The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Where do you work on your bolt?

I live in a gated community in Florida, and I found out that they do not like people restoring trucks! Especially my neighbor (imports from England). I work on my 55 in the garage when possible. But then I bought another truck (58 NAPCO Panel) and it wouldn't fit in the garage. So, to a storage place. Now the owner thinks I am going to abandon the thing! I keep telling him it's a diamond in the rough, but he doesn't get it.
Anyway, do you have neighbors calling the cops or writing nasty letters to the community president? Or do all of you have 3-car garages on 5 acres?

are you kidding? I live in an apartment complex, my truck is parked in my alloted space(not garage) and when not working on it I put on a lovely truck cover(now all my neighbors think I have a show truck)HA!

I just live out in the real world where people get dirty and mind their own business - unless they're into ol trucks too, in which case they hoot n cheer when they see a new one show up

the city here would harrass me if the place looked like a wrecking yard, but if I have a number of the same kinda trucks, then it's a parts stash for a hobby

Bill

One of my neighbors used to complain almost daily.

He moved. I celebrated.

He is a drunk (literally) and more than once stopped and yelled incoherently. I've nothing against a little alcohol, but this guy is a six pack for breakfast type, and was a little difficult to talk to.

I've been doing most my work in the yard, but this year I hope to build a three stall shop.

Nope, I don't have a shop or a garage. All of my work is done in the yard right behind the house. The weather conditions dictate when I am able to get outside to work on my truck and it certainly isn't the most comfortable place but it is all I have right now. Been thinking about getting one of those prefab carports so I will at least have some shade.

I do mine in the driveway behind my house. Garage is full of parts, motorcycles, and my 47 cj2a. I could run the cj to brother's house and then work on the 72 in there, but I have the bed pulled back so it wouldn't fit in there anyway. The weather's been nice and dry so its actually pretty nice down here in Texas. I had someone complain to the city about my 59 so I had to step it up. The 72 truck is behind the heep, next to my merc and on its other side is the 59. Running out of room around here.

I have a friend that owns an automotive shop and he is semi-retired. So I have the best of all worlds. I get to tap his VAST knowledge, and get to use of his tools, grinder, sander, lift, etc. etc. etc. "life is GOOD"

Cliff59

I have found that people that enjoy living in gated communities are usually very tiresome to deal with. They will complain at slightest affront to what the world should look like in their narrow minds. A neighbor is supposed to be just as dull and oblivious as they are and they usually are. So when one of them ventures onto anyone that would rather pull a wrench on an old truck than knock a little white ball around, well it is a culture shock to say the least. I guess I am a little unusual in that I like the beauty of nature but I think junk yards are just as beautiful. As for planned communities, I think THEY are EYESORES and I cringe every time I drive by another one being built. To get to the point though I live out in the country so the hobby Nazi's haven't imposed bliss on me yet, thank God!

We should start an old truck gated community.

Instead of golf courses, we'll have garages... ha!

Each family must own at least one 'Bolt...



-W

I used to live in a subdivision and worked in my 2 car garage. The neighbors never complained directly, but I always felt guilty running a grinder or painting in the garage.

I wound up buying 5 acres in the country and built a new house and 30x40 shop. Now, no guilt about the noise or the fumes.

It was worth it. Sometimes a man needs to work on his truck at 2 AM wearing only his underwear, without offending anyone.

haha!

for some reason I know exactly what you mean... thp' I've never.. been there.

-W

Woog,

I was thinking that same thing (starting a real community) yesterday as I was going thru a bunch of old stuff. We could do a "retirement village" but it would be a retirement for our old trucks, not necessarily the drivers. Rather than a community center and pool, we could have a complete huge shop with a lift and a molasses dip!!

That would be cool.

And for those so inclinded ... we can make sure religious debates have room at the village chapel and a boxing rink for the political ones!

Kimberly may want room for horses (she's not the only one). Those guys can keep the grass cut!



Peg

jomichael - I know what you're going through. I live in a golf community that doesn't totally understand. I feel the neighbors watching when I'm trying to get work done. But I try to keep the garage door shut whenever possible, so I don't see them watching.

