Stuff We Use: Garage TV Setups

On our never-ending quest to improve this place by listening to feedback from the B&B, we are taking a new tack with these product posts, choosing instead to focus on items we have actually used or purchased with our own meagre income. After all, if we’re giving you the truth about cars, we ought to give you the truth about car accessories.

Now, before you accuse us of getting soft and going Hollywood, know that this post isn’t going to reference the types of garagemahals generally associated with having a 90-inch flatscreen broadcasting F1 races and Barrett-Jackson coverage 24/7 whilst the moneyed one-percent mill about their gazillion-dollar collector cars.

The genesis behind this topic is the fact there are numerous sources, generally found on YouTube, which are surprisingly helpful in providing step-by-step instructions for complicated or simply unfamiliar wrenching tasks. If putting a new set of brakes on a friend’s Elantra in their home garage, there stands a decent chance one will seek out a tutorial before diving into the project. It helps that these video sources are typically far more accurate and assistive than blathering which used to occur – and probably still does – by self-aggrandizing morons who are populating make/model forums.

Which is why an affordable flatscreen television and a cheap FireStick (or similar) with which to connect to the internet has become a staple in this gearhead’s attached garage. Picking up a television is a simple matter, whether one does so through a place like eBay or nabs a rock-bottom deal on Marketplace. Just use yer common sense when buying off the latter. Finding one which is large enough to be viewed by these jaundiced eyes at a distance meant popping for a 30-inch screen but prices have fallen to the point where a 40-incher is now not much more than a hundred bucks if you look hard enough. And if yer a brand snob, go ahead and slap a piece of black tape over the no-name model that’s stamped on the front of that affordable (but more than fine for the garage) television.

In fact, that last one to which this article is linked already has the so-called ‘smart’ guts baked right into it, negating the need to pick up a FireStick/ Roku device. For those not in the know, these little wonders generally plug right into a tv’s HDMI port and come with a small remote control to access streaming services on televisions not equipped to do so right out of the box. This means that a person can call up the aforementioned YouTube helpful tutorial and follow along whilst handling the brake job on that Elantra. Pausing, rewinding (multiple times), and such commands are dead simple.

It isn’t uncommon, in a fit of pique, for my Mastercraft tools to be flung a sufficient distance to earn Air Miles, so mounting the television up high on the wall was a prescient idea. These types of mounts are also found in abundance on eBay and generally require not much more than a couple of minutes’ work to assemble. During installation, make sure to mount the thing securely into wall studs instead of right into the gypsum or plasterboard; even those supposedly stout wall anchors have failed from time to time in our experience. This may seem like a blindingly obvious suggestion but is one worth noting.

And after the work is done, there’s nothing wrong with tuning the television to an online broadcast of that morning’s race on the IMSA YouTube channel or finding old episodes of Top Gear at which to chuckle. Also, shout out to FloRacing which broadcasts – generally live – dirt track races from the small corners of America. It’s tremendous. 

As planned, this series of posts will continue to focus on items we’ve actually used and bought with our own money. We hope you found this one helpful.

[Images: Author]

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