At a previous address.... Was out working in the garage, on my (then) wifes car. 77 Chevy Caprice. Four door..... Was changing out the starter, as it was becoming reluctant, so, just had the car up on ramps. Crawled my self under, and was working on unbolting the starter, when the drivers side ramp (the side I had crawled in under...) collapsed.... I was quite trapped.... but at least, the full weight of the car wasn't resting on me... just most of it. I figgered I would just holler for help, but, couldn't get enough air in my lungs to make more than a normal speaking voice..... Couldn't reach the jack, or anything else useful.... So, figgered I was stuck, and would just have to wait it out. Someone would come looking for me eventually..... Three HOURS later.... my wife came out to see why I didn't come in for dinner, and was I done yet...... All I could say was "jack".... She figgered it out, jacked the car up off of me, and out I crawled. I spent about 10 minutes just laying there, breathing.... Felt good.

I got rid of my ramps, and bought a couple good sets of jackstands. To this day, I STILL won't use ramps.

 

I hear ya! I won't go near the things. That's another of my learned it from my father stories. The progression was from using no jack stands at all and getting pinned under my mother's '64 Impala right before my eyes (and hollering like he was dying while I scrambled to get the car lifted off of him), then to a pair of jack stands with footprints entirely too small for use on asphalt as hot as asphalt can get in Southern California and getting pinned when they sank (again hollering like he was dying, again leaving it to me to lift the vehicle), to some seriously massive wheel ramps of the beefy sort you could get in the early 1970's. They probably weighed almost 25 pounds each.

By then I didn't want to be near any vehicle he was working on and didn't want him near any vehicle I was working on, but I didn't really get a choice in the matter. So when he drove over the front of those ramps and one squirted out at about forty-eleven miles per hour I got a helluva fine dent in my shin -- I was airborne trying to jump out of the thing's flight path when it reached me, else it would probably have broken my leg.

AFAIC wheel ramps are just proof of insufficient survival instinct. Throughout my adult life, I've used only jack stands rated individually for the full weight of the vehicle. And wouldn't ya know it? The newest of my pairs of stands got recalled by OTC a few years ago due to a high failure rate.

PS: I'm glad you didn't die, man. You're the best modder-hater we got around this joint, and a helluva guy, too.

 

When I first started working on vehicles with my dad, he always insisted that whenever you had taken a wheel off to slide it sideways under the vehicle near where you were working, under the axle, the frame or whatever. In addition to Jack stands.


Most of my buddies give me a lot of **** for it. But I really don't care. They still call me when their stuff breaks down lol.

 

When I was 21 or 22 I had a 1985 S10 pickup. The radiator went bad so I took it out to replace it. Did I mention that it was hot and humid that day? I set up a fan on the fender to blow some cooler air on me while I worked at removing the radiator. After the rad was out of the way I could now easily get to the rusted out fog lights that the previous owner had installed. So I grab the cutting torch to make fast work of the nuts holding them on. (tension begins to build) I cut the nuts off with no problem. Turn the torch off and Remove
the old fog lights. Laying in the bottom of the rad support are two glowing red hot chunks of metal that use to be nuts. (tension building) So I go to the work bench to where we always keeps jugs of water for cooling stuff down. These containers are just laundry bottles full of water. You know just grab and go! So I begin to pour what I thought was just water on the glowing pieces of metel And at first there was steam for just a split second then Whooof! (tension overflowing) Fire shot up out of the front of the truck.! The fire ball missed me and I started running around the shop looking for a fire extinguisher. I was panicing ! ( I must have ran buy 3 of them) I run into the house and tell my Dad I need a fire extinguisher so hes running back out to the shop . Remember the fan I set up well Its feeding the fire so it looks like a tornado of flames. My dad yells push it out side while grabbing a fire extinguisher. This whole time Im thinking its going to just explode ! I put it in nuetral and shove it out the shop and it rolls slowly down the driveway until it stops against the rock pile. We put the fire out and nobody got hurt. The fire cooked the grill, the under hood insulation, and the belts but thats it. Insurance paid for that stuff but not the radiator. No it was sitting far from danger. (I should have thrown it in the fire!)Well someone had put some gas in there
with the water Is the only explanation that I can come up with what started the fire. Man I tell you I was shaken when it was all over. Still to this day I am leary of throwing sparks when Im working on a vehicle.

 

The same summer my brother and cousin caught the bucket or rags on fire, a few weeks later they were back in the garage screwing around when a friend brought his go cart over to work on.

It was pretty well known that the boys had a jug of vodka out there and sometimes smoked some controlled substance even though they denied any of that sort of thing was going on since they were all minors.

Anyway they were diligently working on the go cart engine and having a good time when their buddy partially filled a pop can with gas and lit it on fire for no particular reason.

