What's the stupidest thing you're ever done in your shop?

OH MAN THATS FUNNY!

 

My roll around oil drum that you put under the car when it's on a lift was full of oil and it was time to be emptied.
So because I had to transfer it from that drum to the big storage oil drum, it wont drain from the hose until you put a little air pressure into the drum.
But as I discovered if I don't close the valve were the oil drains into the drum, then when I apply air, the oil comes back out the top like a big oil rig. What a mess, it took a complete day to clean up. It was on the wall, on the tools, floor, me.
But now I think it was pretty funny.

 

Trying to repair raingutter 18 ft up on a latter in 25 mph gusting wind. Still have limp and metal in my ankle to remind me.

 

Have you seen my avatar? Picture the glove full of air.

 

Man, thats great.

 

here's a couple...

I was changing a tire for my aunt on her '78 Regal.. grabbed the spare and the jack out of the trunk... Set the jack up (factory bumper jack, little hook goes in a slot on the bumper, y'all know the deal).. Start pumpin' away on the jack car goes no where, but the passengers side of the bumper is no longer attached (rear frame rail rot, normal gbody rust).. that was a good one to explain..

one of my favorite... I was helping my dad part out an old '20's IH (McCormick Deering) tractor can't remember if it was a 15-30 or a 22-36, anyways big huge cast iron monster of a tractor.. had it stripped down fairly well and pulled the cover off the top of the dif/tranny case (the frame is a huge cast girdle and the diff. and tranny guts are in it..) well pulled the top cover off.. phone rings.. answer it talk to who ever it was, hang up, and set my phone where the cover used to be... This case was full of the same grease the tractor left the factory with.. Gooey, Soupy, Black, and foul smelling.. my new fangled black berry.. in the bottom of it.. my dad's freind who's into the old IH tractors saves that grease and reuses it because according to him "they don't make it like they used to)... anyways my phone was garbage, that was fun explain' at the sprint store..

and my last one for the night... freshman year shop class.. had to build this lame little sheet metal box, bend all up in the brake, spot weld the corners tada done!.. well when I went to go spot weld the first tab down I was squeezing it together becuase I didn't care enough to fit it all together right.. anyway to make along story short pushed the lever on the spot welder down.. had a circle on the bottom of my finger, and a nice hole burnt through my finger nail....

 

So a good friend of mine who was an easy target for pranks asked if he could change the trans out in his '36 Chev in my shop one summer about twenty years ago. One thing about this friend - he was deathly afraid of spiders... So he is under the car one evening, with it up on jack stands about 20" or so, completely enthralled with getting this project done. Elpolacko and I were leaning against the bench / louver press table drinking beer and kibitzing - annoying might be a better term. I had gone into the house and got another round of beer, and at the same time found a toy that I had just purchased for my attack cat. It was a long wire with a black "coosh ball" attached. HHMMNN, this could be funny, thinks I. So I walk back in and give every body their beers, and show Elpolacko the toy, and put my finger to my mouth to keep him from laughing to much. As Ken intently wrenched, I laughed silently and slowly, while leaning against the bench, set the black coosh ball end on Kens chest. Without looking, his hand brushed it away. A couple minutes later, repeated. Did I mention this is Phoenix, AZ., home some of the biggest black widow spiders you can imagine - as big as, say - black coosh balls! A couple minutes later, repeat, but closer to his face, up his chest. Ken looks up to see what he has been brushing away for the last few minutes, and I can only guess from his vantage sees the largest black widow ever produced! His reaction is to let out a piercing scream, and sit straight up - while still beneath his car. Smack! He slumps back down to the creeper, sees said black widow again, screams twice as loud sits back up, smacks his head twice as hard again and falls back to the creeper - quiet. I swear to god I didn't mean to knock him out, truly I didn't. This was going to be a harmless prank done in the best of fun... Unless he's reading this some where now, I bet he still thinks he saw the biggest black widow on the planet!!!

 

While hanging drywall on the ceiling, I feel off the cheap aluminum ladder and instinctively grabbed the angle iron that holds up the overhead door track. Cut my right pinky clean off at the second knuckle. Landed on my feet and immediately freaked out.

