What has been your worst injury as a Dieselhead from working on cars? A Treu Story. - Page 3 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

dave1980_300sd · #31 07-11-2007, 04:21 PM

I almost lost a finger unloading a w114 from a trailer into a garage. The car wasn't running, but the brakes worked well enough, so I was going to just roll it off the trailer and into the garage with me in the driver's seat. I was alone, though, so I had to have the driver's door open in order to get a foot out and get the car moving. It was a narrow garage, and I took a mental note that I'd have to make sure to close the door as soon as I got the car moving or have it torn off as the car entered the garage.

Anyway, standing halfway in the car with the door open, I gave it a big push backwards. the car made it over the hump at the end of the trailer and started moving much faster than I'd anticipated. I jumped into the seat and held onto the door frame with my left hand, but neglected to close it. I was concentrating on keeping the steering straight, I think. Suddenly it was like a huge alarm went off in my brain, and I stabbed the brake pedal with both feet.

The car jerked to a stop just as my finger was pinned between the garage and the door frame. It hurt a bit and roughened the skin up a little, but neither finger nor car were damaged. I must have come maybe a tenth of a second from (at the very least) a broken finger, not to mention a mangled door.

To top it off, in the confusion I got the car crooked on the ramps. Once I recovered my wits, I tried to ease it the rest of the way down. Of course it immediately fell off the ramps, dropped a foot or so onto the driveway, and took off rolling towards the rear of the garage. I manged to wrestle it to a stop, again with no damage to me or the car. Very lucky that day considering all the stupid stuff I got away with. Next time I won't try something like that alone.

- dave

winmutt · #32 07-11-2007, 05:13 PM

Oh and for the record, 3 days is not enough time for a Nissan 200SX fuel system to depressurize.... And when you change a fuel filter try to avoid looking directly down the spout when you pull the hose off..............

lietuviai · #33 07-12-2007, 12:17 AM

There was a time I was working under a car on gasoline lines. I had a good stream of gasoline, from a fitting I loosened, run down my arm. There was so much that it ran down into my underarm. Gasoline can burn those tender areas without being on fire. WOW!
I perspired gasoline for about a week. Good thing I don't smoke.

JimmyL · #34 07-12-2007, 12:36 AM

Back when I was 16 or 17, and even dumber than I am now, a buddy and I replaced the carb, intake, and other stuff on his 70 Mach I.
Well, we kind of guessed at the routing of the spark plug wires. First mistake.
Second, we didn't have the carb linkages hooked up yet, so he was in the car, and I was operating the carb linkages, leaning over to do so. Second mistake.
Well, it wouldn't catch, so we poured just a dab of gas into the carb. Third mistake, and probably the biggest.
So, when the car caught, and the firing order I don't think was even close, a fireball shot up out of the carb, with me leaning over it operating said linkages.

No eyebrows
No eyelashes
No front bangs
No clean drawers.....

Oh, and a knot on the back of my head from clanging it off the hood. Doh!

lietuviai · #35 07-12-2007, 12:39 AM

Lucky you didn't end up with a face looking like a hamburger well done!

pawoSD · #36 07-12-2007, 01:38 AM

I dropped a 13mm craftsman wrench on my face when replacing my car's steering damper.....it hit me in the face and bruised my lip/chipped my upper left tooth ever so slightly (the pointy tooth, its not pointy now

)

I've hit my knuckles on things a good number of times, cut myself on sharp edges, hit my head on the oil pan........the list goes on, and will probably continue to get larger.....

slarson80 · #37 07-12-2007, 01:48 AM

My story is pretty much rehash. I was working on my girlfriends car, many years ago while I was just a teenager. I too, made the mistake of thinking "oh, it's just been running for a couple of minutes" (350 chevy). I can just remove the radiator cap. I palmed the cap pressing down , and made it past the first stop. There was no steam so I went for the opening. Right away I knew I was wrong, the cap wanted to fly off and I was holding it down with my right palm. I tried to twist it back down but the heat and pressure were too strong. I told my GF to shut off the engine, then let it go. coolent shot straight up in my face but it really wasn't that hot, more like a shower set too warm. I ran up stairs to wash the stuff off my face and eyes. She's screaming like I was just set on fire or something.

Anyway, the burns on my face where more like a sunburn. But the shape of the radiator cap was clearly visable on my hand, if you looked closely enough you could almost read "do not open under pressure" on my palm. It lasted for a few days.

At the time I was working as a line cook so my hands where pretty caloused, so it didn't really hurt that much. I was lucky.

2.5Turbo · #38 07-12-2007, 01:50 AM

I got the end of my finger stuck between the tip of the power antenna and its base once trying to wipe some oil onto it while it was going down. When it's down, it compresses down to the base HARD! The end of my finger was stuck in there for about 10 seconds before I could painfully pull it out. Couldn't get the thing back up while I was stuck because there was nobody else to turn on the radio

After the incident, I decided that I should oil it only when it's on its way up

t walgamuth · #39 07-12-2007, 07:02 AM

I guess I have been pretty lucky working on cars. The only injury that springs to mind was this:

I was tightening the stupid side mount battery cable on one of my diesel suburbans with a very small wrench. It was the plus cable. The little wrench touched the fender and instantly welded itself to the fender. Stupidly I grabbed it and tried to dislodge it as it was providing a dead short, even as I was gripping it it instantly turned red hot and burned my fingers....not to worry about the wrench continuing to provide a dead short as if a few seconds it melted into nothing.

My fingers had nice black marks on them like a grilled hot dog. It smarted a litte but in the end was not a serious burn and in a few days it was gone without much suffering.

Kindof a wierd little thing.

Tom W

deerefanatic · #40 07-12-2007, 07:45 AM

I've never done any serious problems while working on cars... Except that I burn myself almost every other time I use my soldering iron.....

Otherwise, just the usual scrapes, bangs, and "oh, that's hot!!"........

But, I'm really afraid of pain and more afraid of dismemberment, so I'm always very careful!!

crashone · #41 07-12-2007, 08:27 AM

Ahhhh the pain.. do not give into it.. it is only hide, it will grow back....

vstech · #42 07-12-2007, 09:47 AM

re reading all these, I remembered shutting the car door on my little brother's hand. it's amazing how fast you can say open the door over and over again when your fingers are slammed in a door frame...................
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it's amazing how long it takes to open the door when you are rolling on the floor laughing at the speed of words open the door open the dooropenthedooropenthedooropenthedoor.....
when it's your little brother.

Phil · #43 07-12-2007, 10:44 AM

I think I'm afraid to say much of anything here because it may change my luck since I have so far not had any really bad stuff happen when working on cars, I have had some ruff ones at work from time to time though.

Carrameow · #44 07-12-2007, 02:31 PM

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/Pickover/vomit.html

byrdandcompany · #45 07-12-2007, 03:40 PM

the most serious screw up i did was when I was laying some wood flooring down at my rental house. I had to use a grinder to cut away at the frame of the door. Well, I only used one hand on the grinder and it snagged and jumped out and sliced my left index finger to the bone and it was spilling blood everywhere on my nice floor. I quickly told my employees to clean up the blood and went and got myself some rum. I cleaned it out with rum and then drank the bottle dry. No doctors where open and I am cheap so instead of going to ER I just bought a thing of Super Glue, pushed the flesh back together and glued it back into place. Then I had someone drive me home (stopped by and got some more rum) then drank the pain away again. It took it about 6 weeks to heal. Some Christmas present huh?