Hot Rods How to store Car over winter outside?

That's really neat! I need to put up something like that!

 

At minimum go get a bundle of shingles to use as a vapor barrier . Spread them out and park your car on them. Then go get a portable garage from Harbor Freight and keep the snow swept off.
My collectors insurance won't cover anything parked outside.

 

With all the work and money to buy/build a temporary shelter that will not keep the mice out, and may collapse in high winds or a heavy snow, you could pay for 6 months of indoor storage at a secure site. So why bother?

 

Well I know Thunder Bay gets cold regardless if it is Centigrade or Fahrenheit. But how much snow load do you get? We are in the Lee of Lake Ontario and can get two feet or more from a separate snowfall. Wonder how one f these would hold up and orshed that much. Any body have any experience with these with heavy snow fall and heavy wet snow??.

 

This is perfect for the guy that has everything including a bankroll.


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this is how I did it. sat right here for 10 years.

 

I leave west of Thunder Bay. I bought a brown peaked Shelter Logic portable that is 12 x 20 x 11 high from CTC. The frame is 2" square tube and the roof is snow rated to 45 lbs/sq. ft. I brought home a round tube shelter from CTC that was supposedly good but it had all the holes misaligned so its frame was badly twisted so that went back. I started looking around for a better one when CTC had the heavy duty on sale for $999 down from about $1200 at the time. I put down heavy poly then built a floor with 2x4 covered with T&G plywood. It is dry & comfortable. The car is inside a carbag with 2 large containers of silca gel from Lee Valley Tools. This was my temporary solution until I got or built a garage. I have a garage so I will move the car into that next fall and get to work on it. A bit of an overkill for temporary but the extra $300 was worth it for the quantum leap to a much better shelter.

The square tube version is peaked steep enough that it is self cleaning with dry snow. The snow usually slides off and if there is a little wind then the fabric movement will clear the roof. In 2013 we had a crazy winter. The snow banks on the streets were up to the bottom of the stop signs. There were a several round tube portables in town & one metal quonset building that collapsed in 2013. There was a lot of snow on the shelter's roof at times. Sometimes I thought that I should wade out and give the building a shake but I let nature take care of it. I think if you live in the great lakes snow shadow you might have to give this building a shake if it is really high or too wet. These portables may have been built with your snowfalls in mind. 45 psf of snow is about 3 ft of wet snow. There was about a foot of snow on the roof this week. Today was warm and the snow was sliding off.

I noticed a couple weeks ago there is one pin hole in the roof other than that it has been good. I read that it is a good idea to put a tarp over a portable garage to keep the UV off the roof. I will pick up a good military style canvas tarp to cover the roof when spring returns. I have an old car squirreled away in the shelter and my son parks his snow machine in there for the summer.

The closest CTC shelter that I could find similar to the one that I have is this one.
http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/shelter-tube-storage-shelter-green-2740927p.html#srp

 

Make sure the battery is thoroughly charged before leaving outside for long time periods, or bring it inside someplace warmer. A battery will naturally self-discharge over time, though this process is slowed in cold temperatures. BUT, a dead or only partially charged battery will freeze. Then battery is junk.

At 100% charge a lead-acid battery will not freeze until -77°F below zero. At 50% charge it will freeze at -10°F below zero. A dead battery will freeze at +20°F

I don't see any point of starting an engine periodically in the wintertime. If it's been "winterized", it will be good to go when needed come spring. Simply starting it to let it idle for a few minutes does more harm than good. Make sure fuel tank is topped off and stabilized, varnished stale fuel is bad stuff and leads to stuck valves and lifters, bent pushrods etc.

 

I don't like leaving a battery charger hooked up for long periods of time. Especially when I'm out of town. I've had plenty of batteries go completely dead after long periods of not being used and have never had one crap out because of running completely down.

If I had no choice but to store a decent car outside in the winter I'd sure beat the bushes trying to rent a spot in a garage or barn.

 

I tried multiple ways over the past parking cars outside over winter. I live in the Prairies so we get strong wind and lots of snow. Worst thing I noticed was tarps and car covers. I had a $400 fitted custom outdoor cover on one of my cars that was Tied down and tarped over. Super secure but wind still got in and scratched my paint all to hell. After that I always left them uncovered sitting on plywood and just filled the car with bounce(Fabric softner) sheets to keep pests away.

I had a couple friends use those Portable shelters to store cars, They work good if you open them often and let them breath as well as keep them clear of snow. If you dont open them often they will rot out the car super quick. Friend had a parts car sit for a year and a bit, went to pull it out to use its chassis and the thing was super soft and rotten.

