Hi Everyone,

I'm a new enthusiast and very excited to build a roaster. I'm wondering if some of the current builders out there can help me understand if I can successfully build one in my fairly small, city based, garage. It's a basic space (rectangular floorplan, garage door+opener, currently empty) but it has a few challenges that I can foresee. I realize that a small garage is not an ideal situation, but I have a can-do attitude about it all. Thus, i'm looking for show-stoppers, not necessarily telling me what I already know-- that it is going to be harder or undesirable. This I already know. but impossible?

1) Small floor plan.
The floor space of the garage is fairly small (177"x120") while the vehicle is 158x70" per the brochure. I'm thinking I can work around this in a few ways.
a) Store later boxes of parts in a friend's garage and pick them up as I need them.
b) Situate the frame not on jack stands, but a rolling 2x4 stand I would build so that I could shift the frame from side to side if I need more space to work. Since the vehicle is 158x70" when fully constructed, this would mean i could make up to 50" of space on the sides to work. The front and back work space would be less limited because I could open the garage door and roll the frame forward.

Again, I know this small. But might it be possible? Are there particular steps that noticeably required much more space and would be unthinkable in the described space?

2) Ceiling height

Unlike parts, the body will have to be stored in the garage and there is no yard. However, the home is part of a small community with a shared private driveway, so i'm thinking maybe I could make a body buck that stacks on top of the frame for storage but wheels outside when working. Unfortunately, the ceiling height is also pretty low, about 96". However, because the garage door consumes some of the ceiling space when open, its more like 80" at times. I'm thinking maybe I could construct my body buck to straddle the frame of the car, but just BARELY clear the frame. I may even need to construct this buck so that the platform is sort of suspended by a pulley system that allows me to angle the body and bring it up and down slightly. (I can draw out what im thinking) Anyway, this gets me wondering about the absolute smallest dimensions required to stack the body on top of the frame.

I see that the height of the car from the brochure is 48". ..But could someone share with me with height of the frame (when on jack stands or wheels) at the tallest point? and the height of the body? If the two can physically fit in the allotted 80 inches I think I can build something to make it work.

In addition, the low ceiling would also seem to be a problem when installing the engine as the engine crane would likely go pretty high. Do people think it would be possible to do this with the 96" of clearance that I have? (I can remove the garage door that day so as to get around the extra space consumed when open). Another thought: It seems like most people insert the engine over the course of 1 day? Given the possible height restriction, would it be possible to actually do this step outside?

Any thoughts from you experts out there would be well appreciated. I'm hoping with a bit of ingenuity I can make this work!

..or is it wishful thinking?

Mike