Getting tired of wrenching outdoors in the elements.

I have room here, but the funds are limited these days for building a shop like I want.really need, soooo......what I'm thinking of doing is building a temporary shop to get me through for a year or two.

I'll build it connected to my existing work area, so won't need it for tool storage, it will strictly be a working area for the trucks, mini excavator, tractor, whatever.

I need to check some measurements in the next day or two on the trucks, but what do you guys think would be the smallest shop you would work in? Something like pulling an engine would still be done outdoors, but all the prep work before and after would be done indoors.

I'm thinking 3' on each side, and 4' longer than the longest truck....with an 8' ceiling. That would put it at 14' wide, 24' long. I'd toss an 8' high, 10' wide doorway on one end, and likely about a 4' door on the other where I would access my existing shop.

I know this would be tight, but I could do it 'modular' so that it could be taken apart again in the future and moved into a more permanent spot, or sold etc. I would also insulate and use plywood or similar inside and out. Having it small as possible would keep it easy to heat quickly too.

What do you guys think would be the smallest you could work in?

 

Id say this is smallest...I'm going to put walls up around it and maybe a sliding front door set up...anyways, Its big enough to do pretty much any job you need. On a regular size truck at least, the roof on the 91 is close to 7'6"-8', maybe just under it. On other trucks/jeeps we've done just about everything in that little spot. (I'll edit this with measurements Tomorrow) but it's big enough to get the job done and small enough to be cheap lol


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Plenty of room for pulling engine on not lifted truck lol

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The smallest I would consider would be 4 ft wider and 4 ft longer than the largest piece of equipment to be worked on. Ceiling 8 ft minimum, depending on the equipment.

 

go easy on yourself and build the largest space that you can relisticaly do. its always better to have too much room than not enough. not sure how much your planning on spending, or how temporary it wil be, but if you build it right, you cau always use the space later on after you do build a shop.

 

What's a shop? I've worked so long as a heavy equipment mechanic working out of a service truck in the field, I really wouldn't know what to do with a roof over my head But that said, I plan to build something later this year to work on my toys in. I agree that minimum would be close to the dimensions you posted, but I would want to go just a little bigger to allow for at least a worktable at the end of the shop.

 

8' ceiling would be awful tight on heavy equiptment. Our trucks are quite a bit taller than 10' unless youre talking about pickups.

 

Strictly talking pickups as the largest. It would be 'butting' up against my existing shop, so no issue with workbench space etc. My welder leads will all reach that far too, as I have at least 50' leads on everything except the tig torch. (Actually I have enough power lead for them that they reach too!)

I work outdoors all the time too, issue is that it's tricky to do things like bodywork and paint when it's -20 out.

I'm going to try to do some measuring if I get home early enough tonight, as after thinking about it some more I need to do a section between the existing and this. (There's a sloped ramp that I don't want to include in the work area.) At a glance this morning that area is bigger than I was thinking, so it will likely have to happen in a couple stages anyway.

 

my "shop" is my driveway...maybe my garage if the nose of the vehicle will fit.

If it's a really big job, I can use the garage at the Sheriffs Offfice.

 

Yea.....took a quick/rough measurement. I was thinking I needed to bridge 6, maybe 8' of the sloped area. It's more like 16'. Over the weekend I'll check out what I have on hand for material (I often save decent framing material left over from jobs etc.) and figure what I'd need so I can crunch some numbers.

Current shop, besides being too small, is also too low. I'll run some strings etc to check heights, maybe I can leave the end open for now and at least 'nose-in' to do some of the stuff I want to get going on.

30' or so of solid wall there I might have snuck past my other half, I don't think I can push it to 40'........

 

If you're using a typical engine hoist, I'd say that 6-8' longer than the vehicle at a MINIMUM. You need at least that much space to pull the engine (unless you are going to roll the vehicle backwards instead).

 

Everything BUT a typical engine hoist here. I have a gantry crane for some of the work, and for higher/heavier lifts, I have a 15 ton excavator. If I'm pulling an engine, the hood comes off, and then it goes straight up.

Actually what I usually do is hang a chainfall off the excavator, gives lots of range, or fine tuning, either one.

 

You may want to look into the "carport" idea. That is what i plan to do after I get my shed pulled up the hill to a better location. The origanal owner builder put it down at the bottom of the hill behind the house, idiot lol. I plan to use the shed as my shop (12x12) and place the car port up against it at the front. You can get them in about any size you want. As for sides, I plan to use tarps that i can remove for the nice weather days.

 

Thought about that, seems that anything over 12' wide, and with a doorway over 7' high here starts to go up in price pretty quick. As in quick enough to justify just going to frame construction. I even thought about building a frame out of some used pipe etc I have here, and tarping it, but just didn't seem to make sense in my particular case.

I will admit, I've been in lots of them in the winter time, they can be a nice shelter for sure.

 

This is what I work in, believe it or not, I have about 3 inches on both sides(bumper to bumper) when I close the door. I only work outside during summer, in the winter I am definitely in shelter.

 

what about one of those steel car port deals?