Dumbest thing you've done in a shop

meanjean · Nov 11, 2010

Pulled some bone head moves in the past.
Here's some of the better ones.

-Added 4 litres of bug wash into the rad of a semi truck.
Didn't notice until it was too late.

-Lifted a 1/2 ton with a floor jack by the oil pan, oops.

-Was charging a fork lift battery with booster cable ends.
Not a good connection so I wiggled an end and a spark ignited one of the cells.
Cell exploded and shot battery acid into my face.

Who can beat those stunts?

LRP · Nov 11, 2010

theres and old addage that goed something like
keep ur mouth shut and let them wonder
open ur mouth and remove all doubt. LOL

meanjean · Nov 11, 2010

I'm not fooling anyone.

I've got to laught at myself.
Can't go thru life looking like me without having a sense of humour.

Mingy · Nov 11, 2010

I had to remove the driveshaft from my 1974 Volvo so I could replace a u-joint. So, I put it up on jack stands and slid underneath. It was held to the differential by 6 bolts. I removed the six bolts. Surprisingly, upon the removal of the 6th bolt, something called 'gravity' swung into action, resulting in a trip to the dentist ...

ipz2222 · Nov 11, 2010

No way I'm telling you all ,uh Imean the one dumb thing I did!!!!

luke the spook · Nov 11, 2010

well there was that one time i put petrol into my diesel 4x4. i relized what i had done when i finished topping up the tank . ended up costing me 140 bucks i had to drop the tank right there on the ground and refill it , lucky i didnt start it. thats one for the books anyway

NC Bota · Nov 12, 2010

I was changing the timing chain on on old Mercedes Diesel. The procedure is to break the chain at the camshaft, attach the new chain, then turn the engine over by hand while feeding the new chain in and pulling the old chain out. This works best with two or preferably three people. One to turn the engine over and the other(s) to tend to the chain.

I only had me, so I rigged up some string and a couple of milk jugs to keep tension in the chains while I turned the engine over. The strings were strung over my garage door rails and the milk jugs hung from there. All was going pretty well, but the garage door was bumping my butt so I reached over and punched the garage door open button....

The first inclination of disaster was both milk jugs hitting the ground followed by the timing chains disappearing into the front of the engine. There is no timing chain cover, so this was not a good thing. Fortunately the strings were still visible and after carefully snagging them I was able to pull the chains back out and even better didn't mess up the timing.

DsBota · Nov 12, 2010

Today I set my shirt on fire from a angle grinder

. Nice 10 inch hole but I'm ok.

meanjean · Nov 12, 2010

Was using this old school and very dangerous drill.
2 handles and a toggle switch.
I was leaning over to put pressure on the bit.
The handles got caught up in my clothing and squeezed me to the poing where I had trouble breathing.
I flopped around fighting to get loose and managed to unplug the damn thing.

pat331 · Nov 12, 2010

I done so many dumb things working in the shop and outside, I'm having trouble remembering them all. One of the most memorable was setting an expensive stack of sawn lumber on fire from an angle grinder. I nearly killed myself getting the fire put out.

DsBota · Nov 13, 2010

Meanjean I did something similar but had the wire wheel on the drill and had that caught in the crotch of my pants

.

aquaforce · Nov 13, 2010

The only perfect man I know died on a cross so I mess things up to keep from getting crucified.

LOL

I did a rebuild on a corvette rear differential and reinstalled it in the car then let it go with no lube in it. Of course it locked up about four miles from the shop.

skeets · Nov 14, 2010

The dumbest thing I ever did was when I was changing oil in my truck and I asked my EX to marry me

gmtinker · Nov 14, 2010

A few years ago, it was a perfect storm - my (now ex-)wife and I were having serious arguments, I had one of the worst colds I have ever had (stoned on NyQuil), it was Christmas Eve (which I hate working anyway) and I had to do an intake gasket on the dealership owner's father-in-law's Buick. It wasn't until it came back the day after Boxing Day that I realized there was a problem. I knew exactly what happened when I dropped the oil pan and there was red fuzz all through the engine. I generally use a rag in the valley to catch the scrapings from the gasket surfaces, and I had forgotten to remove it. To make matters worse is that the 3.8L V6 has a balance shaft in the valley which can apparently easily shred a rag, which tosses enough fuzz to block off the oil pickup screen and take out a crank . . .

