Shop horror stories

[jwduke]

Those are good. . another is to never wear your wedding ring while in the shop. Catching it on something with all your body weight is bad enough but arching it on 12v to ground on an un fused circuit would leave a mark for sure!

Thats why I will not wear a wedding band at all. I got my near the starter solenoid on a old Chevy pickup I owned with a stick. It run over my toes! Man did my hand & foot hurt!

 

[Paychk]

Variant of the ring/work story. Buddy at work was MIG welding and a bb landed on his wedding band. Before he could get it off or cooled it down enough to grab & hold with his other hand, he had a second degree burn completely around his finger.

 

[WDixon27]

Variant of the ring/work story. Buddy at work was MIG welding and a bb landed on his wedding band. Before he could get it off or cooled it down enough to grab & hold with his other hand, he had a second degree burn completely around his finger.

and thus we learn gold is a good conductor :-laf

 

[EMD Diesel Power]

Friend of mine related a RR injury story to me regarding rings. For one thing, its against the rules to wear them while on duty... but this guy did anyway.



Its also against the rules to go between cars that have less than 50 feet space between them. Two cars had banged together but didnt make the joint... . one was a cushioned drawbar and the other was a solid one. Solid was off-center... . reached in to readjust..... and the cushioned one suddenly let go (was compressed and cocked) and his hand promptly got smashed between the two faces of the couplers. Docs were able to save most of his hand... . except for one finger... . the ring one. Ring just chewed right through it and basically amputated it to the point it couldnt be saved.



It was winter... . the yard office was 30 cars away and everything was closed up tight, and they still heard him screaming.

 

[RT66DOC]

Maybe wedding rings just aren't a very good idea overall. :-{}

 

[BGlidewell]

My Grandfather told a story about a metal lathe at Cameron Iron down in Houston where he was a supervisor in the tool shop. Someone was working a long piece of stock that extended well out the other side of the chuck. A tool box was located on the floor under the out-feed of the chuck. The piece became unbalanced and the rotation speed made the metal in the outfeed invisible as it bent spinning. The last thing the guy ever did was reach down to get a tool as he was instantly decapitated.

 

[nickleinonen]

his hand promptly got smashed between the two faces of the couplers

ouch... that is one thing i worry about at work. getting my digits pinched/crushed between something. almost everything working on the RR is heavy

 

[RBergman]

using a railroad spike and a 3 pound hammer to cut the exhaust

of a friends 69 chevelle..... after hours of fighting this thing friends

dad walks in and says "if i would have know you where going to

do this i would have brung home the saws all from the shop"

at that piont i had 1/8 inch to go frustrated i took my last hardest

swing at it... ..... the problem my thumb was on the head of the spike

well it hurt for about a year and to this day my thumb nail is screwed

up and that was 14 years ago the up side he made me a sweet deal

on the car



i have learned sometimes just walk away for a short time

try again



about 19 years ago i was up late and got a wild idea

to throw a clutch in my 64 lemans of coures it was

winter (cold) at around 2:45 am i was so tired i couldnt see

and was fighting the transmission and clutch i was on the floor

the bell housing was attached to the engine and i was

going to bolt the transmission to the bell housing

i had just taken a bath in gear oil..... oh how i love

that smell... ... and all of a sudden the world was

a good place the transmission just slid in oh yea i won.....

dam i left the bolts on the bench just as i start to slide out

i hear a sound a tick and bam right a cross the forehead

the muncie slipped out boy did my haed hurt front and back side



if your to tired just dont do it





i watched a guy i worked with in the truck shop

make some angled mud flap brackets heating

them up with the roesbud glowing red-white

i dont know what he was thinking but no sooner

than he shut off the torch and removed the goggles

did he go grab the hanger :--) i never have seen anyone

move so fast he flung the bracket across the shop

and just ran in a circle in the end the burn was not

as bad as it could have been ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .

 

[cyborg]

ALWAYS do a 360 walk around

before lowering the lift.

