Technical Brain farts and other acts of intelligence.

So, I set myself on fire a couple days ago at work . Ok , so not so much set myself on fire …. But engulfed myself in a fire ball !!

helping one of the junior guys figure out a no start on a propane unit in the shop , I pulled a spark plug wire and checked for spark . Good fat spark . Next I pulled the low pressure fuel line off the carb to check for fuel . Well I still had the wire off and BOOM !!! A 16’ tall fire ball engulfed me , the forklift and licked the ceiling in the shop !!!!!

luckily I’m Italian and it only singed my arm
Hair , beard and gave me a nice hair cut on my left side , my eye brow didn’t fair so well .

no harm , no foul . Lucky I didn’t get it worse then basically a bad sun burn and a whole bunch of ball breaking from the guys in the shop once they saw I was ok and laughing about it ( I told ‘em as management and lead tech I was giving them an example of what NOT to do )

really dumb move and happened simply because I was not paying attention .


The other one was working on my Merc a few weeks ago , pulled the old dura spark out and installed a Mallory box and distributor , for whatever reason I could not get the rotor to line up at the 12 o’clock position but only at 6 o’clock .

bit deal now number 1 is here instead of there , still lots of sweep for adjusting timing no big deal . Well I’m my infinite wisdom for whatever reason instead of starting at number one and going counterclockwise, I started at 1 and went clockwise .

bridged the starter solenoid and she cranked but did nothing else not even a fart . We’ll pull the coil wire and check for spark , with the coil wire in my right hand and bridge the solenoid with a screwdriver in my left , Mallory hy-fire box puts out one hell of a zap , I folded like an over cooked noodle . After that bit of embarrassment I found my issue and had the car purring in about 5 minutes .


It’s funny , been doing this along time and mostly get it right . But when I fuck up it’s really comical .


Oh I also zapped myself with 600 volt 3 phase a couple months back , actually felt nice … but you stick, could not pull my hand off the wire . Lol.


They say bad things come in three’s hopefully I’m done for a while .

 

A good friend of mine, an old hot rodder once told me that a hot rod isn't a true hot rod unless it's caught fire at least once. Glad to her you are alright and make sure your OHIP is up to date.

 

Third times a charm...hopefully.
Glad you're still alive

 

I’ve blown up my self before. The pharmacist at CVS walked me across the street to the hospital ER when I came in for some burn cream! Took a few layers of skin off my right arm and the right side of my face. Don’t feel bad it can happen to anyone! Changing a fuse on an air compressor at work I stuck to the fuse box and had to get knocked off with a 2”x4”. Welding I regularly light myself on fire, I had a dog that would let me know. I still miss her!

 

Holy cow Vandenplas! I’m so sorry all that happened, but so happy you are ok!

 

OK I'll tell on myself. The other day when I was working on my old lady's truck, I was ready to pull out the old cam. It would only come out about an inch, and then I couldn't even get the damn thing to go back in. I was pissed, so I quit, but before I did I snapped a picture. Few minutes later I sent it to lumpy and asked if he'd ever had this problem. As soon as I sent the picture I seen it, my dumbass hadn't pulled the fuel pump off

 

Once with an HID module that wasn't working, after opening it up and soldering a loose thing in there, I tested it on the car and since it worked, I took it off and set it on the bench. Then in a moment of pure intelligence I decided it was time to put the cover back on and just grabbed the unit with my wide open hand, the D in HID is for discharge and it did discharge those 35 000 volts I just charged not even 1mn prior.
I did zap myself a couple of times with 220v and once with 380v. The thing that surprise me everytime is how awaken you feel and how everything you see seems clearer as if in HD.
I think the worst I did was while gas welding, as I approched the torch the 2 pieces moved so I moved the torch away and promptly set my hair on fire, the guy next to me just stood there looking at me with wide open eyes and mouth as I put the fire out.

 

Vandenplas that reminds me of time when my dad was working on a car and he had a cigarette in his mouth. We were trying to get the car to start but it was having problems. Well we cranked it just as he leaned over to look into the carb to see if it was getting gas. Right at that moment it backfired a gush of fuel out the top of the carb and a large fireball got ignited by the cigarette in his mouth! My brother and I about shit ourselves when he turned around and his mustache and eyebrows were about gone! Once we realized he wasn't hurt at all we then busted a gut lauging about it!

