Hot Rods The worst incident of all my years in a shop

I watched a guy in an IH truck shop taking apart the huge 3rd member from a 2-axle tractor. He had the ring & pinion out, and had knocked out the outer pinon bearing race, then flipped it over and was working on the inner race with a long punch. He was also talking to someone- so as he whacked the punch, it slipped off the race, and took his fingers down in the hole, and the machined step in the housing peeled the skin off 3 fingers right to the bone. Lots of yelling and lots of blood

 

I know I've told this story here before ...

When I was working as a tire mechanic, I would deflate, unseat the bead, split and remove the ring, then flip the rim/tire up against my legs with the ring side facing away from me and pound the rim out.

At one point I had decided to take up chewing tobacco. On one of those days, I was working on a split ring, flipped the rim up and gave it a good whack with the sledge, and this time the rim shot out and caught me across both knees. I didn't feel a thing, because I was too busy gagging on the chaw I had almost swallowed.

Another day we came in and found a boom truck parked out front with all 10 tires flat. The operator had swung the boom into a high voltage line and it was grounded by the outriggers. IIRC it blew all his fingers off.

We changed probably a dozen split rim tires a day at that shop, and I don't remember there ever being an explosive accident. You can't do that kind of volume and not be as careful as possible because the odds will catch up to you quickly.

 

Those are what is called a “ coined” wheel, you find them on Fords and Internationals , maybe some others, and yes they have to go on a certain way!




Bones

 

My wood shop teacher, Mr. Mathew’s would hold up his right hand at the start of every class and say “ Safety First”! He had three finger cut off from a saw accident! It was a very efficient lesson!




Bones

 

High School friend of one of my Sisters was drafted & sent to Vietnam. came back State side OK. Two months later died while working on split rim tire.

 

There is poster y'all may have seen it. Safety is no accident

 

Hoooly Shit

 

Many years ago I was inflating a go kart tire on a 2 piece aluminum wheel that was held together with 4 bolts. One of the bolts was missing but I inflated it any way. When it blew apart, luckily the pieces went away from me. I was deaf for an hour. Probably lucky to be alive.

 

No missing digits or ER visits for me, thankfully. I'm probably too young for most of these dangers, as OSHA et al. have had several decades to make everything safe and cushy for me. (Not bashing OSHA too hard - many of their regulations are written in blood, after all.)

I remember the first several times I used a table saw, I was afraid of that spinning blade of death, kickbacks, and whatever else my imagination could come up with. It's already been said here, treat the machinery with healthy respect and know what it (and you!) are capable of. I'll clamp things down to my drill press table that I'm sure others would just hold in place - that's fine, it's their hand. Yes, I've removed the anti-kickback pawls from my table saw. I've kept the riving knife though, and if I ever replace my current saw I'll lean heavily towards a Saw Stop. Still cheaper than a trip to the ER!

The only time I've dealt with split rings is airing up antique fire truck tires. I'd heard of split rings but didn't know anything other than "stand to the side" when airing them up. Putting 80-100+ psi (I forget, it's been a few years now) in those tires was always an adventure, to say the least. That, and putting the fire trucks up on jack-stands / bringing them down off jack-stands. Using 20T (or larger, I forget) bottle jacks, while underneath a Mack Bulldog.... I couldn't scurry out from underneath quickly enough!

 

My neighbor`s son-in-law is a bit loony. His favorite phrase is by golly. He sticks his finger in his nose and starts digging like he has an itch in his upper nostril. He can go on for 15 minutes at a time. When he talks to you, he looks like he is in a trans and doesn`t blink for the longest time. When he was younger, he had a tire blow and hit him in the forehead and threw him across the shop. Opened him right up. He`s got a 12 inch scar. A guy I know saw it happen. To this day, he still wonders how he survived it. My neighbor thinks he was off in the head before this incident happened 40 years ago. By golly.

 

Mr48 Chevy , I’ve tried to find replacements for the split ring wheels on the Chevy 2 ton trucks on the Farm. There’s none to be found. But if you have a place I can find some please enlighten me .

 

How else can you weld on the fuel tank?

 

Don't tell mom.

