View Full Version : What is the worse thing you done to yourself working on your truck?


caminokid
03-11-2008, 07:16 AM
I do believe I topped myself today. Decided I should put the motor back in my 87 GMC. As I have the 283 in the air I move the hoist somehow while putting the handle down in the holding tube...hit the release and dropped the motor on my left foot. Needless to say I broke my left foot.

What have you done to yourself??

Longhorn Man
03-11-2008, 07:23 AM
Just always remember when working on your truck... vice grips can be used to stop the bleeding.

68C15
03-11-2008, 07:33 AM
COOL, now I can copy Andy's fingerprints and pin a crime on him!!!!! LOL



I didnt do it but a guy I worked with was getting ready to climb up on top of the radiator support of his 74 K10 and stuck his finger into the running electric fan. ouch.

caminokid
03-11-2008, 07:36 AM
Just always remember when working on your truck... vice grips can be used to stop the bleeding.


Wel now we know Andy dont use bandaids! :lol:

shifty
03-11-2008, 07:45 AM
This is what happened to me the day i chose to play hookie and work on the truck: http://www.67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=243166

nuke1
03-11-2008, 07:46 AM
cut the end of my finger off once, while getting the shop ready to bring my truck in, luckily i reattached it, but not the darn thing is crooked and the nail just is not the same.

Spray-Bomb
03-11-2008, 08:19 AM
Today I was under my rear axle "bench pressing" it & my friend was raising the jackstand, but it didn't engage & the axle fell on my chest lol

When I was a lot younger & wasn't using safety glasses while using a dremel with a wire wheel, one of the wires shot into my eye

Past that, just the common cuts & scrapes (at least thats all I remember lol)

bikerbomber
03-11-2008, 08:33 AM
When re-installing my clutch I was having trouble flushing the lines out. I had my safety glasses on and everything...at first. Anyway, had a helper fill up the res and disconnected the line at the slave cylinder to hand pump it out. The light was a bear so I (STUPID!) took off my eye protection..in the process of hooking up the hand pump...just then my help un-corked the res (I dono why....) and about 100cc of 20 year old rusted and pure black hydraul poured itself into my eyes........

I didn't goto the hospital and thank God I wear contacts because I don't know what would have happened without'm. (They turned solid almost instantly and I bearly got them out in time.) Lots of eye wash in shot glasses and praying and I can still see.....whoo hoo. Yeah, never taking off the eye protection again......

70blowngmc
03-11-2008, 08:34 AM
cut my finger by taking the air hose and spinning the bearings to about 200,000 rpm after cleaning them in the solvent tank and the bearing came apart the the outter cage to the ball bearings torn into my finger and one bearing hit my boys

89 crew
03-11-2008, 11:18 AM
The worst I had was with my first truck a 76 c20. The 350 transmission died on me so I was installing a new one. To lift the truck up so I could get the old one out and a new one in I came up with the brilliant idea of putting wheels under the tires. Everything went fine for the first 3, then as I jacked the last tire up, the truck rolled off of the jack, and wheels, it then sandwiched me between the front bumper and a C7500 twin screw. That was the last time I made that mistake! amazingly there was nothing broken, but I didn't move very well for a few days!

full foot notch
03-11-2008, 11:58 AM
heh i think everyone here remembers my thumbnail incident while working on that jeep , and just a refresher the thumbnail that tore from back to front

hewlett2002000
03-11-2008, 01:28 PM
well luckily i havent hurt myself real bad working on a vehicle. just a couple cuts and scrapes and of course gas and starter fluid in the eye many times. i have however hurt myself real bad a few times on 3-wheelers and 4-wheelers. and then theres the first time i rode a dirt bike out of first gear. lol ive been riding full size 4-wheelers and 3-wheelers since i was 4 but never a dirt bike till i was about 16. well i took off down the road and got to a curve and dident lean right and for some reason my friend dident tell me the brakes dident work. well i dident wreck but i slid sideways and made the turn. amazed me though. lol
John

hewlett2002000
03-11-2008, 01:30 PM
oh, its not me but i do have a story my uncle told me happened to him. he drove a big truck for years. well he was out in the shop by his self at like 12 or 1 am and stuck his finger off in the fill hole on the transmission to check the oil. well it got stuck and he layed there for about 3 hours trying to get his finger out. he said he finally gave up and stopped struggling and it just slipped right out!! lol
John

panhandler62
03-11-2008, 04:24 PM
I haven't done more than skin a couple knuckles working on the truck, but I had a good one some years back working on my Camaro.

