We tapped former Hot Rod, Car Craft and Chevy High-Performance magazine editor, Jeff Smith, to share his experience setting up a garage or workshop to make working on your car or truck a genuine joy. Jeff has organized, arranged, and outfitted countless spaces ranging from run-of-the-mill two-car garages to massive pole barns that would leave most of us salivating. What follows are Jeff’s words of wisdom to help you improve your own car-working space.
There are hundreds of ways to build your dream automotive shop. Most enthusiasts must adapt an existing structure like a home garage or a rented workspace, while a lucky few get to design and construct a building from the ground up. I assume you already have basic hand tools. Once you start filling your workshop, the real questions become: what tools should you add next, and how do you set up your space to make it efficient and enjoyable to work in?
Planning Your Floor Space
There is one immutable law of working on cars: no matter how much floor space or workbench space you have, you will always fill it and want more. Because floor space is almost always at a premium, the key is optimizing your layout so you have enough room to work on and around the vehicle.
The first step is planning your workspace. Since most of us do not have the luxury of a dedicated workspace and will need to also store parts and probably other vehicles, map out your space, setting an area to work on a car and areas that are reserved for storage. You might have managed to squeeze 3 cars into a 2-car garage by putting them on casters and sliding them inches apart. But ideally, you want at least two feet of space all the away around a parked car, and three feet is better near the driver’s door.
When planning a working bay, five feet of clear space on all sides of the vehicle is a smart rule of thumb. This lets you open doors fully and work comfortably inside the car, roll tool carts and jacks around the vehicle, and move freely without constantly repositioning equipment. Five feet also gives you room to work easily at fenders, bumpers, and corners, and it provides the flexibility needed for fabrication, engine pulls, or having multiple people working at the same time. While three feet is usable but tight and four feet works well for regular mechanical tasks, five feet or more is where a shop truly becomes functional rather than restrictive.
Plan tool storage close to the vehicle space you’ve set aside as your work zone. Walking 20 feet every time you need a tool adds up quickly over the course of a few hours.
If space allows, designate a “dirty” area of the shop for equipment like a parts washer and media blast cabinet. This is also a good location for drill presses, grinders, and other tools that generate metal shavings or grinding dust. Keeping this mess contained minimizes the Pig Pen effect throughout the rest of the shop.
Next, think about a welding station. That sounds fancy, but it means planning a space to store a welder or two, related tools and supplies and an electrical outlet for said welders central to a workbench you can weld on as well as access to the car in the work zone.
Workbenches Are a Game Changer
Horizontal work surfaces are usually the next most precious resource in a shop. Buying or building workbenches that maximize usefulness is key. They allow you to work on components at a comfortable height, provide solid mounting through a quality vise, and give you a dedicated place to disassemble, inspect, clean, and reassemble parts some place other than the floor or the bed of a pickup.
Many years ago, after moving into my first two-car garage, Rick Voegelin wrote a story for Car Craft magazine outlining how to build a simple yet effective workbench using common lumber. That design has been my go-to plan for decades. The bench is eight feet long with a two-foot-deep top, built using 4×4 legs and ¾-inch plywood for the top and lower shelves. I’ve included a supply list at the end of this article that details what’s required to build one of these benches.
My primary change to Rick’s original plan was substituting 2×6 boards for the 2x4s. I discovered that using T-25 or T-30 Torx-head deck screws is far superior to nails. I used a small Milwaukee drill driver to install three screws at each joint using converging angles, which dramatically improves lateral stiffness and reduces flex. Those two small changes resulted in an incredibly rigid bench that will last virtually forever.
These Yukon 46-inch, 9-drawer storage cabinets are a great way to add tool storage while also providing a light-duty workbench surface. They are sturdy, affordable, offer plenty of storage, and arrive about 95 percent assembled—you only need to bolt on the wheels and handle.
Let There Be Light
If you happen to be a bit long in the tooth like this author, shop lighting should be a top priority. It’s difficult to work efficiently if you can’t see clearly. Like many people, I started with four- and eight-foot twin-tube fluorescent fixtures, but quickly learned they underperformed in terms of light output. I eventually remedied this by converting existing fixtures to LED bulbs.
LED replacement bulbs for fluorescent fixtures generally fall into two categories. Type A bulbs allow you to simply swap bulbs without rewiring, but they are less efficient and more expensive. Type B bulbs eliminate the ballast entirely but require rewiring the fixture, which is straightforward. I performed this LED conversion in a shop by replacing all eight-foot fluorescent bulbs with LEDs. While I didn’t measure the light increase scientifically, I would estimate the light output nearly doubled.