Corner hung up on the roll-a-way in the background.





DOH!

 

[JApol]

I wanted to rotate my tires last weekend but the base hobby shop didn't have enough axel stands for me. There was a lot of other work going on in differant stalls but one of the frame lifts was open. The told me i could use that. I politley informed them that I have a 7000 lb vehicle, they said "Oh the lift can hadle that!" :--) That lift had problems with my 02 gasser

 

[Sled Puller]

This thread slowed up. I bet there are some good ones with new equipment from Christmas?



A couple I was near by: Leaning over a metal lathe with a heavy sweater on will rip your heart right out of your chest.



Table saw kick backs, OUCH!



How many of us have plyers/screwdrivers that have a nice arc notch in them? (I thought I shut that breaker off? Its off now. )



3/4 drill with large bits, brace your self away from pinch point!!

 

[Champane Flight]

One inch impact!

It can take you on a interesting ride when used under a KW trying to loosen a driveline yoke retaining nut! You have to remember to let loose of the triggerrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!! :-laf

 

[chrleb1]

Starting fluid and torches don't go well together. We were doing a timing job and used some starting fluid to clean off the pump gear. We thought we had let enough time go by to heat up the gear. We were wrong. The next thing we know, a loud explosion happens and there was a big flame in the timing case. We got lucky and didn't blow out any seals. Next time we found out that we should flush the engine with air from the compressor.

 

[DieselTweaker]

firecracker's and a bathroom stall.

 

[SMorneau]

Great stories! Accidents do happen but you can avoid some of them by listening to the little voice in your head. You know the one that is trying to tell you you are about to do something stupid. It is often cancelled out by the other little voice that is telling you nothing is going to happen and you will be done in a minute. Listen to the first one. If you have never heard the first voice you had better be really lucky.

 

[Nightram]

I have a good one. A friend of mine was changing the fuel filter on his mom's van. Using a trouble light that was 4 feet away, he didn't bleed the pressure out of the fuel system before he started. He pulled the line off, the fuel shot right at the light, bulb exploded, light and pool under him on fire. Caught his arm on fire and burnt it pretty good. They were lucky to get the fire out befor the van exploded. We were leaving for vacatrion 3 days later, it was a rough time for him on vacation! Brings out a good point, never use trouble lights around flammable items that could hit the light!

 

[WDixon27]

damn trouble lights, i was putting a transmission in a toyota pick up back before we got a lift with the light next to me on the floor, a few drops of ac water run out and the bulb explodes covering the side of my face and arm pit with hot glass, so for the next few minutes i beat the wall and floor with the offending light before i start peeling glass off with various patches of seared skin

 

[Hoefler]

I was bringing in a 1939 Brill bus to convert the clutch from cable to hydraulic. It had been converted from the an old lay down 6L71 to a stand up turbo charged 6L92. About 150 more ponies. Any ways, it was a very tight fit, shop was 50' deep, bus was 40' long, had a large blasting cabinet against the wall. With the door closed, I would have a 3' to 4' walk path in front. Need less to say, the cable broke, stood on the brakes, pulled the shut down cable, and the thing just loped away until it ran the fuel out of the rail. When it finally died, seemed like forever, the blast cabinet was outside the shop and the front bumper of the bus was a foot over the foundation.

 

[IC Smoke]

bump





any good ones??

 

[Loghead]

Now this is a good, self-depricating, what-a-dope-I-was, thread.



One time I was removing the driveshaft from a car (I can't remember why), I wondered why the rear U-joint was giving me such difficulty in sliding out of the axle yoke (duhhhh). It finally came out and then... the car started rolling down the cheap Kmart ramps it was on (double duhhhhh!) because I'd neglected to chock the front wheels (do I hear another duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?).

I'm here typing because I had an 18" breaker bar with me that I was able to jam into the axle yoke and against the floor.

(whewww!)

None of us is beyond stupid sometimes. :-laf