Hey everyone, just wondering what your worse accident was while working on your car, such as slipping off a wrench and nailing your hand on the frame, dropping the car on your toe. Also, what caused it, and if you could do it again, what would you do to prevent it? So far my worse happened while taking the spark plugs out, was pushing down on the wrench and all of a sudden the plug broke loose, and my thumb caught the stud sticking out that the AC/power steering used to be bolted to. Tore a nice chunk of my thumb off, but that's all so far. Let's see what you guy's have done!

 

I've cut myself open pretty well on three separate occations... all cutting/removing heat shields.

Trying to get the lower radiator hose clamp off (you know that big sucker), I bruised my thumb nail pretty bad. Turned purple, and I thought the nail would fall off, lol. I had a pair a channel locks on it, and reach my hand up to pull it loose, when BAM! You get the idea.

I've mangled myself when loosening many different bolts, working on many different sorts of cars. Nothing worse than when you are putting all your effort towards breaking a 10+ year old bolt free, and directly in front of your hands is a sharp or blunt object. All I can think is damn this is going to hurt, but I have to do it anyways! SMACK!!!!!... It's inevitable.

Having the appropriate tools helps a ton. I mauled myself much worse when I didn't have access to many tools.

 

Heh I got a few that are memorable to me:

1. Removing battery terminal with a cresent wrench, the wrench slipped off and I ended up wailing my knuckels into the rad support. Started bleeding mighty quick.

2. Replacing oil level sensor on my old GSL, wrench slipped hand flew up into some part of the engine, cutting my fingers. The shock of that happening caused me to jerk my head back away from the car (which was jacked up on a gravel driveway) so my head went sailing into the gravel. The shock from that made me jerk my head forwards into whacking my forehead on the oil pan. All happened in less than 2 seconds...

STUPIDEST:
Trying to diagnose a rough idle on my GSL, I started by making sure the plug wires were firmly attatched to the plugs. WHILE holding the hood up with my left hand. WHILE the car was running...if anyone has ever been done this before, they know the juice passing through your body doesn't start to tingle for a few seconds...so I dropped the hood and amazingly didn't drop it on myself.


Oh there's more, but I don't want to come off like a clown that plays with cars

 

I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting thread. I hope more people post their stories/etc. I've had another bad experience while dropping the rear sub-frame to swap my rear LSD, got my hand pinched while taking the LSD out, damn that hurt. The entire weight of the LSD pinching my palm against the sub-frame

 

Unrelated to the 7s, but I was helping my bro change out his thermostat and rad hoses on his old 740t volvo and some lil plug that just sticks in the rad by it's own imagination came popping out and sprayed both our faces (mouth, eyes, nose, ears) with antifreeze. I spent a good 10 minutes with my face at the receiving end of a water hose trying to get it all out...

 

Unbolting the P/S bracket, my hand slipped off the wrench, and hit the cap to the p/s fluid resivour. Ripped it open pretty bad. Now, I got like 4 cool scars on my arm!!

 

Ouch, antifreeze in the face doesn't sound very appealing, I got some in my eyes once, it burnt like lemon juice or something, just hurt like hell! Keep the stories comin

 

Testing my spark plugs, I held one close the the fender while my buddy cranked the engine to see if a spark jumped from the plug to the fender. Insted it jumped from the plug to my hand. That hurt.

 

I've shocked myself numerous times with the spark plugs, I once took the wires off the coils and forgot to hook one back up, and I had my hand resting ontop of it and the other hand on the frame, that one hurt
rico: your car is trying to tell you something, no answer me on aim

 

Changing the fuel filter on my GSL (if you have to ask, I learned so much of what NOT TO DO on that car ) I was getting overwhelmed by the gas fumes. I'm talking losing vision/blackout. So I panic to get out from underneath the car and the chunk of metal cut a nice slice into my back about 4 inches long. Not too deep though. Made laying on my back to put the new filter back in a lil more painful.