And I'm working on the business plan for that other idea: self-storage garages with power, air and lights for each. Plus "rentable" lifts, paint booths, sanding cabinets, and expertise.

Anyone have some money they want to invest?!

Nope 2 car garage with a 3 car attached shop on 4 acres, back a lane, and the neighbors come over and see how I am progressing.

popcorn The Truth is Out There (That would be my sister across the field)

I live on a dead end street. The neighbor accross the street has a 59 with a big blower on it, the one beside him has a 300 hp Volkswagon Beatle,yep, a VW, and the guy up the street,(MY son-in-law) has a 70's chev rock climber so I feel right at home. BUT one neighbor called to complain about the guy beside me who let his grass grow till it was about knee high, No kidding here, and when the county ordinance folks came out not only did they leave him a notice but left one on my 47 Plymouth for not having a license plate on it.....can you believe that....so I end up with the best of BOTH worlds!! I usually work in my 30x40 shop I finished last year but usually there is so many gathering here I have to work on it at 2a.m. at night in my underwear!! The nice part is the shop is so close to the back of the house its only 12 steps to the door, and supper!!

I went from a 3 car garage to a 1 car garage. I just make do and can't be a pack rat any more.

We have nice neighbors but we're in the woods so they can't see us. I can do smaller repairs here but I'm wicked fortunate to have an older brother who has a full garage nearby. Jim's an ASE-Triple Master Mechanic... one of the first in the country to achieve that status. He's also Certified as a World-Class Technician by the Automotive Service Industry Association (ASIA). In fact, in 1991, he was one of 1,194 out of 505,000 to achieve that status which earned him a position on the Roll of Honor at the Automotive Hall of Fame in Midland, Michigan.

And the frosting is that our Dad is a retired mechanic. So I've got a place and exprerts! No way I could do this without them.

my now EXWIFE wanted the junk, my 54 and 60 mga out of site so she built me a 2 story garage out behind the house. now that she is gone and i have the house i work in the attached garage because it is heated. look in my community webshots to see the garage. thank god and greyhound she is gone!!!!!!!!!!! she also left me plenty of her inheritance behind to support me and the truck. i still work part-time but i can get by without it if i am careful but the truck would suffer. RON

Guess I am pretty lucky on this one.I have a 4 car garage with an attatched woodworking shop.No lift,but a decent floor jack,and jackstands.Enough room for my 2 trucks and tools.I couldnt stand living in a gated community,way too many rules and regulations.

Neighbors? Gatets? Thought about a gate down by the road to keep the solicitors form coming up to the house. I built my house right smack in the middle of my 20 acres. Nice thing is all my neighbors also have 20 acres, so we rarely see each other. I work in my 30x80 shop, the bad thing is the more room you have the more things you aquire. I don't like the look of having trucks and cars sitting around outside either. I always manage to get everything inside.

RT1
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I being an old retired TN farmer have the old barn where I can work on my trucks with the smell of hay in the loft and no one to bother me,just an ocassional visitor from across the way,usally coming to return something of mine that he used or to pick up a tool that belongs to him.Sometimes he brings along one of his delightful children to play in the bran or ride one of the horses.He is a stovebolter that drives (daily)a 46 chev thats been in his family since new.
Ah the laughter of children,good friends, good health,barns with tin roofs,horses,the trickling of the creek that runs behind my barn,the ending of the day with silence and a prayer thanking the almighty for all that I have and enjoy and for help to get up the next day to go to the barn and fix one more little thing on the old trucks.
I agree with CLIFF59,Life is good!!!!

RedGreen, I had the same idea! Maybe we should talk. In my research I found the hardest part of the idea is liability. What if some idiot burns down his garage and the garage next to him. We would have to make each individual carry liability insurance for the garage.

I love the idea of a gated stovebolt community, Though I don't think my wife would like it. Unless we could have horses.

Most of the ol' folks in my community actually support what I am doing and stop by regularly. They say "I had that truck in high school"!

I have a -let`s say - 2 1/2 car garage right under a guys appartment. So starting a grinder on a saturday after 8pm means trubble. Doing anything louder than a radio in the garage on a sunday means serious trouble. During summer I work with open doors and at 9pm the other neighbor comes over and told me to shut of the "ugly, nerving Western Swing".

