Good point@Oblivion,I starting to feel really good about the future of hybrids right noe(after viewing a malfuntioning transfer case out of a Silverado(think how easy you good achieve AWD with a hybrid system-Kevin
A few years ago I worked at a place where, well, the service manager, though a nice guy, loved to kibbitz over your shoulder as you did your work. Everyone’s different; all I can say is I JUST CANNOT concentrate under this condition. So one day I was heating a forged control arm near its bore where a stubborn ball joint was pressed in. Heating the control arm in order to press out the BJ a little easier.
The SM came over to me saying, “Karl-Karl, you can’t heat up a ball joint. We’re not allowed to do that here.”
I was p-o’d but he had asked nicely, so I bit my tongue & finally pressed it out.
Couple years go by, different place, about to 3 or 4 months ago now. One of my co-workers was replacing BJ’s on a late 80’s Dodge P-U 4WD. BJ’s pressed into the knuckles. Rust, rust, oh my God, the rustiest rust-bonded front end in history. Yeah, he’s heating the knuckle. I’m working on another car & all of sudden BOOM! Like a shotgun or louder went off in the shop. There was the ball joint ball/stud smoking on the floor, the socket part of the BJ still in the knuckle bore. I’m guessing the heat boiled the grease internally & with no where for the vapors to go ( BJ had no play but customer wanted all 4 done while we had everything apart.)–with no where for the vapors to go, pressure built up enough to finally blast out the ball/stud. Luckily the ball/stud was oriented down instead of up; he would probably have been killed or seriously injured otherwise.
You learn something new every day; if you don’t it’s a wasted day.
Oh, the guy couldn’t hear out of one of his ears for several hours.
Of all the close calls I had working in shops and at home. I would have to say the 2 that stand out are:
#1 I was doing a pull on a S10 on my frame machine when the frame let go. The S10 came off the machine and hit me, knocking me down. Had it not been stopped by one of the towers I would have been pined under it.
#2 I had some metal hit cheek and bounce off my safety glasses. I did not know that it gone deep into my eye. Now you mite ask how is this bad? Well I have had metal in my eyes more times than I can remember. Now for what happen next is real scary. About 9:30 that night the metal worked its way out to rub my eye lid. So I called the eye doctor. As luck would have it he was at the ER. Said he would wait for me to come in and remove it there. I go in and he had me get on the table. As he pulled it out I heard this buzzing sound. The next thing I hear is him saying was OH MY GOD WE ARE LOSING HIM!! I came to looking up at this guy with the paddles saying clear! He did not hit me with them as he seen I had came back. I was with out a heart beat for all most 2 mins.
The doctors don’t know why my heart stopped when it did or why it started on its own. I am glad it did. Just go’s to show you just as big mistake can get you, a small one can too.
But the real danger is in a 1/4 gallon of gas in a gallon can…
In the early 70’s, I thought I could work on my '68 Valiant inside the garage in winter with the exhaust extended outside through a hole in the door using flexhose. In about 10 minutes after starting the engine, I felt woozy and stumbled outside. I aired out the garage and never tried that stupid stunt again.
Oldbodyman;
Good thing you came back. I guess it just was not your time.
I hope the eye was ok, I lost the right eye when I was in my late 20s from a small chip off a hammer head about the size of a pin head. I didn’t really lose the eye, but the sight in that one.
All I see now is shadows. It could be a tiger passing in front of me, or a naked girl…bothg dangerous animals!!!
I Shoe horses for a living and do some auto work for friends and family on the side. I have a good friend that has his own shop and he hires me to help with engine swaps and big jobs.
With two of us wrenching he can get the lift bay clear faster.
I was driving by this winter and decided to stop in and visit, or help out if needed. I walked in the service door and he and a client were just sitting there on stools chatting. I walked over while berating them kiddingly about being on a union break.
He informed me that he was just waiting for his parts to be delivered and they should be driving in anytime now. I sat with them and we began to chat, and after about a minute I heard a racing engine. I just got out the words “Your parts must be here” , when the parts truck came crashing through the overhead door and stopped just shy of slamming into the rear of the vehicle on the lift.
Turns out that the slope down to the shop was pretty icy and the parts truck driver couldn’t stop.
The three of us sitting there must have had to pick our lower jaws off the ground when that happened.
I think the ice may have contributed to the accident, but I think that more so, it was the driver.
He was a big guy 6 foot plus wearing pack boots and driving a little regular cab pickup and he couldn’t get those big boots off the gas and onto the brake…being so cramped.
We were able to get the door back into the track so it could be opened and closed, but with three panels bowed it was no easy task to open and close.
