After seeing Old F1's "pilot error" it made me think of some of the things that seemed like a good idea at the time......anybody have any good ones (that can be shared?). I was working in a shop (with a "mentor") back in the day (an old Datsun 240z), using a "homemade" spring compressor that decided to give up the ship.....The spring shot across 4 bays and left it's mark on a cinder block wall. Thankfully everyone was ok,and after we all looked at each other (with no flowing of blood) all busted out laughing, then pounded the knuckhead that thought it was a good idea.
As one of the old cops shows used to say......stay safe out there!
w

 

I was helping my brother at at his welding shop one rainy day when my dad walked in and told him to stop working and fix the water leak on the roof first .
My brother ignored him and he continued to grind with the big grinder...The extension cord was sitting in a puddle of water and we didnt notice it ,so my brother got shocked for almost 30 seconds without being able to let go of the grinder.
Finally he told me to get outta the way he threw the grinder on the floor and the 7"grinding disc broke into pieces flying everywhere and somehow missing the both of us.
He closed shop turned the shop breakers off and went inside and watch tv.
We never spoke about that incident again.

 

here goes-- 1971, used to work on cortina, and lotus in shop upstate. had a 67 cortina on it's roof parting out. removed bolt on rear for control arm. pulled bolt out by hand, (as if it was holding nothing), and then--- BAM! arm let go, snapped my wrist and shock knocked me out cold. fell to ground, lied there for around 15 minutes before getting my "stuff" together. learned about safety REAL quick. moral of these stories--think it through from start to finish BEFORE acting, might save a life.

 

When I was a teen, I worked at a full service Shell station/garage. "Service Is Our Business"

I was installing a set of coil over shocks to a strange sedan built for International Harvester. I was using a scissor jack to spread the leaf springs down from the frame, and got the bright idea it would go faster if I used an air wrench to operate the jack.

To make the story short, I almost cut off a finger with the appropriately named "scissor" jack.

 

This is a funny one on myself. Every summer, my dad would beat me to the punch and come home with "great" news about how he got me a "good" job for the summer. My buddies would be bagging groceries or umpiring little league games while I was on top of some hell pile up in some hollow carrying 48 and 54 inch conveyor belt structure and rollers at some coal mine in 100 degree heat. He got me a job at a mine machine shop one summer. I was the helper/janitor. One day I got to go on a run with one of the truck drivers. While I was gone, the shop boss made the others clean a huge water-cooled chop saw. When I got back, I started running my mouth about how I got out of that job. I was literally 20 feet from that saw when they turned it on. But they forgot to hook the hose back up. That nasty/evil/skank/metallic 20 year old crap water shot perfectly across the room and right down my throat (considering I was standing there with my mouth open talking trash). I gagged and spit and cussed for hours. The other guys were on the floor rolling. To this day, some of those guys can see me in Walmart or somewhere, and they will ask "have you drank any more water?"

 

It takes absolutely NO effort to screwup in a shop

 

I have had several of them. All with no blood shed or permanent injury.

One time, as an apprentice, I was getting ready to change out the blown head gaskets on an Olds 455. The mechanic mentoring me told me to pull the plugs and turn the engine over to get the water out of the cylinders. I pulled the plugs and hit the starter. Water came out of 4 plug holes at light speed sailing across 3 stalls to spray the shop manager who was not impressed.

Another time, I was tightening a small bolt with a 5/16 wrench and to keep from over torquing it, I only had my thumb pressing on the wrench with the tension from my pushing it holding it on the bolt head. The wrench slipped off and, because I didn't have a grip on it, went flying about 15 feet and landed in the valley of an engine that had the intake manifold off falling into the slots cast into the lifter valley of the block and getting stuck under the cam. We had to completely disassemble the front of the motor and partially pull the camshaft to get the damn wrench out.