 

Vandenplas, I am glad you are able to joke about the accident, I probably could have been worse.

My bonehead moment was using a torch cutting out brackets for a frame and wearing canvas tennis shoes, a hunk of slag landed on top of my shoe and naturally caught fire, It took a few seconds to realize my shoe was on fire when I ssit down to pull the shoe off the shock and slag had melted to my right foot.

Common sense prevails today, when I use a fire wrench now I wear proper attire. HRP

 

I’ve been in the belly of the beast once. Boiler rebuild. Brain farted as to which shut off (pilot and main) valve’s were open or closed. BOOM just like that I had a receding hair line, curly eye lashes and crispy mustache. My boss was more freaked out than I was.

 

Funny story (I hope it is ok to laugh at another's miss fortunes) but I am glad you are still on this side. I was camping a couple weeks ago at a rod run, I walked over to the showers one morning but forgot my undershorts, had to go commando back to camp. Yep, I nipped "the truth" while zipping up. It's not a 16' fireball but it was all I had to relate this morning.

 

Lit my shirt on fire. Started a line for a student and got ATF dripped on my shirt front. All it took was sparks from a wiz-wheel.

 

Isn't there a comic book superhero that makes fire or electricity, or maybe both, shoot out of his fingers??

 

I'm sure we all can tell horror stories about the times we did some not so intelligent acts. Me, nah, never!

Well I did light my beard on fire once. Gas welding a body for the modified. Wearing those old fashioned goggles, the type with 2 separate lenses. All alone, down in the barn. Could hear a sort of whoosh noise. Torch was in my left hand right then. So I lifted the right side lense but didn't see anything.

Went back to welding. The noise was a little louder. Same thing, same result. 3rd time I had the torch in the right hand, roughly a minute total had passed. Lifted the left lense, and realized that the flames were on the left side of my head. Oh, and the smell got to me. I must have looked like a complete idiot trying to put out the torch and myself!

BTW the beard looked like that Grizzly Adams actor. It has never grown back as nice...

 

Winner! I really try not to be too complacent. Easy to forget just how risky certain things actually are

 

Glad you’re alright. I’ve found that none of the over the counter burn creams are very effective.
Even the aloe shit is slow to heal.
Went to Florida and got my ass sunburned badly. Didn’t bring the aloe but had some generic antibiotic cream so I used it.
The next day no pain, no redness and it didn’t even peel days later. I’ve used it now for ten years.
I’ve done the dumbass timing rotation on my flathead too. Drove me nuts trying to find it.

 

How about a coworkers brain fart?
Years ago at the shop I worked in, the head mechanic was cutting an exhaust system off a car with the cutting torch. The car was in for a new exhaust and fix a fuel leak BTW. Well, when the tailpipe fell away from the gas tank the mechanic found the source of the fuel leak- it was a tailpipe hanger rubbing up against the tank! Now a stream of gas was leaking out of the tank onto the floor and ignited when it reached the red hot tailpipe.
The mechanic grabs the WATER FILLED fire extinguisher off the welding cart and sprays away. Now there is a 4’ diameter puddle burning and he dancing around screaming for me to help. I grabbed an ABC fire extinguisher from nearby and ran to put out the fire.
If this weren’t funny enough ( in hindsight ) our district manager, who was visiting for the day, was standing there watching the whole shit show. The most entertaining moment for me is as I was running for the extinguisher, I looked over at the service desk where an old lady had just walked in to have her car serviced. She stood there watching this and made a B line for the exit, and I never saw her again.
It wasn’t too funny at the time, but 40 years later I can chuckle at the whole thing. Nobody got hurt.

 

Years ago I got off work at 1 A.M. at the newspaper. I was parked next to the Pressroom windows as I hoped they would take care of my roadster. At that time, I had six 97s on it. I had a hand pressure pump on the dash that ran back to the 10-gallon tank in the trunk. If you were low on fuel, it took a lot of pumping to get up to 2 or 3 pounds. So I pumped and I pumped and cranked and cranked. So much fuel that one of the carbs flooded and there was, unknown to me, a nice pool in the gutter. Soon I was able to light it off. They handed a huge fire extinguisher out the window that put out pounds of white slimy stuff. Left the car there and walked home to face it in the morning. This is when I bought my first motorcycle so I had something I could get to work with when it rained. I even took the front fender off so it looked more sporty!