The parts place replaced the whole door, but he lost a good half day of work until we got the door working even a little and another half day when they put in the new door.
They keep the tall guy behind the counter now and he has started to sand his driveway!!!
I came home one day and backed my truck into the driveway as usual and shut off the engine.
As I gathered my things to take to the house I noticed the neighbor across the street working on his pickup truck. Both front tires were removed and he was sitting cross legged under one front fender and swinging away with a heavy hammer. I thought that I’d go over and offer any help or tools that he might need.
As I approached, I noticed that the truck was being held up by just one bottle jack in the center of the front end.
I made him stop and come with me to my shop to retrieve the floor jack and some jack stands.
My shop is about 10 minutes away and when we returned we found his truck had crashed to the ground while we were away. That sight put a fear into him so bad that he offered to have the truck towed to my shop and have me do the work.
Back where I used to live a local guy was replacing the rear U joint on his RWD pick up, in his driveway which was an incline. Truck was in park, e-brake off. Since there was enough clearance underneath, the guy hadn’t jacked the truck up. I don’t know how he did it but somehow he removed the rear u joint. At this point the truck was effectively out of park & it rolled back over the poor guy, killing him. Easy to second guess & say, well the guy should have known it would go out of park. To err is human but OTH he presumably had a working parking brake available & could easily have gotten some chocks, even if in the form of rocks/bricks.Maybe that would’ve been “redundant” but erring on the safe side. He would have survived. Sad, so always think about this stuff.
I have a rough 1978 Jeep CJ-7 that I am currently selling because of many issues. The last one was an engine fire and I pretty much gave up on it after that. It say for a year and I decided to sell it. This is a Frankenstein of a vehicle. IT has been converted to a Ford 302 and the wiring was done poorly. It was converted to a hydraulic clutch and they made this from scratch instead of buying a kit. The bracket that holds the slave cylinder had became weak because the homemade job used too light of a metal. It bent back under the stress and was no longer allowing the clutch to disengage. I needed to move the Jeep to fix this so figured I would put it in 4WD low, start it in gear, and idle it to the location, and shut it off. I forgot to mention that no key was required to start this so if I was lazy, a screwdriver made an excellent substitute. I also forgot to mention that the previous owner had patched holes in the front floorboards using stainless steel diamond plate. This would sometimes cause the gas pedal to get hung up under the metal plate. Well, I started the Jeep and it roared to life in gear and took off. The pedal was hung and I found myself driving in reverse at a high rate of speed. I should have yanked it out of gear and just let the engine blow or whatever would have happened but fumbled for a screwdriver and turned the Jeep off. It rolled to a stop just feet from a mound of dirt that would have likely flipped it over at the angle I was approaching. I was nervous and shaking for quite some time after this one. It was basically floored. I never used the screwdriver again after this as I wanted a key right there that I could shut it down with.
I went to pickup my parents’ car from the shop one time while I was home visiting. I was driving this car and kept hearing a clunk. Luckily I didn’t make it very far and pulled over as something was obviously wrong. The lug nuts had just been barely put on by hand but that was it. I called the shop as the invoice was right there with their number and they sent someone out to put the lugs on correctly. The later inspected the studs and wheel for free (no damage done) and gave my dad a free oil change or two.
I was working on my 1994 Geo Metro a year or so after I had gotten it. I had to remove one of the rear wheels for some reason. I don’t remember why but it might have been a flat or something. I removed the wheel cover and saw only 3 lug nuts. The 4th stud was broken off. I went to remove the others and two of them just snapped off. The last one held but was so stretched and stripped from major overtightening. I came to realize that I had taken all the other 3 wheels off this car while doing work but this one had never been removed by me. I had been driving around all that time with one wheel hanging on by a thread.
As for jack stands, I like to back them up with some old tires and wheels. I stack these under the frame so if the jack stand were to fall, the tires/wheels would hold the car up and only let if fall a few inches. Never had an issue.
When I was stationed in Japan, my 68 Datsun Bluebird SSS (510 sedan in US) needed a clutch. So with it parked in front of my quarters, I got out the scissors jack and jacked up the right front, pulled the wheel, crawled under the car and dropped the transmission onto my chest and wiggled out from under it. Then I installed the new clutch plate, put the transmission back on my chest and wiggled back under the car and positioned the transmission and bolted it in place.
I wiggled back out, put on the wheel and went to lower the jack. One little rivet held the whole jack together and as soon as i started turning the screw, it broke and the car fell. Needless to say, I have always used jackstands (or ramps) ever since.
I always use jacks, stands, ramps and blocks in a way that there is a back-up support if something fails