Apologies for the lack of updates this weekend. I've been involved in PROJECT: GARAGE TRANSFORMATION, Phase 2. I'm turning the one-car garage in our new house into an auto shop for my old Spider. Phase 1 was sealing the floor (and adding "decorative chips"). I wanted a surface I could walk on in my socks. Not because I want to (well, I do anyway), but because this surface will be a lot easier to keep clean, and when it comes to working on cars, cleanliness is everything.

Phase 2 was all about lighting. Like most regular garages, this one came with a single bare incandescent bulb, supplemented with two more bulbs in the garage door opener. Together they dribbled out just enough light for you to see the door with, but nowhere near enough to actually do any work under. 32 feet of 40W florescent tubes turned that around in a hurry. You can get a suntan in there now.

I've now started work actually involving the car itself. Not only does the garage have to be clean, but the engine must shine as well. Four hours of Simple Green, "Flex-E-Brush", and a soda bottle with a hole poked in the cap took care of that project. I still want a power washer though, to clean the really nasty grime under the car.

I've owned "classic" Alfas for, good lord, probably 16 years now, and I've never had a proper garage/shop for them. I've pulled starter motors out in the rain, installed injection pumps at 4:30 in the morning to avoid apartment nazis, changed untold gallons of oil in abandoned parking lots, and trudged miles back and forth to various apartments finding one tool after another. I've had to rely on the kindness of family and soon-to-be family (HINT: it's always a good sign when your girlfriend's parents let you change a rear axle in their garage after only knowing you for two months) to do the really big projects that took more than a day.

No more. I've already got four or five projects lined up (valve cover replacement, alternator rebuild, interior door panels, a new top, glass repair), any one of which would've cost $$$ at the $70/hr rate they charge around here.

Am I a great mechanic? Nah, not really. In no small part because of the constraints of not having my own garage, I've always been in a rush and tended to have way too many parts left over after a job. But I can hold my own.

My dad still tells the story about how I used his carport to change a head gasket in. For those of you unfamiliar with how cars work, you basically have to take the engine half apart to change this $20 part. My dad shook his head and clucked every time he looked at my engine's guts, quite patently convinced it would never, ever run again.

One of the highpoints of my adult life was the look on his face after I put it all together, turned the key, and started it on the first try.