I joined The Shop for many reasons. I love all things cars, I wanted to meet other car people, I love the beautiful exotics that are stored there and their onsite restaurant, Derby, has some truly kick ass bacon…so many reasons. I’ve also always wanted to do more work on my own cars but have lacked the skills, the tools, the patience and the courage to really jump into it. The Shop has the tools, the lifts, the wash bays all ready for me. Even better, they have professional mechanics available to do complete jobs, assist with DIY jobs and they also offer classes. No more excuses.

I just got back from my first shop class at The Shop and it was so much fun. We swapped out the factory suspension on an older BMW for a new set of Bilstein shocks and H&R springs. This is a project I never would have attempted myself but with the right tools and some help, was really easy.

The process of removing the old shocks/struts was simple enough. The tricky part is getting the assembly apart with the spring under load without losing all your teeth! You can see what happens when you over torque a nut during reassembly.

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The slightly more dangerous way to release the tension from the spring!

While I was there, I thought I should share some of the other ongoing projects since my other photos have always been of the exotic cars that are in storage there. This is the more functional side of the shop.

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I’m looking forward to the whole series of classes and eventually taking the welding course…then I can really cause some trouble!