Modern Vespa

This is mine. Usually not all those three bikes are in at the same time: they trade places with two bicycles of the kids and a Kawasaki Versys 1000 from me. The last one is currently in a second garage.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was starting to pack up my garage in preparation for a move to a new home. We closed on the new house 4 weeks ago. We won't be moving in for a few more weeks, but I had a guy come in and epoxy coat the garage floor. I went with a basic tan w/ colored chips to add some texture and make it less slippery when wet. This is about as clean as this floor will ever be

-Craig

Very nice floor. You could eat off that floor.

Bob Copeland

It is indeed very nice, but good luck finding that 2mm grub screw you dropped.

Now if only it would stay that way. HA! You're not kidding! I've developed a technique for finding those small items that works pretty well. I grab a bright LED flashlight and I lay down on the floor to get one eye as close to floor level as possible. Then I use the light to search the floor. I've had great success. My current garage has the same floor w/ speckled chips.

-Craig

The move-in to the new house started this weekend. Setup some shelves in the garage.

Save those pictures. It is never going to look like that again.

Clean slate. Very nice. Love the floor.

Big fan of the Gladiator rails. I have them in a few spots in my garage. Their Gear Loft shelf is quite versatile. It get's spendy quick when you start buying the various hooks.

I snapped a pic while all the scoots are in the garage.

spacedog,

You are the Vespa man. Nice line up of scoots.

Bob Copeland
Minnesota

Thanks Bob, I just finished doing oil changes on all three, and coolant flushes on the GT200 and the GTV300.

Yeah, that uncluttered garage didn't last long! I spent 3 days this week unpacking and organizing. I'm about 75% of the way there. I'll grab some photos of the progress as it goes along. Here are a few photos after unloading the truck with the items from the garage. Not much is unpacked yet at the time these photos were taken.

Ha! Welcome Home!

Chris from CLE

Not sure I have that much width as the bishop said to the actress and I like the wheels on the bottom of the lift.

I made a bit of progress organizing the new garage over the last week. I need to put up some more high shelves to store things that I don't need too often. The racks are up to store my snow/ice tires and my track wheels/tires. Got the bikes hung high on the ceiling so they are out of the way. I use hooks and pullies to make them easy to access when I want to ride.

I'm getting close to having my new garage fully up and running. Really just need to finish adding a shelf to hold all my helmets. Also, the air hose reels are mounted, but I need to plumb in the air.

^ looks great!

This half is for the two-wheelers.

I'd love to see the convertible bug! In 1969 my parents pickup up a poppy red convertible bug at the factory in Wolfsburg. We toured Europe for 6 weeks, my parents and three kids, in that bug. What an awesome vacation! The bug was shipped home to the USA at the end of that trip. I wish I had it today.

Wow, what a dream vacation!

As an only child, I didn't have to fight to sit in my favorite spot, the storage compartment behind the back seat. When I was older but too young to drive, my mom crammed 12 giggling teens in that bug. It was only for half a mile on a one-lane, semi-paved country road, so we didn't have to walk up the hill to a friend's house. Can you say Clown-Car!?!

I grew up in a V-Dub family, and my love of bugs rubbed off on my hubby who bought the 'vert when we were still dating. After my grandfather returned from serving in Germany, he helped his friend gain residence in the states. Hans was a talented mechanic who, with help from Granpa, opened a VW service shop in northern California.

My uncle had a bunch of restored type 2s, and his kids got a bug to restore for their first car. My stepdad followed his lead and gave me his first car, a '68 bug. I drove that bug from '83 to '06, then sold it to a coworker who wanted to restore it.

My husband and I ride to an Air-Cooled Meetup held in Scottsdale once a month and dream of fixing up his 'vert someday.

"Hers and his"

I think this will be my last update on my garage move, as I think I'm pretty much settled in!

Wow, that's a real wrenchers paradise you have made. Having a garage 50 yards away from my house, I can only dream of having electricity and water in mine.

I have a few questions for you garage gurus.

We just bought a house with a large 2 car (one car with about 3 or 4 bikes).

What flooring do you recommend? Currently it is just cement.

Shelving, hooks etc? My better half wants all my bike gear stored there and I have a lot. It's Vancouver Island so it doesn't get that cold so that's a plus.

Handy stuff to work on the bikes? Maybe some sort of lift.

We're not moving in for about a year so I have time.

Advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

I'll be retiring in less than a year, so garage time will sky rocket at that point. Water and electric are "must-haves" for me. I'm pretty lucky because on the other side of the wall where I'm putting the sink is the laundry room. So water and drain access is super easy. I really should do the rough-in myself, but I'm always a little paranoid about water leaks inside the wall. Electricity is something I'm much more comfortable with. I got lucky there too. The main electrical box for the house was on the outside wall of the garage right next to where I located the air compressor. So wiring that in (240V / 50amp / single-phase service) was super easy. 240V is not the normal power in the USA. Our standard wall outlets are 120V. But it's not a big deal to add a 240V outlet. Just need 2 hot wires and 1 neutral going to the outlet.