 

While disassembling my truck, I was on the ground spraying every bolt I could find with Pb blaster. The can slipped in my gloves several times and as soon as I got a grip on it I ended up spraying a nice stream right into my left eye. Worst part of the whole situation was having no less than four pairs of safety glasses scattered around the shop.
My favorite of all time wasn't in a shop but was at work. I've been an AMMO troop since 1987 and one year in Taegu there were five of us doing a re-warehousing operation of hard bombs. I was spotting the forklift driver when he tilted the forks and let three, 500 pounders roll off from about five feet up. We all dove for a ditch and then got up making fun of everybody for jumping. We knew they wouldn't go off, but that's not what you're thinking as they fall towards the asphalt.
Mike

 

Here's mine, I worked in a small body shop when I was around 20 years old. One of the accounts we had was Ryder trucks, we'd repair the damage caused by weekend movers like bent bumpers and ripped out side rear view mirrors. One day my boss and I were going to deliver one of the bigger trucks we had repaired. I was going to drive it and my boss would follow. My boss was a gimpy, lazy drunk and the shop we were in had two button stations to control the overhead door. My boss was too lazy to walk down to the bottom of the bay to push the button, he just pushed the button in his office. I thought the door was open enough to clear the truck but I was wrong. I shoved the truck into gear and popped the clutch. A second or two later a bunch of crap fell on the hood of the truck and I heard my boss yelling and saw him hobbling down the ramp with a look of terror on his face. He stood there and screamed at me for a few minutes but we had to get the truck back to the Ryder depot. Fortunately, I didn't cause any damage to the truck but I ripped up the bottom panel of the fiberglass door pretty bad. Turned out the door was too old to repair so the entire door had to be replace, it was fairly big door, 25' wide and 14' high. It wasn't a very good time for a while after that.

Funny thing is at the time I felt terrible and thought the world was coming to an end. Now 20+ years latter it's a pretty funny story to tell. There's a formula, Tragedy + Time= Humor. Of course the tragety can't be too bad or there's really no humor.

 

That's some funny (and scary) stuff!!

The forehead slapper I did most recently was when I was working on my Harley, try to set the timing. I had to find TDC, which means you have to pull a plug on the side of the crankcase, and then rock the bike in gear, while sitting on it, while leaning over to watch the hole for the TDC mark (it is really, really much easier with two people, but...). So after a fair amount of rocking and no sign of the mark, I decide to hit the starter to move it a half-turn (spark plugs are out). I hit the button and it shoots crankcase oil out the hole, all over the (nicely painted) floor.

So I rock it some more, finally see it, and lean it over to put it back on the sidestand. Only, the sidestand has folded while I was rocking it. I realize that as it gets a little too far over, put my foot down smack in the middle of the puddle of oil, and over we go! On my way down, my shoulder hits my floor jack, sending the lifting arm downward towards my '52's door, but instead it hits the running board. The bike is on top of me, the floor is so slick with oil (did I mention more is coming out of the hole?) that I can't get any traction with hands or feet. I said many bad words!!

No damage to the bike (I cushioned its fall), and no apparent damage to me at the time, but my shoulder is kinda messed up lately...

 

Some of you may have seen where I got my first F-1 at the ripe old age of 15, and over the course of the next year and a half swapped out the drivetrain with a 289/c4 combo. As it was getting closer to togetherness, it was time to put fluid in the trans. I asked people who should know if there was anything special I needed to know to do that, and was told just to put 10 quarts in and I'll be good to go. Oh, and it wasn't important to have the driveshaft in, either. I think someone must have had a good laugh at the dumb kid leaving the store with an arm load of tranny fluid.

So I go home and proceed to dump 10 quarts of fluid into the dipstick tube of the C4, when about the time I was finishing up with the last can, I feel something wet around the toes of my bare feet. That's right, it was the edge of the puddle of 10 quarts of Type F running out onto the driveway, and under and around my feet. I didn't think it was very funny at the time. And I have to admit, nearly 35 years later, I can still feel that cold slime between my toes. But I will say I will never forget the proper procedure for filling an automatic transmission. ;-)

 

Never had a problem I, or a doctor, couldn't fix.