That was a humbling experience, and a rather memorable lesson about double checking everything; complacence will bite you in the @$$. I second the above statement about being thankful for not having to be perfect - I would be so toast if I had to be.

aquaforce · Nov 15, 2010

gmtinker said:
I generally use a rag in the valley to catch the scrapings from the gasket surfaces, and I had forgotten to remove it. To make matters worse is that the 3.8L V6 has a balance shaft in the valley which can apparently easily shred a rag, which tosses enough fuzz to block off the oil pickup screen and take out a crank . . .

Makes me think about the 3.8L I have in my shop right now............ with the rag covering up the engine valley for the same reasons. WOW.
I will probably think about this story every time I do another 3800 intake now.

The car I'm doing is for a guy at work so I hope I don't mess it up. He bought a supercharged car for his wife and I'm getting it up to date on services.

Thanks for sharing that story.

B7100hst-d · Nov 15, 2010

I was cutting C channel 6061 aluminum on a wood band saw (10x too fast, but usually works w/al ok) and was cutting w/the spine of the C facing me (open end toward blade) so it was cutting two surfaces at once. Well, you can see it coming, first, slightest vibration rolls channel over like lightning and punches a hole the size of a pencil eraser in the top of my right (dominant) hand thumbnail. It pushed the nail piece down into the soft underbelly of the nail bed.

Told my shop helper, "I think I need to go to the hospital on this one" and I towel wrapped it for our trip to the local Veterans Hospital. I don't recommend getting in a position that requires getting your thumbnail, or any fingernail, pulled from your body. It sucks. They pulled the nail, stitched up under the nail and then set the nail over the stitches to protect it and then did an X across the top to hold all that mess together.

Lessons learned:
-don't cut the open end of the C
-thumbs are not overrated at all

I've got pics around here somewhere, but will spare ya'll

Eric McCarthy · Nov 16, 2010

Well I have done many stupid things over the years without really thinking and only one I really want to fess up to. I was tinkering around with a welder I had just bought and was learning how to weld with it. Mistake number one was siting down in a chair welding with jeans that had large holes in the legs. And mistake number two was taking a jacket and covering my jeans with the holes. Apparently after enough sparks later I had set the jacet on on fire. Couldent really see the flames with the welding hood on but I could damn sure smell it. LUCKLY I yanked it off and threw it on the floor before the flames went to far and burned myself!

brokersdad · Nov 16, 2010

meanjean said:
Was using this old school and very dangerous drill.
2 handles and a toggle switch.
I was leaning over to put pressure on the bit.
The handles got caught up in my clothing and squeezed me to the poing where I had trouble breathing.
I flopped around fighting to get loose and managed to unplug the damn thing.

LOL...i'm sorry, but I find that halarious...I can just picture it!

meanjean · Nov 18, 2010

brokersdad said:
LOL...i'm sorry, but I find that halarious...I can just picture it!

I was flopping around like a fish, the fear of God in my eyes.
Atleast I was trying to "gain an inch" like DsBota.

Hook · Dec 17, 2010

Bought a new radial arm saw years ago and was using it without first reading all of the instructions. Fed a piece of wood through the wrong direction which it grabbed and shot out at a very high rate of speed. The projectile was traveling fast enough to go through the new ping pong table folded up in the corner of the garage. Fortunately, no injuries. The Lord looks after poor dumb fools.

Here is another one that wasn't done in a garage but is typical for me. We had a bathroom door which when opened would drag across the carpet. My wife and I took the door off the hinges so I could cut approximately an inch off the bottom of the door. I marked it with a pencil and plugged in my circular saw. Just before cutting my wife said "are you sure you are cutting off the right end?" Sarcastically, I said "yes I'm cutting off the right end." After cutting we started to hang the door and noticed we had a 1 inch gap at the top and the door still dragged on the carpet. That was about 40 years ago and I still get reminded about it.

Dumbest thing you've done in a shop

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