Carefully checking the parts that came with the kit, I thought maybe I had found my first problem... one of the elevator horns crafted from the beautifully powder-coated steel  had a small section (3/16") where there was neither any powder coating nor any weld.

I took pictures and sent them to Van's Support via email.  They say "that's intentional, to allow for clearance of a bolt head."  I guess I will find out when I get to that step.  I don't see a bolt hole interference issue here yet, but I haven't looked all that hard either.  You other builders... was yours like this?  One horn seems to have this gap, while the other doesn't (to this degree, anyway).




Here's another shot.  I was worried both about strength and about moisture getting inside that gap and causing corrosion from the INSIDE of the tube.



Flipped the big main breaker while the kids were at school (I had the day off, thanks to my boss... yesterday he said "since you're working Saturday, why don't you take Friday off"... uh, OKAY!).  I needed to wire a 220V 20A circuit for the compressor.



And here is what it looked like an hour or so later.  The toughest part (even with a fish tape) was pulling the wire through the wall using only the hole where the outlet went... but we got the job done without having to make any extra holes in the wall that would require patching later.





I moved the compressor into location and used a sharpie to mark the hole locations in the floor.  Drilling concrete is not easy, even WITH the right bit.  I ended up drilling three times in each hole, starting with a small bit and then gradually working up to the final size.  The thing that made the biggest difference in ease of cutting was keeping plenty of water on the bit and in the hole.  I pounded some anchors in the holes to accept the threaded bolts...  if you look really carefully, you can see them in a square pattern in the photo below:




To minimize noise, I wanted to find some thick rubber material (like the sole of a shoe) without spending an arm and a leg.  I thought an industrial safety and supply shop might have something, but I didn't get to one.  I looked all over Lowes and Home Depot, since the instructions for the installation of the air compressor specifically say that it should be mounted with "rubber biscuits" between the legs and the floor.  I'm thinking "okay, something like the size of a hocky puck".  Could I find such a thing at the hardware store?  NO.  Figures.  Every "associate" I asked said "I don't think we carry anything like that."

Finally, as we were getting ready to leave and go find an industrial safety and supply shop, I saw these packs of interlocking heavy-duty foam floor pads, designed for providing some cushioning under your feet on hard floor surfaces.  A 4-pack for $15?  I can live with that.  Each square was about 24" x 24", so I could use one of them for the compressor and still have three for my old tired feet.  Oh, what the heck.  I bought two packages... used one for the compressor, two on each side of the benches we built (that's 1+2+2, or 5 used) and then put the last three in front of the bench-tools bench.

In this picture, I've just used a holesaw to cut holes for the bolts to pass through.  It cut through this material like butter.




Trial fit... yup, this is gonna work just fine.  Now, if I can just finagle (is that a word, did I spell it right?) the compressor into place without moving the foam pad out of alignment with the bolt holes...




There we go... compressor is "in place", bolted down, and where she'll stay for the next several years. 




Teresa wanted to paint her dining room table a gloss black, so we had it out on the back porch while she got it all sanded, but it was too windy to paint outside, so we dropped a tarp on the garage floor.  I figured I'd paint the tables while the tarp was down, since I still had some of the pegboard paint, and I wanted to paint the 2x4 to which I was going to mount the air dryer and tool oiler.  I masked off the top and bottom shelves, and just painted the frames.  (Her table turned out great, too!)




I joined the combination air regulator/dryer/moisture extractor (on the left) with the tool oiler (on the right) with a 2" steel nipple and some teflon tape.  They make a mounting bracket for these, but Lowes carried only the actual units, not the mounting hardware, so I figured I'd try something simple and cheap... like big hose clamps, maybe?




I added a power cord to the compressor (nope, it didn't come with one!), made the final connections to the compressor (including a shut off valve where it exits the tank).  The air runs from the upper right side of the tank over to the regulator/oiler on the wall, and then from there to a 25' floor-mounted reel (JUST like you'd find at a service station).



And finally, these are toys for another day... they had a sale, $99 each.  Couldn't pass that up.  As you can see in the background, the kite had to come down.  I was worried about the compressor's fan pulling the streamers into the motor.