So as some of you know, a friend and I are starting a new automotive business venture. We leased a larger building (~2700 sq) which had some equipment in it. It turns out there was in fact a lift in the fourth bay… which was likely used about 30 years ago. The pit it is in is about 12’-14’ deep and 18" wide. The side we were working on was only about 12’ deep. BTW, did I mention it was full of water… murky, stanky, stagnant water?
We pumped out as much water as we could without cracking the cover off the other side of the hydraulic cylinder. It was pretty gross down there. We found some things as well. Before we drained the water out, I was poking around the bottom. Let me tell you how eerie it is to poke around the bottom of a deep, narrow pit with a piece of wood… and hit things that are heavy, move a little bit, and have some resistance…
2 Brake rotors, 2 Lift cover plates, a styrofoam cup, a BMW muffler hanger, and a muffler assembly which I have never seen and can’t identify.
Now, for what I couldn’t get out… yet: a bowling ball (which, at 12AM, looks remarkably like a skull when the water hasn’t drained all the way below it), 3 metal shields of some sort, a large piece of 1" steel pipe, corrugated rubber hose (this looks to be part of the lift and you can see the other end in the picture below), and then there were still some things below the sediment that were too difficult to lift up with my masterfully engineered 1"x14’ pine stick with a screw on the end of it.
Here is a shot of the other side of the lift cylinder where the hydraulic reserviour is:
I was expecting a dead body because as i stabbed around with the stick before we pumped it out, I hit one of the plates and it was sticking up at an anlge and was moving a little… Gughhgh!
fuuuuuck that crap. I’d hose that shit down, dump a ton a crushed stone down that thing and fill it with concrete. that’s like something you’d see mike rowe crawling around on an episode of dirty jobs.
:excitedSo we found a bunch more crap at the bottom. An air nozzle, 3 shocks, 2 pieces of exhaust (1 still had the hanger for the rack in it), a screwdriver, and a ton more of those exhaust hangers.
We will do general repair as our mainstay, but performance and custom work is our passion
Pretty much what I used to do at Gearhead while being able to offer repair work and performance in one convenient location.
Yup! That’s the one, right next to Regeneron at the top of that hill. We’re sitting on about an acre right there, so we’ll have plenty of room for expansion, parking, and customer events this summer!
rofl BWHAHAHAHAHA!