Construction of the New Hill Garage

The construction of the New HIll Garage was initiated by a strong negative spousal response with regard to restoration of the Volvo PV544 in the small garage workspace under the house. Construction also became feasible due to a mortgage loan re-finance that resulted in some extra cash. The original design plan was for a traditional slab on grade construction featuring a 3 bay garage. When I presented the proposed design configuration to the chief architect, she noted that the garage would be bigger than the house. Although I thought this was a reasonable thing, I was informed that I needed to go back to the drawing board. At 2 bays in width, the garage was not as wide as the house. At 1 1/2 stories in height, the garage was not taller than the house. But that left no room for restoration work. The solution was to go with a basement garage space under the main garage. Structurally, this was not impossible but raised introduced challenges. One of my personal requirements was that the space be unobstructed by poles or support columns. The solution was pre-stressed concrete panels. These are commonly used in commercial parking garage construction. They are very capable of taking the weight of cars over a large span. In my case, the span was 28', which resulted in a 6" slab thickness. As we will see, 2" of cover was added, more for cosmetic reasons than structural.

While I was researching the availability of concrete panels, I came across Superior Walls, who manufactures pre-cast concrete wall panels. I visited their factory in Oxford, NC, I was very impressed with their operation. The wall sections are produced in a quasi assembly line fashion. Very long forms can be set for 8', 9', or 10' of width. The face of the wall is about 2" thick. The inside face of the wall is backed by 1" of styrofoam insulation (blue board), visible in most of the photos. The walls are reinforced with concrete studs, which are pre-cast and then integrated into the face wall with metal ties. There are 2" x 6" sill plates top and bottom. 1x2 wood strips are provided on the back of the studs for attachment of the interior wall material, typically sheetrock. The studs have internal holes for routing of electrical and plumbing lines. The wall sections may be supplied with wood framed opening for doors or windows. A brick ledge can also be applied on the exterior. The wall sections are connected with mechanically bolted connections. The wall sections are sealed with a urethane sealant.

The great thing about the pre-cast wall sections is that the erection goes very quickly. The site is prepared by excavation. The excavation is filled with a thick layer of pea gravel. No concrete footings are required, rather the integral footing of the wall bears directly on the compacted pea gravel. Think of a railroad tie laid on its bed of stone. The Superior walls crew arrived early one morning. First they used a laser level to screed the foundation area to a level profile. Next, the foundation area was compacted using a vibratory compactor. String lines were laid out to define the perimeter of the structure. In my case the garage was 28' x 28'. At this point, we were ready for the walls.

The walls arrived on a flat bed trailer. The pre-cast floor panels came the same way. A mobile crane arrived and set up in a convenient position. The first panel was hooked up to the crane and set into position in the foundation. A second panel was set to form the corner. Both panels were mitered to form the corner. The corner was bolted together top and bottom, after application of the urethane sealant. Soon, the complete perimeter of panels was set into position. Start to finish, this took about 3 hours. Now we were ready for the floor panels.

Next it was time to lay the pre-stressed concrete panels across the width of the walls. The panels were set with the crane, side by side until the entire space was covered. At this point, the work of the Superior Walls crew was done and they headed for home. A total of about 5 hours was needed for the entire effort.

The panels are just resting together with no interconnection as placed by the crane. The panel joints form a V groove. A

grout mixture is poured into this groove. When cured, this ties the panels together. Additionally, I ran anchor bolts from the top sills of the walls into the floor panels. Next, the exterior walls were waterproofed with asphalt. Then, the portion that would be above the grade were finished with a brick veneer.

Once the brick veneer was applied, a form was applied around the perimeter of the building. A 2" thick (nominal) mixture of cement and pea gravel was added to the top surface. This is not mandatory but it allowed me to put a power trowelled finish to the floor. Also, I was able to apply a slope to the floor to meet code. At the same time, anchor bolts were set into the perimeter as the starting point for the wood sill that would be the start of the traditional wood frame construction that would be applied on top of the concrete structure.