 

I worked with a guy when I was 20, he was 54 when he died and looked like anyone that was 95 today. He had a tire blow and knock all his teeth out and split his nose in half. He looked like the Mr. Dirt from the old TV commercials. He drank like a fish (quart of cheap vodka per night), barely ate and had severe gout. He was also the sole survivor of a Merchant Marine ship that fell victim to a German torpedo.

 

If you ever experience a compressor exploding in your shop you will never keep another compressor inside the building again in your life.

All the overhead doors destroyed along with a lot of stuff that got the direct impact being close by.

Luckily no one was injured or hurt!

Jimbo

 

I would think all the valves would have to have been closed for the tank to blow? I saw one one time where the pressure regulator stuck, it blew the end of the hose, which whipped around the shop all night- what a mess. Worst thing was the compressor was in a room in the back, as was the breaker box- was fun getting it turned off

 

Although no one was injured, we had a roaring fire in a machines electrical panel. It was in an older N/C machine that wasn't used very often any more....pretty much unused. This was a large government machining building with huge overhead cranes and an oil soaked wooden block floor. I'm guessing the building was probably 500 feet long, maybe more.
It was second shift and not as many people.........and someone hollered that smoke was coming out of the machines panel that was mounted on a huge building vertical support beam. One of the volunteer employee firemen opened the panel and the flames shot 20 feet into the air and smoke roared out as well. He quickly shut the door to cut off the air, and I ran and grabbed a fire extinguisher. Came back down the aisle in a run and point the extinguisher at the panel. The guy pulled the door to the large panel open and I sprayed the foam on the components and gradually it stopped burning.

Next day I was called to the front office to see the buildings "quarterman" . Figured maybe they were going to thank me for acting so quickly............

Boy, was I wrong. Got my a** chewed out for using the wrong type of fire extinguisher and told that they might make me liable for repairing the old panel. Said the foam wasn't for electrical fires and it had coated the components. Should have used CO2. Being young and never having thought about trying to fight a fire......a roaring fire, I just grabbed the first one I saw. While I made a mistake, I didn't expect to get roasted and threatened for trying to do the right thing.

So, I told him that if there was ever another emergency in the building, I wouldn't be the one trying to help next time. This wasn't a small fire, and the panel was probably already ruined.

I wasn't a management favorite to say the least and this guy was a slug. I remember that the secretary in the office was retiring years later. At that time I had been promoted several times over the years and no longer worked in that building. She was always a very quiet person and didn't gossip about what went on in the office. I was in the building to check on some work when our paths crossed. I began to wish her well in her retirement, when suddenly she got a wry smile on her face and laughed. She said, "You don't know this, but one of my favorite things I'm gonna miss is seeing you come in the office and catch them lying about something. When you left the office they would go bananas and start throwing things and cursing"

Kinda made my day.....

 

The company I work at has trained all of us in maintenance on how and what extinguishers to use. But, we are only to use the as a last line of defense if we are in danger.
I like that approach

 

I started doing 9.00-20 and 10.00-20 split rims at about 12, after watching "the boys" do them for many years. I had asked when I was about 10 what the circular 1/4" groove in the concrete floor was from- gramps said that's from a ring that got loose about 10 years ago. Never left my mind. There was an 8x8 verticle beam in the middle of the shop, and I always chained them to that, with the ring facing the beam. Also had an inflator with a 10 foot hose and stood way back, and was religious about cleaning all the parts, installing the flap etc. Never lost one, and back then all we had was split rims, no tubeless stuff

 

I worked at a big steel plant as a summer job when I was in my 20s. They had cold steel mills for making thin steel for the automotive industry. The machinery was cooled with a greasy milky liquid that was literally everywhere. I as a rookie underestimated how slippery it was, of course slipped and fell on a tin roll and cut my whole arm open.
Since then I always remove any oil and grease meticulously from my garage floor where I am working.
Still I was lucky because another guy fell into the running mill machinery and they found nearly nothing of him.

 

We had a safety poster similar to this.
Said something like “You can do the same thing, the same way, every day, all your working life. And it can still kill you. Work safe.”
LOL every time I walked by it