Gas tends to flame pretty good and they got to thinking it might just explode so he decided to put it out by stomping on the can. Flaming gas spurted up his side and he became a human torch. Both my cousin and brother tried to get him to do the stop, drop, and roll thing but he was determined to keep his feet.

Finally my brother got the garden hose and sprayed enough water on him to put the flames out.

Now my younger brother had just gotten a spiffy new pair of Traxx tennis shoes and one of them had gotten some of the flaming gas on it and it was pretty well destroyed. When mom asked him what had happened to them he said he had given them to my cousin. He stuck with that story for years.

Fortunately no one was seriously hurt even the torch. He had blisters on his lower leg and burned his pants and both shoes were toast but that was his problem to explain to his folks.

 

My brother was working on his 6.5 diesel. He was trying to get the injectors broke loose to get them out. He was really pushing hard on the ratchet when it finally broke loose. It dumped him on the fender. For the rest of thr day he had a tough time breathing. Come to find out he cracked some ribs.

 

I go one better and always grab the vehicle that's on stands and give it a strong shake. That way, I know it's secure. I was helping a friend who wasn't paying attention to the pawl on his adjustable jack stand and when the vehicle was lowered the stand collapsed, sending the vehicle cockeyed for a bit until I could jack it up.

 

A few years back the wife wanted to go visit her sister in Tennessee, I had been working 12 hour shifts but had asked for a week off to do this thing.

I planned to change the rotors on our HHR before we left but decided it could probably wait until we got back home. About Lexington the brake lining on the inside pad on the drivers side left the vehicle. This made a pretty terrible grinding noise when I had to use the brake so I mostly did not use them much.

I was shifting the automatic transmission a lot instead. We made it to her sisters place and I went to the closest AutoZone and got the parts I needed. My brother in law has almost as many tools as I do so I figured swapping the parts would be duck soup.

When we bought the car the dealer told us the old couple that traded it in did so because they were pretty well convinced the front end was gonna fall off. The dealer checked it out and determined it just needed a brake job. The old folks still got a new vehicle and we ended up buying the old one.

So the brake job had lasted around 40,000 miles when I decided to do it again. For whatever reason both the brake rotors were rust welded to the hubs. I had to beat and pry them every millimeter of the way to get them off the vehicle.

While prying the first one off the pry bar slipped and I hit myself in the chest a pretty good one. It hurt plenty but I kept working and finally hours and hours later got the job done.

When I went in to take a shower I noticed a bruise on my right man boob. I did not think to much of it but it did hurt a lot and it had been a little hard to breath while I finished the job. I took my shower and relaxed with a few adult malted beverages and thought little more of it,... until the next day.

When I woke up in noticed right away that moving at all caused my chest to hurt a lot. I felt kinda like I had been tossed off most of the tall buildings in town. Breathing was a job I was reluctant to do. I hoped it would pass as I got going for the day but it seemed to just get worse.

Finally the third day I went to the local ER. The doctor congratulated me for having such a nice colorful chest and confirmed I had cracked two ribs.

Unfortunately there isn't much they can really do for cracked ribs anymore. They used to wrap you with tape but finally determined your really better off not doing that masochistic thing, no matter how much fun it is for them to rip the tape back off.

I still managed to go watch the niece play softball and even went swimming and horse back riding. The pain killers they gave me did not help with the pain much, just made me really tired so I didn't take any on the drive home.

 

This thread has some interestng reading? The do s and donts of auto repair. Im just glad we can learn from our mistakes.
( Regaurding Hey You and being pinned under the car) I bet that was the longest 3 hours of your life. Must have felt like 3 days.

 

I don't think I have EVER been happier to see someone in my life.

And just for fun:

When I was MUCH younger, 11 or 12, the family went on tour, to visit some of our scattered relatives. We were at my uncles place, somewhere in Wisconsin, and a pretty good cross-section of the family had gathered. There was food, fun, and all sorts of good times. We got a softball game going, and I was pitching for our team. One of my younger female cousins was up to bat, so, I gave her a nice easy pitch. That was a tactical error. All I heard was CRACK! as she got a good solid hit. The ball then proceeded to thump me right square in the middle of the chest, and blow me back three feet. I landed on my back, gasping for breath. Probably took me five minutes to be able to stand again.... and another ten before I was ready to play again. Funny part was, my cousin thought I would be mad at her, and had this big round-eyed stare as I recovered myself. I could see she was afraid of what my reaction would be, so, I gave her a big smile and a hug, and told her that was a good, solid hit, but, please don't direct them at me in the future.

The rest of the day was much less eventful. Though I had a beautiful bruise on my chest for a few days.