Interior to the shell, the walls can be your form for pouring the interior concrete floor. I don't have a good picture of this but it is pretty straightforward. Exterior to the shell, I had retaining walls poured. At the front, the wall forms the ramp up to the main floor of the garage. This area was filled in with compacted fill and topped with stone. Later, I added pavers as the durable suface. At the rear, the walls keep the cut banks of earth stable, since in order to have an at grade entrance to the lower garage, I needed to cut into the existing grade to about a 5 foot depth. A concrete pad was poured between these walls. Once the floor was poured inside the shell, it was OK to backfill around the sides.The next phase of the construction was fairly standard. Stud frame walls were formed to surround the main floor of the garage. The space above, the attic, could potentially be used as a living space but I wanted the storage space. A set of stairs makes access to the attic simple.

In order to have a clear span space in the main garage, I went with steel beams to support the attic floor above. The framing of the roof is a little exotic but it was necessary to get the 12/12 pitch and to have the 4 gables.

The siding is HardiPlank. This is a cement based board that is guess can never rot. It's a little bit of a mess to install because of the dust but should be very low maintenance. It also seems to hold paint pretty well. The roof was standard asphalt shingles.

Final touches on the exterior included a set of doors and a breezeway to connect to the house. The doors are a single panel, called a "California Door', that swings up into the overhead. They are styled to look like door on an old carriage-house. The doors to the lower garage are similar but do not swing overhead, rather they are a tri-fold door. The right hand panel in each door swings open for easy personnel entry. The breezeway started out as a roofed deck. About a year later, I enclosed it with leaded glass panels.

Once the exterior was finally done, I could turn my attention to finishing off my garage/shop space at the basement level. As I mentioned before, the Superior Walls had wood lath that excepted sheetrock. First I ran my electrical wiring. Lots of 120V outlets and a single 220V outlet. I put a simple laundry sink in one corner, with cold water only. I have an air compressor in a nearby outbuilding and I ran the air lines into the garage. I wanted a lot of lighting. After painting the overhead concrete panels white, I installed lots of fluorescent fixtures. I also installed a beam in the overhead, which serves as a pick point for a trolley hoist, sometimes also called a monorail hoist.

Initially, I had thought that I would not need any cooling due to the heat sink from the walls sunk in the earth. Unfortunately, the main garage space gets very hot during the day and its heat is wicked through the floor/ceiling into my shop space. But a small window unit air-conditioner that I installed brings things back down to a bearable temperature. In cold weather, the room temperature never goes below 50 degrees F. But I have a small propane heater that will get the room up to 70 degrees after a while.

All the cabinets shown in the photos are my custom build. The countertops are oak flooring, sealed with urethane.

Troubleshooting your XK Engine - Checking Cam Tappet Clearances

I approach the old lady hoeing weeds in her garden. "I understand you've got some old cars stored in that barn out back. Mind if I take a look? Go ahead Mister" she said. "I'd be glad to get rid of them so the milk cow would have more room". I approach the barn and enter through a side door. There, in the back, what is that? I approach closer in the dim light. It looks like a 61 outside hinge flat floor E-Type, covered with hay and chicken mess! "Harvey, wake up." (It's my wife Kelli calling out to me as I nap on the porch swing) "It's time to come in and eat supper." Damn, woke me up from a most excellent dream!

So we continue with our troubleshooting guide for the XK engine. My specific example is the 4.2 litre 6 cylinder engine in my 1967 E-Type. But the concept I am going to discuss this month, the checking and adjustment of Cam Tappet Clearances, can be applied to other XK engines too.

Last time, we checked the timing of the cam with respect to the movement of the pistons. If the cam timing is off, your engine performance will be noticeably degraded. This month, we will see how you go about checking the clearance between the cam lobe and the tappet. This clearance can have an effect on your engine performance, especially if it is too tight, as this will hold the valve partially open, resulting in a loss of compression and burning of the valve seat. In the opposite direction, a clearance that is too loose will result in increased valve train noise and, if excessively large, will also degrade performance.

As we have noted in previous articles, the XK engine has overhead cams. That is, the camshafts are located in the cylinder head, very close to the valves they open and close. This is in comparison to a "push rod" engine, where the cam shaft is much lower in the engine, near the crankshaft, with the cam motion being transferred to the top of the engine via long push rods. The overhead cam configuration is a more elegant and high performance configuration.

