i'm sure i'm not the only one i want to hear about the stupidest things you've done in your workshop -(not the ones where people die)

i jumped a car off the hoist into the wall once
it was a 84 mitsubishi mirage, 1200cc automatic, i'd been adjusting the auto with it on the 2 poster taking it up and down i took a smoko and came back and it didn't start on the flick of the key so i moved my left foot off the brake and gave it some gas - my right leg was hanging out the door (steering wheels on the rh side over here) when it started i shifted it in to reverse the car moved backwards (the hoist was holding the weight but the wheels were on the ground) thinking my foots on the brake i put my foot into it (lotsa smoke) arghh panic i put my foot harder into it (still thinking its on the brake) and try to shift it to N only straight through into D, my leg touches the side of the hoist before the car launches foward and slams the walk in a cloud of tyre smoke ( i sit there " oh #$%@, oh #$%, oh #$%@,) $1500 damage to a car that prob cost the owners $300

Edited for language........if it trips the language filter please hit the edit button and try again

 

I know it's not nice to laugh at others misfortunes but,

 

when i was about 22, i worked the swing shift at a garage/ gas station. the garage closed at 5:00 and i worked from 2 to 11pm. we were never busy on the island because the 7-11 across the street sold everything and all i sold was gas oil and cigarettes. but the back of the shop was quite busy with tire repairs and people dropping off their cars for the next day.
when ever the hydrolic lifts were unoccupied, my 77 impala was up there getting something changed.(whether it needed it or not)
one night i have afriend hanging out with me and we decide to change his tranny fluid. i put his toyota tercel up on the lift and raised it. the bolts were very tight and while beating on my wrench with my hand i felt the back of the car shift sideways. i looked up and noticed that only the front of the car was touching the flip ups and the car was basically balancing there. well my wrench beating had moved the back tires almost off the lift. we both noticed this at about the same time and with a look we did all the communicating we needed to. within a second he was hanging off the back of the car pulling it down and i was lowering the lift. it all turned out fine but for a guy who wasnt even supposed to have his own car up there i was invisioning my boss's ear peircing yell! (old Boyd had way with words and even more of a way with really loud words!)

 

hey i laughed - u know whats funnier the customer(who had to turn sideways to fit through the door) packed a big sad that the bumper wasn't repaired perfectly - the old one was stuffed to start with and the replacement one was heaps better- so we got them a 'perfect' bumper - they smashed the car up within the week

 

my boss was danish the only good thing about getting yelled at was he'd revert back to danish and you couldn't understand him

 

when i was doing a block course at the tech they had an old hydrolic hoist and they raised one of the tutors cars up on it - it had thes rods to stick in so that it wouldn't creep down - anyway someone must have walked past and stuck one of the rods in 'cos when he lowered the hoist one side stayed in the air while the other dropped down - he realised just in time to stop his car getting damaged

 

good stories guys keep em coming lotsa laughs here.

Signed,
The Don

 

hey i've got heaps by the look of it maybe its just me - was laying on a creeper under the back of some british heap when the boss baked off the hoist and ran over my legs - that hurt - no broken bones then no broken bones ever (trust me i try)

 

bootie, are you sure you're in the right line of work? i think we need to hear a major success story from you soon! just kiddin'

 

One I did myself was working on my 74 Camaro I had at the time, I was putting slapper bars on that replaced the spring plate. I had the jack stand on the axle, and the spring goes UNDER the axle... got the last bolt loose and the whole corner of the car fell and slammed on my knee,(few choice words!!!!). It bounced up, but that sure hurt!!
The other incident I was across the shop from. I was working at a Tires America in the NW suburbs of Chicago while going to tech school. This guy who isn't real sharp was mounting tires for a guy that brought both rims and tires. He was siring it up on the other mag machine, when all of a suddent it sounded like someone had thrown an M80 firecracker off. The tire had exploded, throwing him back, and I had turned in time to see it launch up to the rafters, about 20 ft, bent the rafter, and fell back don, barely missing the balancer machine. The turntable on the mag machine was tilting to the side, and oil was spreading all over the floor... He had been trying to mount a 16" tire on a 16.5 rim, and just kept airing it up. Couldn't figure out why it wasn't seating the bead...

 

try setting steering wheel airbags off (or then theres oxy-acytalene balloons) oh i've had enough successes in the past there just not as funny - hey i can't be the only one that heaps of stuff happens 2 - i fitted bonnet pins into the bonnet of my race car and decided to repaint it so i sparayed the thing up in my lunch hour and leant it against the wall outside the workshop to dry went to bring it in at end of day and there was all this black crap over the top of it oh well sanded it back and sprayed it again - this went on for about a week till i finally realised what was happening the courier van ( diesel heap) would back into our door way and his exhaust exited to the side -blew black particles on my paint work week later snapped the crankshaft (most stuff happens for me in 3s whether its good or bad.

 

i'll start posting some pics in the next couple of weeks(in theory) to show that not everything turns to proverbial waste when i'm around (unless it has 2 wheels)

 

Moved to appropriate forum

 

When I was 16 I worked as a grease monkey at the local Ford dealer. The grease rack had a two-post lift, one of the front axle, one for the back. Each end had its own control. Although I was told to monitor the descent, I once left the system to its own devices while I went to the can or to get a cup of coffee, I forget. When I returned, the service manager and the shop foreman were waiting for, next to a pickup at a 45 degree + angle. I lost the job a couple weeks after that, supposedly L&I didn't like 16-year-olds operating lifts. I don't think the boss argued the point.

 

My buddy and I were working on an '87 Jeep Comanche. Replacing the rear springs. Undid all the bolts and removed all of them, it was rusted into place so I hit it with a hammer to loosen up the joints. Well, with the jack stands under the rear axle, it was like slow motion because my brain realized the mistake I was making before my body could stop it. Needless to say, the whole back end of the truck dropped, slamming the pumpkin up into the underside of the bed and yanking the drive shaft out of the transmission. Worst part, the owner of the truck was sitting on a milk crate there watching the flaming stupidity in action. We played it off well, and no one got hurt, but it could have been a lot worse.