Flooring... go with Epoxy, or Polyaspartic coating if it's in the budget. It's about $8.00/sqft, but you just can't beat it for easy clean-up. The Polyaspartic coating is a little more expensive, but is harder to scratch than epoxy. My floor is 2 coats of epoxy with a top clear coat that is polyaspartic.

My garage already had a Gladiator Wall System installed on the walls. It's a great system for hanging things, but very spendy. If I was going to start from scratch, I would probably just mount long runs of 2x6 to the walls the same way the Gladiator strips are mounted in the photo. Then purchased much less expensive hooks to screw into the 2x6 boards. The Gladiator Wall Systems does make it super easy to move things around though.

I used two kinds of shelves. Floor standing shelves that I get at HomeDepot, Lowes, etc. that are called Gorilla Shelves. I like them because they are SUPER heavy duty (will hold ~2000lbs) and can be adjusted for shelf spacing to fit your needs. They can also be configured as a very sturdy work bench. For things I don't need very often, if you have high ceilings, you can build shelves for storage high up on the wall. I buy the brackets on Amazon, then I used 19/32" plywood for the shelf material. These shelves are 2' deep so there is a lot of space for large and small items.

A table lift for working on the bike is about the most useful tool I have. It's certainly saved my back. Also, easy access to compressed air and electricity is important for me.

Thank you! A great bit of information and starting point.

Any thoughts on rubber flooring? I'm thinking that maybe I could put that in the bike side of the garage. Really just in case I drop the GSA beast while working on it. Due to the nature of the bike it has drop protection everywhere but rubber sounds like a better landing zone if/when the "oh shit!" moment happens.

I am a complete garage n00b as I've never had one that wasn't reserved parking in an underground garage.

I've laid thick rubber matting in my garage, it's great insulation against the cold concrete floor and easy on the knees if you need to do some low level wrenching. I've never had a tip-over with my scooter, but I guess the rubber would be good at cushioning the fall.

I used a product called "NatureStone" - an epoxy/gravel mix in my attached garage. It is about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick. It looks nice and stays clean. Water runs through it, below the surface to the drain so it is never slippery.

https://www.naturestone.com/

Chris from CLE

Rubber is great for dropping things... bikes, tools, phones (while taking photos). And most of all, you can stand on it all day and it's easier on your feet. The cons are mainly maintenance (it's harder to keep clean) and if you spill liquids it gets under the rubber and you have to lift up the rubber tiles to clean under them. Of course, that's assuming you are using the rubber tiles. If you are using a solid rubber mat, or very large size tiles, you don't have as much chance of spills seeping down through the cracks.

I've had a couple of those "oh shit!" moments over the years. In each case, there was no damage to the bike. Mainly because I was there working around the bike and caused the fall. Since I was right there I was able to slow the fall dramatically.

Those are some pros I've never thought much about. Having lived the last 36 years in Arizona, cold concrete was never an issue. I'll bet I'll feel that now that I'm in a place with a real winter though. I totally get the pain involved if you have to kneel on concrete. I keep a 2" thick 18"x18" rubber pad in the garage for just that issue.

I added a sink to my garage in the last couple weeks. I've had a sink in the garage at my last 2 homes and really missed having one in the garage at the new house. A friend of mine gave me a great suggestion to add a hot/cold hose bib as well. It gets cold enough here in the winter that hoses are drained and brought inside. Having a hose w/ hot water in the garage means I can wash the cars/PTW on nice days in the winter. Since the hose is in the garage, I don't have to worry about it freezing.

That's awesome. I need a sink solution. Probably going to set up something similar to the off grid setup with grey water tank as I have electricity but no plumbing.

What is that compressor you've got? Looks huge! 😍

That's a Quincy QT54 vertical tank compressor. It's a 60 gal tank. Definitely overkill for most garage work. I never run short of air though.

I move everything off the garage floor and give it a good mopping every 4 to 6 months. This morning was one of those days. I really like the polyaspartic floor. It cleans up so easy.

Do you ever fantasize about what you'd do with all of the space the hot water heater takes up? I know I do. I want my 7sf of floor space!

The flooring looks really nice. Maybe something I'll consider (after my tankless water heater).

When this water heater needs to be replaced, I'll definitely look at a tankless option. I could do a lot with that extra space.

My Vespa garage has been a labor of love still working on it though...

Lotta cool shops/garages here! My happy place....

Now that's a rad garage!!