 

Josepi: which chunk of metal? Are most of your accidents via over-reacting? I want to hear other peoples stories and hear of ways to prevent more pain in my future

 

Not from personal experience, but a friend of mine was working on his supra, got underneath with just a jack holding up the car while he put in a oil temp/oil pressure adapter. Undid the oil filter and in the process, moved the car just enough so that the weight shifted off of the jack holding it up!

...yes a SUPRA landed on Igy's chest...and if you've ever seen Igy, he's a BIG ***** *****!!! Let's just say that it's a good thing that people were around because he wasn't going to survive long without oxygen...

...his co-workers(he did this at his work's parking lot) ran out to help him, and they said that he was so full of adrenaline that he was actually lifting the car off of his chest, but he couldn't hold it long enough to move himself out from under...


...moral of the story...use jack stands

...on a side note, I asked him if he could have moved his FD off of his chest if it had fallen on him and replied, " No Problemo "

 

Yeah, jack stands rock.

My story was on a beater parts FC. I was trying to take the manual rack out. I was in the engine bay and the hood was not bolted properly, it slid forward and bent the arms that hold it, I ducked while it then flipped back and cracked the winshield.

 

On my old 83 GSL behind the rear bumper cover is the support thingy. I guess at somepoint in the cars life, that chunk of metal had a problem with something cutting it. So there was a chunk of metal sticking downward from underneath the car. Most of em over reaction? Yup. Now if I wail my hands into something, I take the hand back slowly. I haven't fucked up like that in a while so I think I may be learning .

Clue: If you are working near a starter, unplug the battery. I've been shocked quite a few times from all kinda things.

 

Nothing really special over here...Just various cuts and bruises, and burns from welding. My hands are fairly small, so they tend not to get in the way of things...Plus, I make ample use of socket extensions and breaker bars...

 

I've noticed that whenever I use extensions when I don't REALLY need them, I bleed less.

 

two different incidents:
1.) one time i had to change my tranny over night and i had a cast on one hand, by the way i was doing it from under the car. well needless to say it slipped off of my hand and landed on my chest, then tranny fluid dripped into my cast. then i had to cut my cast off, fun night, i was loving rx7's alot after that.

2.) ripped a gash into the side of my hand on a cut power steering hose. i bled for just a little while.



p.s. one time my half-retarded roommate was helping me put my tranny back on after changing a clutch and i dropped the tranny on his head, needless to say he blacked out for a little bit.

 

i sliced my thumb open pretty good building a motor once, the whole front rotor was full of blood.
i also had, on my 84 gs, the starter soleniod wire fall off and i couldn't get under the car enough to plug it in so i had to reach down from the top while the oil cooler was burning my wrist, i've got a scar from that one; looks like austrailia

mike

 

Sliced my thumb open on an apex seal once... beware the are VERY sharp

I've had innumerable bloody knuckles and what not as well.

 

i have busted my knuckle while changing the plugs and changing my brake rotors.
sliced my finger when changing my belts
one really stupid mistake i got my hand stuck in the air box line. i know i know "what the hell were you doing?" a lizzard ran up and i tryed to catch him. i shut my fingers in my own window. thats about it

 

How the HELL did a lizard get in your airbox!? That's the most insane thing I've ever heard!

 

its a long story i had it apart to clean the filter and i parked under a tree and isaw him drop in there as i was putting the filter back on

 

Now I know why I'm not mechanically minded... too much blood and pain for my liking.

 

I've had mice in mine before. Actually, they made the whole engine bay their home.

I opened up the airbox at one point to clean it out real good and found an assload of crusted old jelly beans in there. Not to mention the fact that there was a ton of dog food kibbles all about my intake manifold...

I had a garage at that time and parked my Probe in there....but we also always threw our trash in the garage, so the mice had plenty to choose from when it came to food and such.

 

although not 7 related. vw Scirocco had a big overheating problem. so it overheats I open up my hood. the cap explodes off of the radiator buring my whole right arm and cap took a nice chunk outta my wrist. had to goto the e.r