First car I ever owned was a little, well used, 1968 or so Triumph Spitfire. Forget why I was rooting around under the dash, but I noticed a black wire with a connector on the end hanging loose. Now I had had "electric shop" just the year before and I knew all about electricity. AC electricity that is.
Ac black is hot, as we all know. I looked around the vicinity of the wire and saw an empty terminal on my headlight switch, had an "AHA!" moment and figured I must have knocked it loose somehow. Plugged it on - no worries.
Later that day, cruising around with my buddy in the car and dusk hits.
So, I click the headlights on and soon wonder what is that smell? Then smoke starts rolling out from under the dash. Thick smoke. Mind you, we were driving down the road at the time. Just as I finally pulled over, flames started flickering our from under the dash.
Thankfully, I was on the ball enough to realize that it happened when I turned the lights on and switched them back off at smacked the flames out with an old rag from the back floor.
Guy didn't want to cruise with me for a while after that, but I will now always remember the difference between AC and DC wire color coding.
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Kal
97 250 PSD Ex Cab Sd 4X4 ZF5 155k
Buncha low budget mods
"I tried being reasonable. I didn't like it."
I got another one you just reminded me of. I had a 66 chevelle when I was about 17 and only had it a week or so when we decided to go to the radio tower where we would climb to the top and hang out. Well I thought it would be cool to leave the lights on in the car while we sat up top for a while. As we were sitting there enjoying our youth (and damaging our brains if you know what I mean) I looked down to see smoke rolling out of the windows of my new car and I'm 150ft in the air on a rickety old tower that took balls the size of a watermelon to climb anyways AAAAAAAH! So down the ladder we go fast as we can. Needless to say had some wiring to do and a car to tow home.
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Rob
65 F100-Betsy With an Attitude
69 VW Fastback Drag Car-McNasty
71 VW Squareback-Zippy
94 Dakota Bledsoe-Red
Few years ago when I did swapped out my 460 for a 351w on propane. A friend of mine, a 2nd year apprentice and I were tuning the a/f mixture which required a gas sensor inserted in the exhaust pipe. We finished up and my friend drove the truck out of the bay, taking the $20000 snap-on computer along for the ride. Before I could even scream out to my friend it toppled over, cracking the screen and twisting the whole thing into a mangled mess of expensive.
I snipped the strap on a gas charge shock before I was ready. The shock extended and pinched the skin between my thumb and forefinger between the shock mount and the end of the shock.
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Sure a spoonful of Draino will clean you out, but it will also leave you feeling kind of hollow inside...
Did a tune up on a friends Mom's car about 15 years ago, last thing to do was to replace fuel filter but you had to remove A/C compressor to get it out I loosened it to see if there was a way to get it out.....forgot about loose connection, fired up car.....car runs well....hear lots of trickling followed by a look on my face then I yelled shut it off! shut it off!....then in slow motion the furnace kicked on because the door was up to run the car...then I heard a "whoomp" followed by watching the furnace lift of the ground and blow apart at the seams...then followed by me jumping out the door and rolling around on the grass....I looked like the coyote after been blown up....30k damage and my friends Mom did not drive home that night.
Did a tune up on a friends Mom's car about 15 years ago, last thing to do was to replace fuel filter but you had to remove A/C compressor to get it out I loosened it to see if there was a way to get it out.....forgot about loose connection, fired up car.....car runs well....hear lots of trickling followed by a look on my face then I yelled shut it off! shut it off!....then in slow motion the furnace kicked on because the door was up to run the car...then I heard a "whoomp" followed by watching the furnace lift of the ground and blow apart at the seams...then followed by me jumping out the door and rolling around on the grass....I looked like the coyote after been blown up....30k damage and my friends Mom did not drive home that night.
I'm having a hard time understanding what exactly you're talking about here. I understand that you left the AC compressor loose and then you started ther car, but after that ???? What caused for furnace to blow up and I'm guessing you must of had a fire, since you were rolling around on the grass. Need more information.....
apparently he is trying to say it had a flammable refrigerant in it, and when the car started up it pumped the refrigerant out, causing the furnace it ignite it.
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Tom
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I should have been more clear....I loosened the fuel filter metal pipe and left it loose....then I screwed around with it trying to figure out a way to get it out without removing the A/C compressor....I then got distracted and forgot to reconnect the line....when the car started it ran off the fuel in the float bowl and maybe some that was getting through (I don't know) from the loose fuel line....that pumped fuel all over the floor which the vapors then ignited when the furnace kicked on.
We had fire trucks, the cops and the arson squad..it was a great evening..all I could smell for the next week or so was burning hair....I remember flying into the house to shut the gas and electricity off....then momentary panic when I thought there was a 100lb propane bottle in there...it wasn't...whew...it was on the patio hooked up to the BBQ....I also remember a sympathetic cop asking me how I felt and I told him "well done"..hehe.....I called into work the next morning that I wouldn't be in for a day or two due to being blown up...they didn't question it.
1- Was running the forklift and moving a cyclone, they are conical shaped and about 8 feet long so they hang off a pallet by about a foot on both ends. I was putting one into our brand new steel building that was literally 2 months old. Trying to maneuver it into one of the back corners and pushed it right through the back wall of the building.
2- Was working on something overhead with a 1/4" drive ratchet with a 6" extension on it. It slipped out of my hands and hit me right in the front teeth. Fortunately only chipped them a little.
__________________ 1994 F250 XLT-Reg cab, 4x4, 5 speed, 7.3 IDI Turbo, manual hubs. 4" intake tube, ATS upgrade, 4" exhaust w/ Walker 21172, boost & pyro on pillar, Autodim mirror, 16x8 MB Razor wheels w/285/75R16 "MT-R's" 1987 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe-Lots of fun stuff to make it go fast & take corners 2008 V-Star 1100 Midnight Custom-Just Cobra slip-on drag pipes for now
ok, i got a new one for ya.
this one did not happen in the garage, but outside of it.
i was trying to take the fan and clutch off of a 7.3 powerstroke saturday morning. it was only 36º out there, and there was a nice sheet of snowpacked ice all around the truck. anyhow, here i am, all bundled up, slip-sliding on the ice with a still hurting like a son of a gun right ankle, since it is not quite heeled from when i broke it 2 months ago.
the fan would not come off, so i grabbed the 5 lb minisledge to add some "shock impact" to the nut by hitting the end of the wrench.
as the hammer got about 6 inches from the end of the wrench, i realized my right hand was there, and that this was gonna hurt real bad.
luckily, the hammer glanced off of the leather gloves i was wearing, so i did not cut my hand in half.
instead, i only sliced the nice soft fleshy part between the thumb and index finger 1 1/2 inch long, 1/2 inch wide, and 1/2 inch deep.. 5 stitches later, i was back attacking the fan with the hammer as paybacks. i ruined the fan, but i also felt a little bit better.
and to make matters even worse, i realized this morning the fan would not come off, cause i was trying to remove it the wrong direction. i was trying to take it off as a reverse thread, and it is not reverse thread.
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Tom
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