I was putting a new transmission in the beast. Had the car on stands and used a small floor jack to hold the trans in place while I got the converter attached and a few bolts finger threadd home inthe bell housing.

All was well until I was going to put the bolts back in the cross member. I couldn't get the holes to line up so I got my handy short-handled 5lb attitude adjuster out to tap it into place...

After serveral well placed taps it was getting real close -- but the next tap would have gone better if I hadn't missed the cross member and popped myself square in the kisser with the hammer.

In a wonderfull little fit.. I threw the hammer out from underneeth the car. It bounced off the trashcan and shot back under the car and hit me in the head... I yelled and sat up (under the car) and busted my forehead on the bottom of the car.

If the whole dang mess had fallen on me it would have been the perfect Monte Python moment.

Cost me two teeth by the time all was said and done .. but the car ~did~ gain 1/2 a second (down to 13.90!) with the upgraded trans.

zerwar
03-11-2008, 04:30 PM
while pulling the motor out last year, I put the garage door done on top of the roof of the cab to gain more room for the hoist (small garage). I went to walk around the back of the truck and smashed my forehead into the bottom of the garage door (I am 6'3) and knocked myself out cold. Woke up laying on the ground next to my truck with a gash in my forehead. Felt pretty stupid explaining that one to my wife:dohh:

Piece of Work
03-11-2008, 10:40 PM
This is inexcusable, but I did it. Not having worked on a rear wheel drive vehicle in over 25 years, I dropped the drive shaft without blocking the tires. I stopped the truck from rolling by putting my right foot on the front passenger tire. I laid there wondering how I was going to get out from under the truck, since there wasn't anyone around to help. Luckily, my ratchet set was within reach, and I got it maneuvered under the front wheel. I felt really stupid and really fortunate.

Blue'72
03-11-2008, 10:52 PM
I use gloves "almost" every time I use my 4 1/2" grinder now! I was using the knotty wire wheel, without the guard of course) to clean the firewall on the Chevelle and got too close to a tiny little wire that caught the wheel and broke off just before it turned into a bazillion RPM hand held weed whacker. I couldn't get to the button to click it off fast enough!!! My hands didn't look too pretty after that one.

67ChevyRedneck
03-11-2008, 11:11 PM
No safety goggles... used a wire wheel and shot still wet paint stripper into my eye. It was actually lucky I wear contacts, burned the contact and not my eye. It did get a tiny piece of my eye below my eyelid, 3 years later I still have a red mark there. Vision is A Ok. Very lucky.

I've burned, cut, scraped, and injured myself so many times it's amazing I'm still here at all.

Liz
03-11-2008, 11:15 PM
moved to shop safety and this was one Josh pulled last spring

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/attachment.php?attachmentid=255409&stc=1&d=1175520704



the on car brake lathe at work bit him

Sillyoldman
03-11-2008, 11:21 PM
Got pinned under my jeep. Broke almost all of my ribs and dislocated my shoulder. Recovered, bought good stands and better floor jack.

caminokid
03-12-2008, 07:54 AM
I haven't done more than skin a couple knuckles working on the truck, but I had a good one some years back working on my Camaro.

I was putting a new transmission in the beast. Had the car on stands and used a small floor jack to hold the trans in place while I got the converter attached and a few bolts finger threadd home inthe bell housing.

All was well until I was going to put the bolts back in the cross member. I couldn't get the holes to line up so I got my handy short-handled 5lb attitude adjuster out to tap it into place...

After serveral well placed taps it was getting real close -- but the next tap would have gone better if I hadn't missed the cross member and popped myself square in the kisser with the hammer.