 

Outside for just under 3 weeks rearranging car storadge. Sometimes I WAX the WHEELS and leave the WAX on
and so the best way to REMOVE the WAX is with more new wet wax. Keeps the rust at bay for a short time.
And cover the wheels/tires up with leftover [painter] tire covers or just cardboard -n- lean an old tire against it so nothing blows away.

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Hosing everything down with WD40 helps (we all know WD stands for' water displacing'). Aluminum, chrome, wheels, manifolds, carbs, underbody, radiator...The mice don't like it either. Comes in a trigger spray bottle now and it is available in gallon cans for refills. Have seen fleet mechanics use it on big rig wheels to prevent corrosion.

 

Enclosed Trailer

 

I have WAXed the wheels -n- left it DRY -n- NOT wiped off.

 

I was looking on craigslist and one of the somewhat local shipping container outfits had then for rent somewhat reasonable. A 20 footer would hold most early cars and be totally secure and dry.

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I dunno if this has been mentioned, but in regards to mice, go and buy a big box of scented dryer sheets and stuff them all around the interior, under the seats, up under the dash, in the glove box, trunk, etc.

The scent used on this is overpoweringly strong and hard on little rodent noses and they tend to avoid them like the plague. There's a rodent problem on the farm and since I started doing that years ago I haven't had mice mess up a single interior or wire harness.

It's cheap, it works, and the scent goes away after driving it around a bit. I've also started putting them in the engine bay, around the wire harness, on top of the engine, etc, and it seems to keep them out of there as well. Just remember to take them out before ya start it.

As for moisture, Dollar Tree sells moisture traps. $20 will get you 20 of them, put five in the trunk, five in the cabin, and have some to spare. They aren't the best working ones, but they're cheap, and they will work well enough. Have been putting them in my vehicles all winter for the last few years and it's really kept the corrosion down on already worn pot metal and chrome interior parts. It's amazing how much condensation will get into a closed up car.

Also, consider investing in a household electric dehumidifier. I picked one up at Home Depot back when I was rebuilding an RV in the dead of winter, and once in a while I'll plug that in and let it run over night. It will suck a ton of moisture out of the air and fabric and dry things out while warming it up in there. Worth every bit of the $200 or so I spent on it, as it's re-usable and works in the bathroom and laundry room when that gets humid. You can plumb that model to drain it's own tank into a hose so in theory it can just run all the time whenever the humidity gets out of whack and sets it off.

 

Shingles is a great idea, but man, if you use those car canopies from Costco or wherever, TIE IT DOWN LIKE A TORNADO IS COMING. The only thing I've found that will keep them on the ground short of setting every leg in concrete is to run ropes from the center joints of the roof to leg area under the car and back up to the other side. This will keep the canopy from flying off in most cases, but it will also run the risk of beating the side of the car to death with the legs. The little chickensheet spikes and ropes they come with are a joke, throw those in the junk drawer and use something massive. Four 50gal water barrels might do it. I've seen them fly with railroad ties tied to the legs. We lost one that tumbled a half mile away and ended up in a neighbors tree. I have no idea, to this day, how it got over the power lines by the house, and without taking out the power. Those things are destructive magic when high winds are involved.

 

btt

 

I store three cars in a dirt-floored three-sided pole shed, and after 12 years of doing so have not had any issues with rust. The one open side (to the south) provides plenty of ventilation, and the dirt on the floor stays bone dry all year long. People are always saying not to store on a dirt floor, but maybe the fact that I live in Kansas makes a difference. The mice are another issue, and due to the failure of my previous rodent elimination method I now use a couple of those homemade 5-gallon antifreeze traps to keep the population down. One thing I discovered early on is that the d-con refillable bait stations are useless, and should be renamed "feeding stations". Before I built the antifreeze traps I used poison bait, and once found a rats nest in the engine bay of an O/T El Camino. The little bastards had actually collected the bait cubes and stored them in their nest, and were obviously feeding on them. Must have been a good sized rat, as it also stashed my emergency roll of ass-wipe in it's nest. And a book of matches, not sure what the bastard was going to do with them.

Thanks to the EPA for making the effective poison illegal. Don't buy these, they're useless:

http://www.d-conproducts.com/produc...ns/d-con-refillable-corner-fit-bait-stations/


The photo below shows a bag of what I removed from the nest, including the bait blocks sitting next to it.

 

I have a theory on mice moving into cars. Once you park it, the human scent fades enough where they feel comfortable and set up shop inside the car. This is why dryer sheets may work. I park my car in the garage and probably have mice, but never see any signs of them in the car. I drive it all winter, so my scent stays fresh. Try to throw a dirty shirt in the car once a week, keep rotating them out so the car always has a human scent in it.