One

Two

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The shop is nice, but I need something I realy can use for more than just storing the 41.


Frank

I used to live in the country, but no longer-town came to me. 4 golf courses + thousands of houses in the old hay/cow fields just over the hill. the subdivisions there charters state you cannot open your garage door except to pull car in/out. brian

apachetruck: Your my kinda man, many times working on the farm tractors growing up you would brush the straw or hay away while working in the barn. Nothing smells so memorable as the mow or the memories it brings back. Ben

popcorn The Truth is Out There (working in a barn on anything mechanical did it until dad got a garage)

I love it a gated community...if you DON"T have a bolt in the driveway...then you get a nasty letter.

We usually work on our trucks right where they sit... Front yard... driveway... garage... wherever they happen to be at that time. Presently, the 46 is in the front yard, idle and cold... the 45 is in the driveway... idle and cold... The 46's interior is in the garage, but alas, our garage is not heated as of yet, so not much happens in there either. We did move the air compressor from the garage to the basement, where we have been painting our 'little cars and trucks'. About all the work done on vehicles in the winter at our place is on our models. We are presently contemplating just how to build a 'mini paintbooth' in the basement. I just completed a camero and am presently working on a Chevy 4x4. My daughter is building a Toyota Supra (Fast and Furious Car), and Mike is building a Bel-Air. We paint the bodies of our models in actual automotive paint with a HP-LV detail gun, mostly using base-clear.

As for a gated community, that would be cool. There is a neat town just out of Regina Sk. called Belle Plain (I think), anyway, just about every yard has a 'Project Vehicle' of some sort in the yard/garage/driveway. When we go through we always detour around the town to peruse the various projects. All of the vehicles are not Stovebolts, but it's still pretty neat to see.

As for ours... we have no close neighbours, but we get alot of local residents that go for 'Sunday Drives' past our place in the summer to see how things have progressed.

RedGreen/JomiMike -- A few years ago, a couple I knew put together a business plan to do just such a thing. It was based on the autohobby shop idea that you might find on just about any larger military installation. Lots of bays you can rent by the hour, day, week or month and a community tool room.

It all went really well until they went to see the insurance agent. The liability issue shut them down -- they just couldn't get insurance. Just think of the hazards and all the cuts, bruises and other injuries we sustain working in our shops. With a community shop idea, you have no control over what these people do and you're giving them access to tools that can maim and kill. You can come up with all kinds of nasty scenarios. So can the insurance dudes.

Not saying it can't be done, but you aren't the first to come up with the idea. Who knows, maybe you can be the first ones to get passed the insurance roadblock.

Your reality check for the day
John

My bolt is at my Great Aunt Helen's house in her unfinished basement. I mow her yard and help her with stuff. The truck's in pieces getting ready for paint soon I hope.

At work my boss let's me keep a 46 Ford frame project along with my extra motors, trannies, and wheels. We have a huge shop that isn't used so that project stays there. The body for the 46 is at my Dad's property where my 53 chevy truck, el camino, and other junk sits. I'm fixing to clean it up for him though. It's a mess. I take lunch down there and piddle when I can. The Ford is a low buck project. I've traded extra parts and cars from the bolt and plymouth projects to get it.

In my 2 car garage at home is my 68 plymouth up on jack stands with a disassembled front suspension waiting on me to sell some extra parts to finance bushings. One bay is open for Momma. I've done a lot of stuff in that garage though.

Those sub-divisions and "private communities" are nuts, man.. you gotta PAY these people annual "dues" or "homeowner association fees" for the privelage of living under their jackboot.

If you wake up one day and decide to re-side or paint your house, you have to ask for permission to do so, and then get the color approved by some board!

Crazy restrictions on being able to fly a flag.. if a flag is allowed, it can't be any higher than a set height, and has to be a certian size. One place I heard of lets you fly a flag, but you're not allowed to light it at night.

Screw that, man.. I live out in the country, and outside city limits. If I wanna walk out on my porch in my underwear and blow thru a clip, I can.

If I wake up one day and decide to buy a Llama, I can.

I'll bet most homeoner association fuddy duddies would $#it gold bricks if they woke up and saw one of these in the neighbors lawn!

