well there was that one time with a VW bus where I was wiring up a heater blower to push heat to the front. Needed a spot for the ground, and thought that just a small hole and a sheetmetal screw would do fine. Except the sheetmetal was the bottom of the tank, which of course was full. Fortunately, just gas coming out, no explosion from the electric drill, but a few gallons on the floor of an attached garage can keep you in the dog house for a long time

 

Good thing you didn't need two holes...

I had an engine fire in a VW bus...it got so hot in the engine compartment it blistered the paint on the licence plate hanging on the outside of the engine cover. Pulled the gas tank out (it sits above and in front of the engine, behind a bulkhead on later model buses) and the tank still had gas in it.

 

Do not try to heat up timing cover bolts with a torch, while the fuel pump is laying 5 inches away.

 

One recommendation; one story. Although muriatic acid is a great concrete cleaner, DO NOT use it in the garage. Everything in there will rust solid! I know a guy that did that in his machine shop.

About a million years ago in HS shop class, we cut up an old Caddy that a guy wanted the engine out of. We scrapped the rest of it. We cut the whole thing up before anyone discovered the 1/2 full gas tank! Lucky class that day!

 

Well I have to say the worst thing I've ever done in my garage and never will do again is walk around in my socks. I actually ended up breaking my toe when i slid into the concrete riser of the doorway. Talk about painful.
-Chris

 

This is a do . . . treated lumber drops from decks or other outside projects are a pain because you can't burn them or toss them in the trash. So they just seem to collect in the various corners of your garage or shop. Take a few hours on a Saturday and make a set of what I call "body blocks". First I determined how far it was from my chest to the floor while on my creeper. Then I took all the sections of 2x12 & 2x8s that were laying around, cut them to equal lengths and nailed them together until the stacked height was the dimension I was looking for. Now whether the car is on stands or ramps, I slip a couple body blocks under the sub-frame and breathe a little easier while working. On a side note, the wife helped me determine how high to make the blocks. I think she volunteered just to catch me prone on the garage floor.

 

I did the same thing but with carb cleaner. After the somewhat pleasant cooling effect, a slight irritation developed, then followed by several days of swelling and topped off with a week long world class case of the itchies. Complaining to the wife resulted in her two word reply, "bikini wax".

 

Never do a tractor hydraulic oil change where you expect to catch 14 gallons of oil by "speed shifting" between 5 gallon buckets.

Never move 5 gallon buckets full of hydraulic quickly from one place to another.

Never work with full containers of oil in a confined space (eg: under a tractor or truck).

Never assume that a little oil spill in a garage can be cleaned up with a couple of paper towels or a rag.

Lou Braun

 

I regularly do oil changes on P51's that hold about 15 gallons, but as it's 120w it doesn't exactly *flow* out of the drain hole. I can wander over to the 55gal waste oil drum & empty one 5gal bucket while the second is filling without too much bother
Trying to catch 20 gallons of coolant is another mater tho...

 

want to try fun?? do the same thing only do it with diesel coming out of a 1-1/4" hole into 5 gal fuel cans except it was a full 65 gal tank.

oh yeah when doing the above make sure you have enough cans because putting the plug back in is near impossible.

all this was while working on an m981 all to change a fuel level sending unit.

 

White Gas and a match. Need I say more??

 

I'm gonna guess the screaming pretty much covered it...

 

No matter how big of a hurry you're in, how hot it is, or how short the cut is, Mr Plasma Cutter and Mr Short Pants should never be introduced.

Cut a trrack bar bracket off of mt friends XJ - took all of 20 seconds (once things were hooked up).

Took him about 10 minutes to get all the molten slag out of my ankle

His daughter still remembers all the words I taught her.......

 

I wish I had a plasma cutter to worry about. I introducted Mr. Oxy/Act cutting torch to Mr. Low Cut shoes. Took about six weeks for the pain to go away. Dr. looked at the bottom of my foot and I asked why he did that. He said "I was looking to see if it burned all the way through". Big blob fell right in my shoe and I thought it was just a little thing. Now ten years later I still have a $.50 piece scar still on top of my foot.

 

Never set your CELL phone inside the engine compartment (especially on top of the FAN shroud) when changing spark plugs...... then start it up to see how it runs.

1,000,000 PIECES........ can you HEAR me NOW!