 

Way back when I worked at Hedman we did a lot of oxy/Acetylene welding and we had those piloted shutoff valves that you hang your torch from. It was the early 70s and my buddy Steve was a tall, skinny, hairy guy with a big beard and a big ol’ Afro hairstyle. We were welding up a set of custom headers and he tilted his head to look into collector for leaks and his hair found the pilot flame. Whoosh. He looked like a fireplace match.
Thankfully he stood still and we put his jacket over him and it went out immediately.
And then we laughed. He always insisted that he didn’t use anything on his hair but he confessed.
He came in the next day still with the Afro but a little shorter.
Glad you survived those three ohshits.

 

Don’t reach through a runaway winch handle to apply the brake.

 

A buddy of mine who is a cook in a fancy restaurant got me onto this stuff .

Amazing stuff , pretty sure it’s just prescription strength Poly-sporin with a pain killer or numbing agent .



works fantastic on burns and no pain on application .

my last Dr gave me a scrip for a few tubes , used it up over the years .
My new DR would not prescribe any to me when I asked , she’s by the book , ain’t a bad thing as the last dr got me hooked on pain meds so being Willy nilly with the scrip pad ain’t always a good thing .


Stuff like this is ridiculously funny to me …. When no one gets hurt ( except maybe ego’s )

 

HRP , pretty sure you’re correct . As I’m more in a “management “ position I stay relatively clean . I’m sure if I was oily , greasy , sweating and covered in dirt and grime as I usually was when I was on the bench full time the fireball would have burnt the crap and oil on my and I would have been worse for wear .

being a pencil pusher has its benefits at times .

 

in 1975 I drove from Arizona up to Idaho in April in my 59 hillman wagon with a worn out and loose knocking chevy 327 and it was colder than a bitch up there. stopped at a closed gas station up east of Idaho falls and took a nap. when I woke up it was just so damn cold that the engine wouldn't crank over because the reclaimed oil and STP in it had kind of solidified. by that time the gas station was open and we pushed the car into the service bay and onto the lift and pulled the drain plug out of the pan and nothing came out. stuck a screwdriver in and that oil was still in there. solidified.

the attendant lit off a torch and started heating up the oil pan and the the oil started glopping out slowly. a car came in for gas and the attendant handed me the torch to continue heating up the oil pan. I got the flame a bit too close to the drain plug hole and Wwwwhhhaaaammmmppp!!!!... the gasoline from the starting attempt exploded inside the crankcase. it ruptured both valve covers on top of that 327 and oil went everywhere. it was a mess. after cleaning up the mess the attendant luckily had two used correct valve covers (that I bought from him) to replace onto my engine... thankfully that's all the damage was. (besides the oil mess.)

 

I'm 65 ,I have had quite a few oh crap moments over the years with fire and electricity.
But the the funniest to me . About 15 years ago one of my nephews was into gocart racing. He built what was a stock motor cart and wanted me to drive it. I was lighter weight than him or his brother and I thought it would be fun. Ran a few races got whooped by young kids .
Went to practice before a race once made a few laps, coming out of 2nd turn I see a bumblebee mid track .
It hits my helmet .2 lap later I see the bumblebee again!
This time it's INSIDE the visor of my helmet!
I slide into the fence to the outside pits, frantically trying to remove the helmet with gloves on ! Then without gloves ! Then had to get rid of the neck brace!
Finally get that dang helmet off.
Just as the nephew runs up and asked what's wrong.
I explained the bee .
He calmly said I should have just lifted the visor and let it out...
Ended my cart racing... bad enough I had to get beat by 10 year olds but driving with bees in my helmet was just too much.
RTP

 

What has 200 teeth and eats meat?............ A zipper!

 

You imperfect humans!

 

Right next to snakes and electricity, my biggest fear is burning. Dammit boy, you got to take better care with what you do! We don't need to be reading about the late, lamented @VANDENPLAS turning into a crispy critter .

 

I can just visualize him in a bed in the ER. A nurse standing over him asking “how did this happen”?

“I thought it was a Dodge, it’s always a Dodge”.

 

That is why to this day I still wear Levi's 501 button fly jeans. Zipping Mr. Happy up hurts twice cause you gotta pull the zipper back down.

 

Well @VANDENPLAS my suggestion to you is to confine your transportation and lighting activities to bicycles and flashlights. You need to reassess your limitations!
Gald you're OK, and ...no... I didn't laugh at your misfortune.