worst thing to happen while working on your project...

I had positioned the RE on my car, and tacked the brackets in place. Made a quick jig to hold the RE about waist high so I could weld in a comfortable position. Up to this point all is well. Decided that it would be real nice to sit and weld the brackets, pulled up my favorite plastic porch chair, the kind with a solid bottom, all is still going fine. Didn't take into consideration that mig welding produces "HOT" slag balls, which then will fall into a solid bottom chair, run into the crotch area and give a person really "HOT" balls. Glad no one was around when I jerked my pants off at the sink.

 

Putting the driveshaft back in my truck the wrench slips off the u bolt and knocks out three of my teeth Ouch!

 

Damn! This thread is hilarious....anymore stories? Or is this subject tapped out...

 

Was pulling the gas tank on a car that was on the lift. Tank got hung up and ended up covered in gas from head to toe. Burned like hell in my armpits, eyes and "other" areas. Didn't help that the other guys continued to smoke. Also didn't help that I couldn't stop to get a change of clothes for a few hours.

 

After refreshing my 1931 Dodge Brothers DH6 engine parts, I was putting the last piston in. My helper had gone home and I was very tired, but determined to get that last piston in. As I was lowering it, it slipped out of my hand and dropped. As it did, it hit the crankshaft right on the newly babbitted bearing on the rod. Took out about 1/4" chunk of babbit material. I was so upset and disheartened that I have not touched the car since. That was about 8 years ago.

 

This is all pretty serious, so, I may as well lighten it up.

I was rebuilding the Rochester B in the shop, and gave up for the night. I left all of the parts neatly laid out in order on a towel on a little roll around work bench we have. As we all know can happen, work got in the way, and I didn't get back to it for awhile. The next weekend comes, and I'm off doing something. I return home to see my nephews are there. They're all of that inquisitive age, and the shop is pretty much romper room. They get to use many of the simpler tools to "make neat stuff". So, I park the truck and walk up to find them all crowded around their latest creations. They had all spent the day making neat little metal sculpture "creatures", like robots, or monsters or the like. I had shown them that they could make cool stuff like that out of little random scraps, I'm a good uncle that encourages their imaginations. So, I'm looking at their sculptures and listening to them explain what they are when I notice a Rochester B float setup embedded in to one of the sculptures. Then I notice that another sculpture has the entire lower throttle body of a Rochester B as a torso..... HMMMMMMM.... where did they get these parts?? So, I walk over to my little table, and what's left of my carb parts are strewn about. A good portion of them are missing. So, I go back to looking at the sculptures, and HEY, there's an actuating lever, HEY, there's an idle needle! As it turns out, carb parts make super cool creature building material. So, we had to have a discussion about what is off limits and we created a bucket strictly for parts to make stuff out of. As my punishment I got to spend quite awhile with a Dremel getting my parts back out of a mass of JB Weld, and being the jerk that destroyed their sculptures. Oh well, we're all still learning.

 

I was pulling a new Harley into my old garage and made a very stupid mistake. I had my feet down and was guiding the bike thru the maze of "stuff" and spotted a big piece of cardboard that I thought I would just drive over. I got the bike positioned and tapped the front brake to stop causing the cardboard to slide sideways and the front tire to slide out from under the bike. Not wanting to scratch my new pride and joy I stuck my leg under the bike to keep it from touching the concrete as I went over sideways, the idea worked great without a scratch except now I was stuck with my leg between the concrete and a 800lb motorcycle! Luckily a buddy stopped by about an hour later and after he laughed his arse off for another 1/2 hour he stood the bike back up!

 

Well it wasn't me, but my garage squirrel. So I've got the heater motor out to fix the squirrel cage that's squeaking. I yell at my garage squirrel to get his ass in here and get ready to get back in the squirrel cage. He never comes so I go outside to look for him. Who woulda thunk?
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heres my latest ouchie weld ball dripped from underside of car who'd of thought it could nail the ring

 

reading half of these just made by ass pucker.

 

Been here before....no more rings while welding for me!

 

A million years ago when I was in high school, friend of mine worked at a local gas station - changing the 4-barrel on his car in the parking lot. He disconnects the fuel line, the linkage, and the 4 bolts at the base when he decides he should run out the gas that's still in the carb... He yells to another buddy to crank the engine - of course, it starts. And is now pumping fuel all over the top of the intake. He yells to shut it off, but the guy can't hear him over the exhaust. He figures he'll pull the coil wire to kill it - you guessed it, spark and now the engine is on fire! He pulls the carb off, and starts trying to beat out the flames with his t-shirt. Several of us run into the station to a storeroom where there are at least 20 fire extinguishers - the first half dozen we try are dead. One of them finally works, but by then most of the fire was out. All the wiring is burned out of the engine bay, hood paint all blistered. As we are surveying the damage I realize how close we were to the gas pumps in front of the car, and the tanks for the station were behind a fence behind the car (above ground which should have been illegal), and less than 50 feet behind the tanks was a very large lumberyard! I had visions of us burning half of St. Louis to the ground.