Ended up not being able to have it sewn back on so now I'm know as 9 1/2 by my freinds. Yep, pretty stupid!

 

Made a boom truck out of my buddies toyota to pick my welder, and it worked!

 

dropped a full 18 pack of beer and had half the cans explode and go everywhere!!! What a freekin mess!!!

 

Getting my car running before getting brakes done and pulling it in and out of the shop ay popping it in and out of gear so i dont have to push it and running it into a freshly painted customers 47 pickup and wasted both but did repair both

 

useing plasma cuter with Tennis shoes on. ou ou ou oh shit !!!
if there was a race to get my shoes off, I think I would have won..
This is one time I could have pee on my feet and like it.. lol crap.

 

How about using a 5 gallon gas can to pour gas in the carb of a 66 Caddie to get it started..... Tell my buddy to start it while I was pouring.... The coil wire or a spark plug wire arced and made a tiki torch out of the gas fumes coming out of the spout, not to mention the random fires the sloshed gas left under the hood of the Caddie.

Had the forethought to set the can down, then snuffed the flame on the can out with a rag... If the flame had gone the wrong way either I wouldnt be here or my fingers would have been melted together so I couldnt type.

God looks out for fools an idiots.

 

Boy, I've done a few of the things mentioned. Does that get me an award

 

it wasn't in my shop but it was in my employers shop. i worked for a plumbing, heating and A/C company and the A/C guys would use up those tanks of freon and leave the empties in the shop floor. on slow days it was "clean shop" day and the empty tanks could go to the scrap metal place if there were holes punched in them so you could see through them. we used a pick to puncture the tanks after you kicked them onto thier sides, two times and you could see through them usually. there was a partially full tank in the pile and i didn't know, hit it with the pick and it took off! went across the floor for about 10 feet before taking flight. it hit the back wall of the shop about 8-10 feet up. i just stood there thinking that it was kind of cool, but it scared the hell out of the ladies in the office and the shop that backed up to us.

 

I have to share since I have been laughing at you all for over an hour.

Had Hydos on one of my early customs, it had a small leak at a fitting under the truck, Though I will just raise it up with the hydros, craw under it and tighten the leak. Opps that righty tighty thing looks different upside and backwards, truck came down alot faster than you might think, I rolled out un-hurt but shaken.

Was building a spring pack stood the finished one up leaning against a workbenck while i built the second gravity can be mean, of course it fell against a finished truck in the other bay, nice dent and scratch.

While notching my frist frame using a heavy duty grinder with a 8 inch wheel it caught traction and slug out of my hands up over my sholder while I was sitting under the rear fenderwheel of a project.

After a wreck I was removing a mangeled fender/hood/grill I was prying the fender back to expose the blots holding it on and slipped, stuck a 2 inch piece of metal into my knee, pulled it out and glued up the wound with super glue and duct tape ( i was tuffer back then) that night the glue let go, I blead out and woke up freezing cold in a pool of my own blood, before this I had never been cussed at by a doctor, Try explaining the 3 ft blood stain on your matrice, laying out by the road waiting on the trash man to show up.

Ok, you have all had you fun at my expense. Remember we are all lucky to be alive and get to do what we do.
MrC

 

Lots of good stuff you guys have posted ... here's one I remember from 43 years ago.

Back when I was sixteen my dad had bought me a Renault Dauphine for $25 - the engine blew up almost immediately and I was just beginning to learn how to work on cars. The head and pan had to come off to replace a cylinder assembly (wet sleeves) so I removed the head and then slid up under the car to take off the oil pan. Somehow in the hurry to get into the greasy bits of the motor I forgot a vital step.

I was lying under the car when I removed the last of the 6 mm bolts holding the pan on and inserted a screwdriver between the block and the pan. Suddenly I was drenched from head to waist with the contents of the oil pan - a nice mix of water and oil that had filled it to the brim. Every bit of clothing I was wearing had to go straight in the garbage and it took about three hot showers to get all of the oil out of my hair.

 

Hello.....been a lot of them........#1 is forgot to let the cat out of the garage when I'd painted my 36 truck........cat paw prints all over it in the morning.....Had to pep again and repaint.....what a mess....Lookin back ....I sure miss that old cat

 

Filled it with "projects".