There are two effective ways to create sufficient shop lighting: extremely high-lumen fixtures or a greater number of medium-lumen fixtures. Lumens are now the standard measure of brightness, as LEDs have made wattage largely irrelevant. Rows of LED lights rated at 5,000 lumens or more, spaced four to six feet apart, will provide bright, even lighting in shops with 10-foot ceilings. Taller ceilings require higher lumen output.
Proper Power Propagation
While on the subject of electricity, adequate power is essential for any functional shop. My first home garage had a single 60-watt light bulb in the ceiling. I tried running everything—including a small air compressor—on that single circuit, with predictably terrible results.
If you are renting a shop, make sure it has ample electrical capacity. If you own your space, invest in a modern electrical panel with no less than 100 amps of available power. This upgrade usually requires a licensed electrician, but it is well worth the investment.
Most shops require a mix of 120-volt and 240-volt outlets. If you have a dirty zone with plans for a band saw, drill press, or bench grinder, you will want dedicated 20-amp circuits. A combination of 15- and 20-amp circuits above your workbenches is also essential. Many air compressors require 230/240 volts and must be on a separate circuit from welders or other high-draw equipment.
You can never have too many outlets in a shop. Be sure to run multiple circuits so operating more than one electric tool at a time doesn’t trip breakers.
Fire Extinguishers
Fire extinguishers may seem like an unnecessary expense—until you need one. Shop fires are rare, but they do happen, and preparation is critical. Knowing which type of extinguisher to use can make all the difference.
Fire Extinguisher Types
A – wood, cloth, paper, and ordinary combustibles
B – flammable and combustible liquids including gasoline, ethanol, and methanol
C – electrical equipment
D – combustible metals such as titanium, magnesium, lithium, and potassium
K – cooking grease fires, typically in kitchens
The most common and affordable extinguishers are dry chemical ABC units, which work well in automotive environments. Their downside is the fine white residue they leave behind, which is unpleasant to clean and hazardous to breathe.
Carbon dioxide (CO₂) extinguishers are another option. They are bulkier but leave no residue. A third alternative is Halon-replacement extinguishers. While original Halon is no longer used due to environmental concerns, modern replacements are available. They are more expensive but offer longer range than CO₂ units and leave no residue.
In my shop, I use a combination of five-pound Halon-replacement extinguishers and dry chemical units. My plan is to use the gas extinguishers first, resorting to dry chemical units only if necessary.
After a friend lost his car and shop to a fire that quickly spread out of control due to a lack of extinguishers, I outfitted my original 30×40-foot shop with six five-pound fire extinguishers using a mix of Halon-replacement and dry chemical units capable of handling any fire.
Compressed Air and Air Tools
For roughly 100 years, an air compressor has been a central power supply for tools of all types. Today, powerful cordless electric tools have filled many tasks that air tools Ire relied on for, but you will still need a properly sized air compressor for tasks like painting, inflating tires and more. And air tools are still viable, affordable options for a shop.
When I built my first shop in California, I elected to mount the large vertical compressor outside the shop in an exterior water heater housing to increase shop floor space and to reduce the noise in the building. This will not work if your shop is subject to sub-freezing winter temperatures since the water that condenses in the tank will freeze but consider placing the compressor where you can reduce the noise of operation while still making it easy for normal maintenance like draining the tank. I fitted our compressor with an extended drain line so I don’t have to crawl under the tank to access the drain petcock.
Choosing the right compressor—and setting it up with proper water traps and plumbing—is a topic worthy of its own article.
Tips to Leave With You
As I said in the beginning of this story, there are dozens if not hundreds of ways to design and operate a shop from a small one-car garage up to an industrial warehouse. Hopefully I have offered some suggestions that will make your shop a welcome place to make the magic happen. If you are like me, I spend an inordinate amount of my time in the shop so making it easy to work in will make shop time a pleasure rather than punishment. And I leave you with these additional tips to save you time, effort and money in your workshop.
One major tip when searching for two-post hoists is to choose a hoist with a cross bar at the top rather than the bottom. The lower crossbar is always in the way for jobs using a transmission jack, oil drain containers, or other wheeled tools.
If you are lucky or unlucky enough to live where it gets cold in the wintertime, the most efficient way to heat your shop is in-floor heating. This is the boiler fixture for a 40×48-foot shop with additional lines for heat in an adjacent 30×50-foot shop. Unlike with other forms of shop, radiant floor makes it a joy to lie on the floor when needed!