Strictly speaking, the lobe of the cam shaft strikes the "cam bucket", which in turn strikes the head of the valve stem, forcing the valve open. The lobe of a typical XK cam protrudes 3/8" beyond the "basecircle" of the cam, thus opening the valve by that amount. When the lobe of the cam is away from the bucket, there is a small clearance. There are several reasons for this clearance, including the need to leave an allowance for thermal expansion of the various parts and the need to leave a running clearance so the bucket is not worn down from continuous contact. It is this clearance that we will check and, if required, adjust. You will want to perform this job on an engine that is effectively at room temperature, so that thermal expansion effects do not affect your measurements.

To check the clearance, the cam/valve covers must be removed. At any instant when you inspect the stationary engine, several of the valves will be on the cam lobe and depressed. The remainder of the valves will be closed. To keep it simple, we will check only those valves where the cam lobe is pointed straight up i.e. directly opposite of the bucket surface.

On the early XKE engines, roughly corresponding to those built up to 1968, the required clearance is 0.004" on the intake side and 0.006" on the exhaust side. On the later "emissions" engines, the values should be 0.012" and 0.014" for intake and exhaust. Check a reliable Jaguar manual to be sure. You will need a feeler gauge to make the check. Start with a blade that is 1 or 2 thousands less than the expected value. It should slip into the space between the cam and bucket easily. Go to the next thicker gauge and try again. As you go to a thicker gauge, you will notice that the gauge becomes hard to insert and has a pronounced "drag" as you move it in and out. Checking for the correct drag is an acquired technique but you can't hurt anything by experimenting with different thickness gauges as you develop your feel.

Prepare a chart listing the 6 intake and the 6 exhausts valves. Remember, Jaguar considers the forward most cylinder as number 6. After you check your first values for the cam lobes that are up, use your 1 5/16" socket to rotate the crankshaft pulley until the next set of lobes are up. Then check those valves. You will wind up rotating the crankshaft pulley multiple times as you work through all 12 locations.

Now you will want to review your numbers. Certainly, if all the numbers are spot on then hooray, you are done. If one or two values are way off, you might want to repeat the procedure and see if the aberrant values are repeatable. Values that are too tight (less than the target value) would be unusual but would be cause for immediate action. Values that are too loose by 1 or 2 thousands are not a big deal. Some mechanics actually set the values loose by this amount to make sure that valves do not hang open. Values that are 3 or more thousands too loose will not require immediate action but might explain poor engine performance.

Unfortunately, adjusting the clearance on an XK engine is a real pain. If you unbolt the camshaft and lift it out of the engine and then use a magnet to extract one of the cam buckets, you will find a small circular shim, about the size of a nickel, inside the bucket. These shims are precisely ground to varying thicknesses. They range from 0.075" thick to 0.105" thick and can be purchased in 0.001" increments of thickness. The plan is to remove the existing shim and to add a different shim that will bring the cam clearance into the correct range. This is a maddening process that involves the purchase of shims, measurements of each shim with a micrometer, and multiple removals and reinstallations of the cam shafts. If you are a novice, this is a job that you might want to pay an expert to perform. That said, I had never done the job before this year and, using the Bentley shop manual, was able to get through it without incurring any permanent disasters. The good news is that once set, the clearances are very stable and will most likely stay in spec for tens of thousands of miles.

So there you have the cam tappet clearance check in a nutshell. At this point, we have completed major checks of the cylinder head. Next time we will talk about the spark ignition system.

Disclaimer - Automotive work can be dangerous if proper safety procedures are not followed. In homage to our litigious society, I must state that I cannot be held responsible for any real or perceived mis-information that may be contained in this article. A good shop manual is mandatory before you attempt any work. Read the safety section of your manual. If you have any questions, contact me at hdferris@bellsouth.net so we can hopefully get questions worked out before a problem is created.

Specialty Tool List

Feeler gauges- if you feel like splurging, buy the Starrett brand

1 5/16" socket with rachet or 1 5/16" wrench