What's been your worst injury while wrenching on your car???
#1
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So, I was just doing a little track prep and was tightening up the 24 triple-square cheesehead bolts on the axles. On the 24th bolt, I dropped my wrench. Onto my tooth. The chip is a triangle about 4mm x 4mm with a 6mm hypotenuse. I look ridiculous - like a kindergartener who just lost his first tooth!
My wife and daughter got home and have been laughing at my mercilessly.
Hopefully my dentist will see my tomorrow (Sunday)-- I've got meetings on Monday and Tuesday.
I'm lucky, I guess, when it first happened the tooth felt really loose and there was some blood from my lip and I thought I'd knocked the tooth out.
So, this is probably worse than the time I was working on an Austin-Healey and some rust dropped in my eye. Ended up going to a walk-in emergency center to get it removed.
Anyone else have any good stories of injuries sustained while working on the car?
My wife and daughter got home and have been laughing at my mercilessly.
Hopefully my dentist will see my tomorrow (Sunday)-- I've got meetings on Monday and Tuesday.
I'm lucky, I guess, when it first happened the tooth felt really loose and there was some blood from my lip and I thought I'd knocked the tooth out.
So, this is probably worse than the time I was working on an Austin-Healey and some rust dropped in my eye. Ended up going to a walk-in emergency center to get it removed.
Anyone else have any good stories of injuries sustained while working on the car?
#2
Three Wheelin'
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Many busted nuckles/cuts/scrapes... But the worst was when a welding Spark jumped inside the helmet, and then in the eye,it melted my contact.....but it healed up fine.
#3
#4
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This happened on the old VW Jetta I used to have. A friend had let me try out a shock/spring set to see if I wanted to buy it. Unfortunately, it really slammed the car more than I was comfortable with and it really buggered up the alignment. I wanted to try and get it realigned but the local shop didn't want to touch something that was that low. Instead, I decided to try and manually fiddle with it to see if I could make it reasonably close so that I could get a better feel for the suspension.
While loosening the camber bolts, I put my weight on the wrench and the wrench slipped. Since I was leaning further forward than I should have been, my chin slammed down on the fender of the car. At first, everything seemed ok beyond the jarring to my head but within a few seconds I felt my throat get really warm. Sure enough, I was bleeding heavily from the chin.
Just to add insult to injury, since I was doing this in the driveway I was blocking the 944 so I had to reassemble the Jetta before I could drive myself to the hospital to get six stitches in my chin.
It wasn't one of my brighter moments...
BB.
While loosening the camber bolts, I put my weight on the wrench and the wrench slipped. Since I was leaning further forward than I should have been, my chin slammed down on the fender of the car. At first, everything seemed ok beyond the jarring to my head but within a few seconds I felt my throat get really warm. Sure enough, I was bleeding heavily from the chin.
Just to add insult to injury, since I was doing this in the driveway I was blocking the 944 so I had to reassemble the Jetta before I could drive myself to the hospital to get six stitches in my chin.
It wasn't one of my brighter moments...
BB.
#6
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I was welding under my 914, which was on a lift. I had on a leather apron (for safety!) and decided to climb up on a stool (think bar stool) to look in the trunk to make sure I didn't set fire to anything. As I was climbing up, somehow my foot got on top of the apron - so it was sandwiched between the top of the stool and my foot. Now, as I was trying to stand up on the stool, I couldn't! My neck was attached to the other end of this now immovable apron. As I was losing my balance, I tried to lift my foot... but I couldn't because I was falling. I tried pulling up, but couldn't, because my foot was holding the apron!
So I fell in a tumbled heap, landing on the now upset stool. Luckily I didn't break anything, but I was bruised and sore for days.
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Another time, one of my springs didn't sit properly on the perch, which I'd had happen before. The solution (before I got helper springs) was to raise the car a little on the lift, put my arm in the wheel well, and twist the spring with my hand. The turning motion would get it to jump to the right place on the perch.
Well, one day, I had the lift not quite high enough when I did this... There was just room for my arm between the tire and the fender. As the spring aligned on the perch, the car dropped down a little bit, and now my arm was pinched between the tire and fender! It hurt, but not that bad... but I couldn't pull it out. Here I am, kneeling beside my car contemplating gnawing my arm off.... I start yelling for my wife, finally she comes out and I have to sheepishly ask her to press the switch on the lift to raise it up a little bit.
