator found its new home at the end of the workbench. A major garage improvement.

This worked well until I started ripping Miffi apart. With most Mini parts in new Euroboxes, my left garage half was filling up – usually in front of the Maggie.

The consequences of this is that I constantly had to move things around, tripped over boxes and felt that I have no space to work.  I started stacking boxes along the wall. But spare tires and items not in crates yet bothered me. The idea to extend the shelves came to my mind. But this time I wanted to address issues with the way I constructed the existing one.

For one it became clear that heavy boxes -like the ones for suspension, brakes and engine parts needed a floor to support the boy. And while the concept of having a big space beneath the boxes for rear axles and front crossmember was good – the wood I used was not strong enough and started to bend.

And when I got my hands on a 280x210x2.2 cm large coated board for free – I opted for redoing the entire storage. This turned out to be very labor intensive. Cutting the boards, routing slots into the new 5.4×5.4cm  frames, cutting out precise  cut-outs into the board for the posts to ensure that I have 61cm (on the left side) and 40.5cm distance, clearing out and taking the old shelf apart took an entire day. 

I more than doubled the Eurobox crate storage system. The corner between the shelves allows storing larger boxes, gearboxes, front crossmembers. Unfortunately it is too small for two rear axles beneath it – so one will go. There are still quite a few things left to do. Getting the washing machine my daughter stored there last November is on that list. She said that she will move out after Christmas – I am starting to realise that she never mentioned in which year 😜