In a wonderfull little fit.. I threw the hammer out from underneeth the car. It bounced off the trashcan and shot back under the car and hit me in the head... I yelled and sat up (under the car) and busted my forehead on the bottom of the car.

If the whole dang mess had fallen on me it would have been the perfect Monte Python moment.

Cost me two teeth by the time all was said and done .. but the car ~did~ gain 1/2 a second (down to 13.90!) with the upgraded trans.

Dude I feel your pain! This is my luck. I fall under murphys law. :lol:

Billla
03-12-2008, 08:44 AM
Since kinda gross pictures seem OK on this one :)

Hurt doing it - REALLY hurt getting it fixed :/ Us old guys have tendons like beef jerky...cheap beef jerky :)

This is why I'm so cranky any more ;)

navysnipe
04-20-2008, 02:16 AM
I was changing the transmission filter on my 01 1500HD and moved the shift linkage out of park. My truck came down on top of me and my creeper of the ramps and hauled ass down the driveway. I ended up with 7 broken ribs and a punctured lung seven days in the hospital and almost a year of recovery. Sucks. Please don't forget to set the emergency brake and put wedges behind the rear wheels. The only good thing is that the truck backed down into my neighbors yard turned itself around crossed the street ended up in another neighbors yard and stopped itself without a scratch. Had to have my buddy come over and put it back together so my wife could drive it out of their yard.

Safety first

Lugnut64052
11-11-2008, 11:54 PM
Wasn't working on my Chevy truck, but one time I was doing some struts on a Chrysler minivan. Got the struts out of the van and started compressing the spring on the first one to get the top plate off. Now, I didn't have one of those fancy, mount-to-the-wall strut compressors. Just a cheapo tool that consisted of a couple of big threaded rods with some special cast hooks on either end. You mounted one rod and hooks on one side of the spring, and one on the other, alternately drawing them down until it compressed the spring enough to take the plate off. It was clumsy and didn't work very good, but I'd used it many times before with no problems.

Anyway, being in a hurry I grabbed one strut and sat down on a shop stool with it standing between my knees and started alternately gunning down the rods. Got the spring compressed, then gunned off the top plate. Just as I pulled the plate away, one of those rods popped off. The other one followed a millisecond later, then the spring launched and hammered me in the forehead. All I heard was a loud "POP," then saw the spring rolling away from me on the floor. I was looking right at it but it happened so fast I never saw it.

I had about enough time to think, "What the . . ." then felt something warm running down into my eyebrow. Reached up, fingers came away dripping blood. I stood up real quick and bent over so it wouldn't run down into my eye while I tried to figure out what to do next. I was at work, but it was late in the evening. No one around except for a cleaning lady way up front in the offices. "Lessee now, climb in a truck and drive myself to the hospital? Bother the cleaning lady? Call my wife and wait for her?" It only took a few seconds to think all that, but while I did I bled out a spot the size of a dinner plate onto the floor. I finally just grabbed a shop rag and put in on my head, then went and called my woman. Didn't notice until after the phone call that my little finger was broken and the nail torn completely away from the nail bed. The spring must have done that on its way to my forehead.

Got about 20 stitches in my forehead and finger and a king sized headache, but I was very lucky. Another inch lower and I'd have lost my eye.

ERASER5
11-12-2008, 03:01 AM
:ack: I have used that kind of spring compressor before. I was worried and very careful each time. Apparently, I had good reason!

Garagedude
11-12-2008, 02:32 PM
A couple of years back at shop, I went to change the head on the cutting torch , and grabbed the head to unscrew it, what I didn't realize was somebody just used it, I got a 3rd degree burn in the shape of the torch head on my hand, that was probably the worst burn I have ever gotten.

jdfrmnt
11-14-2008, 06:11 PM
ran myself over working on my dodge army truck went to start it thought it was out of gear reached in hit the starter buton and found out real quick it was in reverse truck started door open and wham on my but front tire over my leg and the trck stoped real nice agenst the house now thats good times

78 Chevyrado
11-17-2008, 09:36 PM
I got a burn from my wrist to my elbow about an inch and a half wide while changing the oil and pressed my whole arm against the muffler.