I'm going to build a pole building shop this spring on my property.. but for now i've been working on all my trucks right out in the lawn.

i'm only 18 so i still live at home and i have two big machine sheds that i use to store and work on my old trucks one is 30x50 and the other is 35x45 dad likes me to keep the yard not looking like a salvage yard so i do so to make him happy i don't have anything sitting outside except for a 91 merc wagon that i haven't hauled away yet but otherwise i have plenty of space to keep all my stuff inside but if i aqiured one more "tressure" i wouldn't have enough room but one vehicle that takes up space is my dads 1946 Chevy Stylemaster
Nate

What if you sold the bays as condos? You could rebuild an engine in your condo living room right? Now, if that engine fell through the floor and killed the person below, who's fault would it be? Would the insurance agents no longer insure condos? Are there any lawyers on the stovebolt?

Just a different way of thinking about it. I'm sure it wouldn't fly, that is why I am still working for the "man".

Gotta go, the "man" is heading this way!

"Stovebolt Acres"

There are some of these equestrian sub-divisions springing up in our area. All the lots are 5 acres and they back up to a natural area that the horse riders have trails on. We also have a small town that has something similar except they all have airplanes, and an airport behind them.

We could have one with a Drag Strip

-RT1
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I have a 28 x 32 garage with an 18' wide overhead door. It is my workshop, and is too full of tools, etc. to get a vehicle into. I do most of my work in the driveway in front of the garage.

InkyJR's engine is being done in the garage, and will go back on the frame this weekend.

InkyJR's frame, body, and donor vehicles reside at the rearmost part of the property. His new fenders and hood are being stored upstairs in the garage for the time being.

My boss lives in an aerodrome, he has two Pipers and the planes have the right of way. I also do some advertising work for a developer that has a couple equestrian communities.

I'm not moving where its cold though, unless its in the Sierra Nevadas or Rockies. So I vote for the mountains or Florida, is anyone with me?

Oh, we need 4x4 trails for my 55 NAPCO to tool around on.

I work on the bolt in the grudge.....er, sorry that's Jeff Foxworthy's line...in the garage. I'm on an acre two miles north of town & have a 30x40 garage (two stalls & shop area). While it's definately not a "Gated" community it is a residential area on an 1/8th mile dead end road. I love it out here with one exception. Two years ago an idiot moved in next door and recently decided he want's to breed greyhounds. At any one time he'll have between 8 & 25 (best I can count) dogs penned 30 feet from my bedroom. The county isn't zoned & he has the right to do whatever he want's to with his property but I have a right to a good night's sleep too. The war has just begun......

driveway...let the neighbors [censored].

I work in my 24x24 two car garage,It was good enough to start work on my 52 1/2ton.However I soon aquired two 1951 trucks.I have a double driveway so I parked them both in front of the garage and put car covers over them. I dont live in a gated community but that did not stop the neighbors.I soon recieved a letter from the county saying I had 10 days from the date of the letter to remove the junk vehicles (blasphemy)
The letter had been held up so I had the weekend
to figure this out.I called the county and he said all you have to do is get them out of sight,back yard doesnt count and I will be by monday. After several adult beverages and plotting my neighbors demise I gotta plan.I bought a set of wheel dolleys and I got all three
of my trucks inside the garage sideways with room to spare.The inspector turned out to be a nice guy just doing his job,he also told me that as long as my trucks dont sit out for more than 10 days at a time i am ok. So when ever my nosy neighbors are entertaining on weekends or outside in their yard I bring out the bolts.
Hey jomichael I happen to be english and we are not all like that.PS I thought gated communities were to keep al the ---holes locked in.

The insurance agents are the ones keeping my idea on paper right now. Oh yeah, and the couple million it would take to build the building.

Jomichael - How do those airplane communities or equestrian communities get past the insurance agents? Are there just as many ways to get hurt in the common area of one of those communities?

The other part of the idea was to have "memberships" with bylaws, etc (sorry, more rules, fumblin46) but it may help get things passed by the insurance agents.

Look at www.collectorscargarage.com. They have half the idea put together. Think of their liability insurance...

Workin on the truck is one thing. Painting it is another.
Where should us driveway or gated-community guys go to keep our neighbors from smellin the overspray?