August 8th ~ 20th
In early August, I took a break from garden projects to focus on some garage upgrades. It started with one of the steel beams that had been brought from the old garage. I wanted the ability to lift an engine out of a Jeep, as I'd had in the old garage. The 'A' Frame crane on the back of the Dodge had been a temporary measure. Now I wanted an 'I' beam back in the ceiling to allow the dolly to be fitted. The chain hoist from the Dodge would fasten onto the dolly, allowing me to lift an engine and then roll it to the side out of the way. The original beam was too short, but the second beam that had been supporting the sagging bedroom floor was useable. The up and over garage door posed a bit of a problem, as I couldn't use the hoist in front of the door with the door open. The longer beam, fitted at an angle across the garage would clear the door for the most part.
	It was a thick gauge steel, so I didn't want to have to cut it, so it was laid on the garage floor, supported by four stacked bricks at each end. This allowed me to shuffle the bricks around to get the beam in the ideal position. I then painted around the bricks on the floor, so I'd know where the pillars needed to be built. On August the 11th and 12th, I started cleaning up a stack of bricks. The bricks came from the garden front wall, which was demolished by a female BMW driver last December, who lost control coming out of the junction opposite. So all of these bricks needed the mortar chiselling and grinding off to make them useable again. On the 13th, I dropped my daughter off with friends at 10am and started work. The M201 Jeep were moved out of the garage, while the GPW was rolled back to give more room.
Before I started laying bricks, I'd fitted some stainless steel, screw in wall ties, to connect the new pillars to the existing walls. I started with the front pillar, the mixer was plugged in and I started bricklaying. I built the pillar up to the top of lintel height, which would give just enough room for the 'I' beam before the roof joists. By the time I'd finished the side wall pillar, cleaned the mixer and tools, then put the Jeep away, I'd had a ten hour day. Between the 14th to the 17th, I moved some sockets and switches to more convenient locations. Nothing technical there, just lifting the cable clips and re-routing the wiring to better locations. I also had two LED security lights on long cables. For the last three years, I've just clamped them to the roof joists when I needed extra light. I finally screwed them to the roof joists above each Jeep engine.
	On the 18th, I tackled another garage job I've been wanting to do for some time. I had a load of junk piled up in the corner of the garage beside the Dodge. I needed some shelves to organise things better. I had some strip wood and chipboard flooring left from other projects, so built three sets of shelves in the space. The shelves needed to taper from the front of the garage to the window, getting narrower to allow for the angle of the Dodge, as it is such a tight squeeze through the garage door. The Jerrycans and 'K' Ration boxes are most frequently used, so these are on the top shelf, where they can be accessed with the Dodge in place.
A little job for the 19th was to make two wall brackets for two of the vehicle chargers. One Jeep has a different style of charger, less suited to wall hanging. The chargers normally sit on the fenders of the M201 and Dodge when charging. When I take the vehicles out, they tend to get dumped on what ever is closest. I wanted to tidy things up and not have cables dangling off shelves, or have the charger dumped in another vehicle or left on the floor. So I made two wooden brackets which were screwed to the wall, next to each vehicle. When the vehicle is out and the charger not needed, they slot into the brackets and the crocodile clips also attach to keep it all tidy and out of the way.
	With the pillars now fully set and the wiring relocated, I pondered the steel beam fitting. I'd recently seen a Youtube video, showing a guy lifting 20 ton concrete blocks by hand, by turning the block into a seesaw, with two pivot points..... ( https://youtu.be/E5pZ7uR6v8c?si=FgvgJdWdlVTHKFY- ). I figured his method could work for my beam, so went out to the garage on the 20th to see if I had the wood I'd need. I decided to give it a try and see how practical it was for my 200 pound beam. A quick test showed it was practical and before I knew it, I was going for it. I lifted each end by hand onto two stools beside the trailer. Then put blocks on each stool until it was level with the Jeep trailer. I then started building the seesaw with blocks of wood, rocking the beam and packing it with ever thicker pieces of wood.
As it got higher, I loosely tied a rope around each end, looped over the roof joists, as a safety measure. As the small strips of wood got up to about 4 inches, I tied off the beam and replaced them with a piece of railway sleeper. I then started rocking the beam again and packing it with the smaller pieces of wood again. It crept higher and higher until after about two and a half hours, each end could be nudged onto the top of the brick pillars. From that point, I just needed a crowbar to lever the beam to sit equally on top of each pillar. I plan to weld some small brackets onto the beam, so it can be secured to the pillars, but I'd had enough of hard work for one day! The dolly was fitted to the beam, ready to accept the chain hoist if needed and then I cleared up all the blocks of wood, stools etc and put the trailer back in the back of the garage.

I needed to take down one of the garage door runners while I lifted the beam, so with the beam in place, the runner was re-fitted. The Jeeps were then parked up in the garage again, 'though with the GPW on the left, as I want to take that out for some more test drives following its cylinder head gasket replacement. The left end of the beam runs close to the strip light in the ceiling and the dolly just catches it, so I plan to move it a couple of inches rearward to give the clearance needed. I'd had a successful couple of weeks of garage improvements, but I'll pause in there for a little while as garden jobs are calling again!