Savin Big Money Project Thread

[patsbimmer1]

Looking good man!

[Earl]

Glad to see progress on this again=)

[patsbimmer1]

Every time you make progress it makes me want any e36 again.

[jc43089]

Not any e36, a rust free one only lol. I haven't gotten much done due to 50 - 60 hour weeks at work since April. Hopefully it slows down soon. We are making spam now, just commissioned the batching/grinding system last week. Soon the place will be too full for anything else.

Sent from my potato phone

[patsbimmer1]

Yes!  Rust FREE!!!  That's becoming quite a unicorn.  By the time I finally do get another one for a project car it's gonna be damn impossible.

[jc43089]

Borrowing a TIG welder to make it look real fancy.  The bay is coming along well.  I got an x-brace from Jawa and a set of chrome hella headlights with the celis angel eyes from BFC.  They have no housings so it might be interesting, also not sure about the chrome but I can always paint that.

[jc43089]

X-Brace

Headlights

TIG welding, not the best, my main trouble is contamination from seam sealer that cannot be gotten out except by burning.

[YoungCR]

Are the welds themselves burning out the seam dealer or is that just getting buried?

[RamRod E28]

This thing needs to see the road this year!

[jc43089]

CYoung said:

Are the welds themselves burning out the seam dealer or is that just getting buried?

The welding burns it out, some just takes longer.  The TIG works well because I can add heat but not filler to flow the MIG weld out smoother and burn out impurities.

[jc43089]

Ramze46 said:

This thing needs to see the road this year!

It will, As soon as the bathroom is done this is top priority.

[jc43089]

Well hello there.  I am not in Wisconsin anymore unfortunately.  I got a promotion/sidemotion and am working at the Hormel engineering R&D facility now.  Basically a custom machine building shop that only supplies Hormel Foods.  Very near Albert Lea Minnesota if anyone is ever passing through hit me up.  We sold our House in Platteville to another BMW guy that I met on a cruise so the BMW tradition continues there.  

We rented a house for a little bit in Albert Lea while we were house hunting.  We ended up buying a place in the country just into Iowa, yea surrounded by cornfields, pretty lame scenery after growing up in central Wisconsin and then living in Platteville but oh well.

So we found a place with 2.5 acres on a blacktop road which was difficult to find.  2 bedroom ranch house that is structurally in excellent shape but it was a foreclosure so the price was right.  We made a few modifications to the inside which were a little different because it was a modular home (ships in two halves and lifted with a crane onto the basement)  So the center wall was pretty important because the trusses are two halves rather than spanning the whole house.  We wanted it to be open between the living room and the kitchen/dining room.  We took some siding off the end of the house and cut a hole to bring two 16" x 30' LVL headers which I glued/and lag screwed to the trusses so I could remove 17' of wall below.  It worked great, I preloaded it upwards 1/4" while fastening the beam and when loaded it only came back down 1/16".

Old view

New View

Also put in some rustic hard maple flooring and rearranged the kitchen cabinets to work with the new layout.

There is a 2 car attached garage so the BMW has a resting place for now.

It has a "chicken barn" that is 18x40' which isn't in great shape but I'm repairing to be dry inside.  I put steel on the roof and replaced the rotten boards on the walls and repainted part of it.

ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD a 32x42' barn from around 1920.  

The roof was beyond repair on the other side from leaking and rotting the roof.  I found an Amish guy, Gideon, that would tear it down for free in exchange for the timbers.  Here are a few pictures of the demolition.  He did it in 5 days by himself with no power tools.  You can see how bad the roof was bowed in.  The arched beams were 7 stacked 1x2 boards held together with carriage bolts every 18".

He is in the process of rebuilding it right now.

Current status.

I will be pouring a new floor with tubes for hydronic heat in the spring.  The downstairs is just over 12'6" height so I can fit a lift.

Side note, Amish guys have cool tools.  Yes a dewalt chop saw with a gas engine.  Everything else including the screws attaching the steel on the exterior he does by hand.

[jc43089]

Also we had another daughter, Evelyn, in September 2015, the house remodeling took place in October-December 2015.  

This is how I have felt for the last year... She was chillin on the floor while we worked.

[YoungCR]

#spendingbigmoney

Glad to see an update! Can't wait to see the e36 over in that new barn getting finished

[GunMetalGrey]

I have always thought turning a barn into a shop, while keeping the exterior looking very much like a barn would be awesome. Judging by your pictures it certainly is! 
Looks like you guys are taking to the new place quite well!

[patsbimmer1]

Your pictures aren't working for me!  I need pictures!

[Earl]

Most sigs and pictures don't seem to show up this morning=(

[Jdesign]

I think Photobucket is down too, and that's what I use to host most of my photos

[jc43089]

They worked yesterday.  They are on photobucket.

[GunMetalGrey]

Looks like all of my flickr stuff is working. 
I stopped using photobucket when I would get pop ups and other unwanted things when going to their site. Nothing like some good ol' pron pop ups when at work.....