 

hired family.

 

Now that is funny!

 

I reread this thread and don't feel so bad about some of the dumb stuff I've done. Years ago I was assigned a job to roll new main & rod bearings into an 855 Cummins diesel. Got everything loose, carefully lowered the oil pan on the jack, but it tipped and fell off, spilling the 9 gallons of oil I'd forgotten to drain! Boy was my boss pissed!

 

Drain Oil in catch pan, set it aside to dump out later, my father stepped in it.

Jacking up the dirt car by the front axle, looking at the left front tire just as it came off the ground, tire rolled forward, 2lb. hammer fell on my head. everybody else had a good laugh.

 

I had a sanding disc on my angle grinder come apart last night. I dont know how it didnt take my face off. It must have missed me by inches.....Scared the crap out of me.. It happened so fast............

My face shield was sitting on the floor right beside me. What was I thinking.

 

Where do I begin. One that jumps right to the front was back when I worked at a tire shop. I had my race car on the lift. I let it down and decided to horse around and do a burnout in the garage. The arms were still under the car. The car rolled about 6 inches,caught one of the lift arms,and shot it out at about 150mph airborne across the parking lot,the sidewalk,the street,and eventually it slammed into the curb in a big cloud of slate smoke where it blew a hole in the curb. Had somebody been anywhere in it's path they would have been mutilated.

Another time in my own shop I backed the car out into the driveway and did a burnout,the launched the car and stayed in it for about 60 feet. I skidded right thru the door openeing,into the garage,into my tool box and taco'd it against the wall.

Back to the tire shop. I was using a torch to heat up a stuck tie rod on the alignment rack. The car had the steering rack up on the firewall. I lit the grease on fire. The service write came out with an extinguisher and hosed the car down in white dust. Lost 2 hours of flat rate time cleaning the customers car up.

One last thing. Back at the tire shop again. We had a manager (Dan),who pissed us off from time to time ( but was cool enuff to let us hang out until midnight work on our race cars). One night while working on the hot rods we decided to spray carb cleaner on the floor and light it on fire and see how high it burned. After a few blazes we decided to write something on the floor. I wrote "Dan Sux" in carb cleaner and we lit it on fire. The was a nice shiny clean image of what we did. He just thought it was funny. Whew!

 

A fellow I worked with when I was a kid got himself damn good with a gas can and a brushpile, that raised my level of respect for gas fumes from "high" to "very, very cautious-to the point of paranoid". After a couple years of skin grafts he could wear special gloves and use silverware again!

 

It did not happen in my garage, but at work. I worked for the big K in a fixture warehouse where counter parts and shleving or basely anything for a store. When we get things from a store there is no telling what they ship back. I have found all kinds of tools and just junk they find laying around. One day a store sent a box with an automatic start propane torch head. I had a propane bottle with my stuff, so I put the head on the bottle and pulled the trigger. It did not light, so I put it near my ear to hear if the gas was coming out. My Boss happened to walk by, looked at me and asked what the hell I was doing? Then it dawned on me that holding a propane torch near my head and trying to make it light was not very smart. Luckily it did not lit, but I felt pretty stupid.
My brother was working on his truck in the driveway at my parent's house, putting brakes on it. Their driveway runs next to what use to be the alley. on the other side are the garages from the street that runs perpendicular to the driveway. The one guy had a prostock camaro and was tuning the engine and revving to up trying to find a miss. The next thing my brother knows is the camaro came blasting through the back wall of the garage, missed my brother and his truck by about 6 inches, hits my parents picnic table in their yard. Then just before it hit this very large apple tree in their yard, my brother jumped in the passenger side( The door was off and in what was left of the garage) slammed it out of gear and got it stopped. My brother looked at the owner of the camaro and he was frozen in place still leaning over with tool in hand looking at the destuction that just happened.
George

 

Gosh I'm glad somebody bumped this. These are hilarious!

 

Drain 4 gal of oil out of my f-350 into a 5 qt drain pain. Crap !!!!!
I left my brain in the house that day..

 

Burnouts in the shop. A minute of fun followed by 20 minutes of standing in the rain assuring people driving by they didn't need to call the fire department.