OUTFITTING YOUR AUTOMOTIVE WORKSHOP

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First Things First

In more than 30 years of busting knuckles on my cars, trucks, tractors, and assorted farm machinery-I have never yet had the one "tool" that is most desirable: a weather-tight, heated garage with a concrete floor. A lot of work is performed lying flat on your back under the vehicle. Doing so in mid-winter on wide-spaced barn floorboards is mighty chilly. Doing it on a dirt floor that melts into three inches of greasy mud in spring is worse.

Plus, drive-on ramps to raise a vehicle's front end for oil changes, hydraulic floor jacks that hold heavy axles off the floor for tire changing and brake work and jack stands needed for more serious underchassis jobs will sink into mud and wobble dangerously on uneven old boards. And, in case you learn to enjoy auto-repair work and want to attempt really major jobs (like me), you'll find that transmission jacks and engine cranes needed to handle the heaviest components of a vehicle won't move at all on dirt or boards. Neither will "creepers," those low platforms with castors that mechanics use to glide around effortlessly under a car. (Laying plank "roads" over rough-board floors or sinking planks into the dirt will work-sort of-but a truly flat and level floor is better.)

So, save your pennies for a concrete floored garage, or put hard-floored, sheltered motor vehicle workspace right up there with a big garden area and a weathertight stock barn on the list of features you look for in a new country place.

Second to a hard floor on my list of priorities is a battery charger and a heavy-duty extension cord long enough to reach from the vehicle's parking place to a convenient household or barn electrical outlet, plus at least one free standing battery maintained in good, fresh, and fully charged condition (kept indoors in winter), and a set of jumper cables. I don't know how many times I've come out, already late for an appointment in town, only to find a vehicle with a stone-dead battery-occasionally from a short in the wiring or suddenly defunct battery, but usually from headlights left on overnight, a car door left ajar and the dome light on all weekend, or just from sitting unused for too long.

It is time-consuming and embarrassing to have to telephone a neighbor to bring his truck over to give you a start, and if you must call out a service truck from town, it's expensive to boot. Unless you have and are willing to abuse-another vehicle for a jump start, you'll need a spare 12-volt battery or batteries, plus a way to charge them, and jumper cables to transfer juice from the spare battery to the dead battery in your vehicle.

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