So I fell in a tumbled heap, landing on the now upset stool. Luckily I didn't break anything, but I was bruised and sore for days.
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Another time, one of my springs didn't sit properly on the perch, which I'd had happen before. The solution (before I got helper springs) was to raise the car a little on the lift, put my arm in the wheel well, and twist the spring with my hand. The turning motion would get it to jump to the right place on the perch.
Well, one day, I had the lift not quite high enough when I did this... There was just room for my arm between the tire and the fender. As the spring aligned on the perch, the car dropped down a little bit, and now my arm was pinched between the tire and fender! It hurt, but not that bad... but I couldn't pull it out. Here I am, kneeling beside my car contemplating gnawing my arm off.... I start yelling for my wife, finally she comes out and I have to sheepishly ask her to press the switch on the lift to raise it up a little bit.
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#8
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I'm all queasy just reading this. I think I would have stopped wrenching long before I was down to my last four fingers...
Regards,
doug
86 951 (http://www.pcaucr.org/visuals/photos...egory&catid=61)
01 E320 (W210) 4matic Wagon (http://www.benzworld.org/forums/w210...body-do-2.html)
00 540i-6 (http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...hp?albumid=976)
94 855 turbo Wagon (sold in 09)
85 535i-5 (sold in 07)
76 300D (sold in 92)
83 944 (sold in 86)
I apparently only buy cars designated by numbers
Regards,
doug
86 951 (http://www.pcaucr.org/visuals/photos...egory&catid=61)
01 E320 (W210) 4matic Wagon (http://www.benzworld.org/forums/w210...body-do-2.html)
00 540i-6 (http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...hp?albumid=976)
94 855 turbo Wagon (sold in 09)
85 535i-5 (sold in 07)
76 300D (sold in 92)
83 944 (sold in 86)
I apparently only buy cars designated by numbers
#9
Hey Man
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Tore my bicep when my arm was stuffed in the door cavity trying to snap that stupid socket/ball together for the drop link on a door handle replacement. Then I found out the trick of doing it from outside
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#10
Burning Brakes
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Laying under my old Trans Am changing a drop link, wrench slipped and fell hitting me in the face, I tried to get away from it and hit my forehead under the car, doing that scared me ,so I then slammed the back of my head into the floor. Three head hits in under a second.
#11
Race Car
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just scrapes and cuts. I was framing out a closet last week and managed to put half of a 3" nail into my hand. Didn't hit anything in my hand and its already healed.
#12
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great topic. we've done this before. maybe somebody can dig up the old thread and we can get a thread combine, so the old stuff can be here too. glad there's a few of you saints to do most of the real dirty stuff for me.
#13
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BMW?
i went to unplug the washer fluid resivoir or the headlamp motor(i forget which) the connector suddenly came loose and my hand smacked right into the corner of the header panel. went pretty deep. took about 8 seconds to bleed(1sec/skin layer). still have the mark on my hand...that was 4yrs ago
i went to unplug the washer fluid resivoir or the headlamp motor(i forget which) the connector suddenly came loose and my hand smacked right into the corner of the header panel. went pretty deep. took about 8 seconds to bleed(1sec/skin layer). still have the mark on my hand...that was 4yrs ago
#14
Burning Brakes
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Was doing interior work tugging up a piece of carpet. Hand slipped as I was pulling and went shooting back....into a RAZOR BLADE lying on the carpet. Went to the bone, carved off a nice big chunk of meat they had to sew / staple back on!
#15
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This will sound like nothing, but last night
Was attempting to line up the ball joint to the strut, by compressing the strut by jacking it up. Dad came up with a different idea, and loosened the jack- my thumb was sitting on the jack in a way that it was pinched as the thing lowered. The force of the strut was pushing the jack down, but my finger was stopping the jack from going down!
Surprisingly the thing is perfectly fine today![Confused](https://rennlist.com/forums/images/smilies/confused.gif)
I have had many doors close on my fingers... One time the door latched closed
Was attempting to line up the ball joint to the strut, by compressing the strut by jacking it up. Dad came up with a different idea, and loosened the jack- my thumb was sitting on the jack in a way that it was pinched as the thing lowered. The force of the strut was pushing the jack down, but my finger was stopping the jack from going down!
Surprisingly the thing is perfectly fine today
![Confused](https://rennlist.com/forums/images/smilies/confused.gif)
I have had many doors close on my fingers... One time the door latched closed
![ooops](https://rennlist.com/forums/graemlins/icon501.gif)