 

Ouch! Reminds me of 2 of my buddies back in '82. Ernie and T-bird had painted a car in their shop. Finished and rolled it outside. Thought then would be a good time to "tune" the dirt car. I stopped by soon after to see them with stunned looks and a shop FULL of smoke. Apparently T-bird was a bit hasty tryin to warm up the engine in the dirt car and it backfired.......and ignited the paint fumes that were still lingering in the air. They were lucky to be unharmed but I laughed til I cried! peace

 

my 60's ford 4 x 4 truck with big block engine had a dead battery and it was parked under an enclosure where I could not jump it so I had to roll it back a few feet to get jumper cables on it. It was a very slight downhill slant so I put a big log about 5 feet behind the rear tire to stop it, and started rolling the truck back - well it had just enough inertia to get to the very top of the log and hesitate for a second, and go over the log, heading down toward my storage building and the fence between the neighbors house. I decide to try to jump inside and put on the brakes, so I opened the drivers door and grabbed the steering wheel and tried to pull myself up inside but lost my footing, got knocked down by the door and then run over by the truck- at first it wedged me sideways and pushed me thru the shirt I was wearing, then I flattened out and it went over my chest, made a right turn, and parked itself between 2 trees- not a scratch on it. That is a very heavy truck and I ended up with several broken ribs- lots with more than one break in them, broken collar bone, 2 partially collapsed lungs. Had to get up off the ground, walk 50 yards uphill to my house and call for help. Ended up in a helicopter to the hospital. That was 4 years ago. Took about a year to be completely back to normal again. Took another year before I could get under a car without feeling awkward.

 

Not much to me. But I saw my uncle get two fingers cut off in the fan on a 57 Buick.

 

got through welding a patch on my fender and primed it...every thing was straight and done...was moving my air hose that happened to be under the fender as it was leaned up against the wall..watched the fender fall forward to the ground and bean the bumper leaving a nice big crease in it....

 

Buddy of mine was draining a fuel tank to remove it and his work light fell into the catch pan. Something like six months in the hospital for burns? Lots of grafts, scarring, etc...

 

This is what makes for great memories at least!

 

Years ago I was rebuilding a 68 Camaro. My brother in law was doing all the body work and rust repair. He had all the rear sheet metal cut off, quarters, rear panel, inner and outer wheel houses and trunk pan. Not much car left. Then my wife left me and took the body man with her. I did get to keep what was left of the car. Pretty rough at the time. In hindsight, I got the better deal.

 

very interesting.....lets hear more!

 

Was scraping crusty grease/undercoating off a frame one night. The stuff was really on there good so I was working the screwdriver in the corner with some force when it popped loose and my hand sailed forward into the brake light switch with those cute blade connectors. The whole lower blade connector went under my thumbnail, all the way back and popped out at the rear of the nail bending it up over the skin. My thumb never throbbed like that before or since.

Kept me out of the garage for a solid week, but finally couldn't stand the urge to get back out there. Very first night back working on the frame again I jammed that thumb into the the corner where the front crossmember and frame met. Mother f$&#er that hurt and got the blood flowing again! Took another 3 days off, finger nail never did grow back the way it was before.

 

A few years ago I got this 33 Ford grille off of a guy who had his car fall off of a jack. It was obviously a nice one..until then.

 

A old quote from who I don't know..... ""Chicks did scars"" I bet I have the largest collection of safety glasses in the USA. If you have to ask well never mind.. The last is not me but a helper on my circle track car. He had keys and would use my shop to entertain young lady's. He at 17 knocked up his 16 year old girl friend. Then he got married.. His senior year in high school ..I lost a good helper. This happened well over 40 years ago.

 

i was checking the power windows on an old driver and rolled my beard up in the window---------a friend was bringing home his 34 chopped 3 window for the first time & while going up the interstate he checked left to change lanes - he turned his head too soon & got it stuck in the window frame

 

A few years back I work as a parts puller / dismantler at a junkyard. We were stripping down cars to crush. Pulling tanks and cutting cats out. We had a nice pile of gas tanks close by were the cats would get piled up with out thinking i just got done cutting a cat off and tossed it into the pile. Well it was still cherry red and the spark of it hitting the ground cause the tank pile to ingnite. You want to to see some poeple move catch a pile of gas on fire. No one got hurt got the fire out.


I was also torching another part off a car one day. All of the sudden I got very warn thinking it was just heat from what i was cutting them I fel my face get warm. A hot fell in the pocket of my shirt and ingnited my shirt on fire. No burns but kill my favorite shirt.


Just a few days ago grinding some mounts off my axle I had a grinding disc explode. Didn't not find any pieces and did not hurt myself but it scared the hell out me.

 

wow glad you had some crazy glue and didnt do anything silly like go to the ER your a true hot rodder

 

Working on my ot pickup project some time ago with my angle grinder and no guard ended up at the Dr's office for 3-4 stitches in my left hand's flippin' finger---then I did it again a couple of years later---same finger too. Read my signature..........

 

I was jacking the '32 up to change the oil and needed one more pump to fit the jack stands. Car slid off the floor jack destroying the pan and radiator and damaging the grill shell. Turned out to be an expensive oil change.

 

Working on a friends aircooled motor I was using a timing light. Well the end that gets clamped on to the wire apparently did not like where it has been sitting and decided to work its way down to the belt. Well the slack in the timing light got caught up in the belt which ripped the little clampy thing off of the ignition wire spun it around at the speed of light and smacked me right in the face. It broke my nose, knocked 7 of my teeth out, broke my jaw, and nearly knocked my ass out.

I like the quality of older tools but now I use lighter items that could have the propensity to get flung around at light speed. On the other hand the timing light still works but I still cringe when I go to check the timing on a car now.

 

A few years back during the rebuild, I was sliding the very last piston into the block of my 1931 Dodge Brothers coupe. The damn thing slid out of my hand and dropped too fast for me to stop it from chinkering up the babbitt bearing on the connecting rod. I was so upset that I have not touched the car since.