Just thinking of one of mine -- maybe a few more of you guys have some.

Some years ago, I needed to tap into the main water supply pipe. My neighbor said to stuff it with some white bread to hold back any drips so you can get it soldered.

Didn't have white bread so I used some pretty good wheat bread. Soldered like a dream. Turned the water back on -- no water!. Took about a half hour ( wondered what I might be in for). Then one of the faucets started spitting out seeds and air. Eventually they all ran clean -- phew.

Told the neighbor -- he thought it was hilarious.

hj

 

Not me, but mine. My guys were attempting to repair one of our CNC machines. They had to take the screw that is the N-S axis and runs the length of the machine in order to remove the bearing that was deemed to be the culprit. This thing is about 12' long and 1-1/2" in diameter. Anyway, they are being coached by the tech at the manufacturer. The first bearing replacement ended in disaster with the bearing assembly coming apart and basically self destructing. Overnight another one. Wash, rinse, repeat. That's 2 bearings with 2 overnight freight charges. About $1700 down the drain. We package the part up and ship it LTL to South Bend, In. My gut instinct was to put it in my enclosed trailer and take it myself. Should have went with that because they fixed the part and shipped it back. Problem was the freight company put the trailer on the train and it sat in the rail yard in Jax for 3 days before they finally retrieved it, after a lot of hell-raising from us. Machine' back up and running. Total damage for a $600 part: almost $2900 in new parts & shipping.... Thank God we have two of those machines or we would have been so far behind there would be no catching up.

 

Years ago, as a young guy, a friend needed help putting a cam in his car. We replaced cam & did it on the cheap, reusing lifters that had been used but barely. Well, a week later all those lifters ate the cam & mushroomed out. Turned into a major piece of work. Live and learn....

 

This happened about 33 years ago. I had a 3-speed 340 Plymouth Duster and lost 1st and 3rd gear. So I drove it into my garage, putting the front wheels up on ramps and then jacking up the back end and slipped jack stands in. I pulled the transmission out, replace a broken shifting fork and put it all back together. During the course of the reinstall of the driveshaft, I had to turn the differential yoke in order to get everything to line up. Naturally, to be able to do this I released the parking brake so that I could turn the yoke. So far so good, right?

I jacked the back end up to remove the jack stands. Then I lowered the jack and was 'surprised' to find that the car obeyed the laws of gravity and rolled backwards off the front ramps. No problem right, just back away quickly and all will be well. Nope, because naturally the pickup truck I was temporarily driving during the course of this repair was parked in the driveway right behind my Duster. I came to a sudden stop, unlike the car, which continued on until making contact with the front bumper of the pickup truck. My knees were turned sideways in-between both bumpers. Fortunately, the rear bump of the Duster had those bumper guards that extend out a few inches and are topped off with rubber pads. Those bumper guards also gave just enough bounce for the car to move forward a few inches, allowing me to fall out of the way.

Needless to say, my knees were extremely sore for a few weeks. Some time later, I did measure those bumper guards that saved my knees from being crushed, they extended out three inches. I them measured across my knees…they were four inches. Now where did that extra inch go?

 

^^^WOW!!! That was lucky! And scary! Sometimes I wonder how we made it this far in life.

 

I know huh. One other time I was working on an electric start gas powered air compressor for someone. I finally got it up and running but was unaware that he had previously worked on it and in doing so removed the nut that holds the flywheel onto the shaft. So here I am reving it to like 3K when all of the sudden the flywheel comes off and straight down on the top of my foot. Being an electric start the flywheel had the teeth all around it, which helped it quickly tear through my boot, foot, and straight down to the bone before it took off down the street. They found the flywheel something like a 1/4 of a mile away stuck in some bushes. I ended up at the hospital getting a 2 inch wide gash in my foot sewn together.

I won't even go into the time I got shot in my back by some idiot playing with a gun, because that wasn't a DIY ordeal.

 

i was in a rush and pulled the shifter links off the 4 speed on my 64 bananacuda.
got the links properly adjusted, and put back on......the wrong arms.
of course i was now late for work, so i just went with it. first was third, second was fourth.
so to shift you had to do third, fourth, first , second.
i decided to leave it that was for a few weeks just to mess with people.
another one i did:
forgot to put the fuel pump eccentric on the cam of a pontiac 400.
took three new fuel pumps not pumping before i thought to look inside the engine to see what i did.
electric fuel pump fixed that one.

 

Not sure who's going to own the pink slip but.......

 

About 15 years ago I was replacing the RB&B siding on a house with Hardie lap siding. The only real concern was that the kitchen was on an outside wall, but I marked all of the plumbing and the installation on that side went off without a hitch. A couple of weeks later there was some moisture under the kitchen sink with no apparent source. By the next day the moisture was water and the unmistakable hiss of water escaping under pressure. And the water running out under the bottom piece of siding was a good indication of the source.

It turned out that 1 short stub of copper pipe had not been marked and when installing the siding I'd shot a 3" siding nail through that piece of copper. I'd hit it so dead center that the nail sealed the hole and it took a couple of weeks of pressure and expansion/contraction to loosen that nail enough to leak.

Oops...

 

Had a similar issue happen when doing the electrical rough in a new house. An apprentice drilled into the copper pipe that runs from the shower valve up to the shower head. So naturally the water system passed the pressure test. But when the homeowners went and turned the shower on for the first time, water, water, everywhere in the brand new house. Second floor shower to boot.

 

Surprised that wasn't caught before occupancy. It would be pretty normal to test the shower head once installed.

I had another "oops" on that same job. I'd bought a new framing nailer from Harbor Freight to install the lap siding. It was Chinese made, and as is so common with Chinese tools they missed the mark on a couple of things. About half way through the job I was holding up a piece of siding at shoulder level and about to put the first nail in it. My hand was 6" from the gun, but as soon as I pulled the trigger I felt a sharp pain in my thumb and my hand pushed away. I had a 3" nail run sideways through my thumb between the last knuckle and the thumbnail, perfect centered. It looked like something you'd Photoshop today. It turned out the cleanout on the barrel was open 3/4-1" even when the gun was armed. The tip of the nail caught the cleanout, exited the barrel through the cleanout, barely scratched the siding, and proceeded to run through my thumb. A trip to the ER got the nail out, but I soon realized how lucky I was. No bone broken or nerve damage. I was not literally "nailed to the wall"! In hitting my thumb it didn't bounce into critical areas like throat, chest, crotch, knee, etc.

I brought the nailgun back to Harbor Freight, explained what had happened, and told them they needed to replace that gun. The manager gave me some flack and finally said that they'd replace it only if I bought the extended warranty on it. I smiled a bit and said, "Nahhh... We'll let our lawyers handle this" and as I started to leave the manager capitulated and agreed to swap it. By the second sleeve, that gun was misfiring, too, so I threw it in the garbage and went and got a $300 gun like I should have from the start.

 

Been there, done that, shot my thumb too, cut the bulk of the nail off with my pliers so I could drive. I drove all the way home (took this picture) and then when to the ER to have them pull it out. Hmm, maybe it's time I up my insurance amounts.

 

^^ That had to leave a mark! I probably would have passed out.

 

i bet it did not hurt any worse than when i slipped and stuck my hand out to get a grip to keep from falling.
and stuck my hand into the fan of a running mack 300 hp engine cutting my hand in half between middle finger and ring finger. almost straight down to the wrist.

 

Damn! Was it able to be repaired? Still able to function? I would have passed out for sure.....