I was a bonehead today..

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AlV

AlV

Crabs in a barrel
Joined
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Short (embarrassing) bonehead story...
Today I need to check a noise coming from the front right side of my wife's Honda pilot.

You know how when you do things repetitively you create a mental checklist and go on auto pilot. Well today I had a mental melt down.

My drive way has a slight pitch toward the street so whenever I work out there it's the normal protocol.
Parking brake, chock the wheels, plywood for the jack stands. Jack and go.

However, Today I set the Parking brake, brought out the chocks, placed the plywood for the stands and jacked her up. Set the jack stand on the ply dropped the car down then pulled the wheel and set it under the car by the frame rail. Moved the jack under the lower control arm to raise it up a bit AND The damn truck rolled back down my drive off the stand and onto the wheel! "WTF!" I say out loud while running to the other side of the car. I jump in and hit the brake pedal. The parking brake was pretty far down but I reset it and the car stays still. I cautiously get out of the car and do a quick survey.

The car is now 6 feet from where I started. It's still on top of the wheel with the right rotor on the ground. The jack rolled away from the car into the grass as the Jack stand sat on its side next to the truck and the God damn Chocks were right where I left them on the grass! What a dope!

Thank God it turned out to be nothing worse then a scored driveway but it could have been ugly. After beating myself up for being a total *** I set the chocks, jacked the car up inspected the rotor, control arm and underside of the truck. Then put on the wheel and took it for a ride. All is fine and I dodged a bullet there but I know it could have much worse.
First time I ever did that and it will be the last.

Stay frosty my friends and safe.
Don't be a bone head like me.
 
Had my buddies Torino start to come down on me. Not as scary as your episode but unnerving as ****.
I shot myself with an air nailer today
 
Happens to the best of us. Glad you are ok.

Quick story. When I was 19, I was doing an engine job on a UHaul cube van. 370 Lima engine. That's a truck only engine based of the 460.

Had the engine hoist hooked up. All bolts out. I was standing between the hoist and the grill.

I began to raise the engine. As it broke loose from the transmission, the truck began rolling backwards......because you guessed it, I forgot to chock the wheels.

As the truck continued to roll back, the hoist tipped more and more over........towards me. Had the shop owner not run over and jammed his foot on the brake, I would have been pinned between the hoist and the truck.

I have never come close to repeating that mistake.
 
I warmed up the 383, running fuel from an elevated tank to the carb, to verify dead fuel pump. Fuel pump arrived a few hours later.
Went to change it and forgot a warm motor will always drop the fuel pump push rod on ya. Not nearly as scary. Just annoying.
I know a guy who once bench pressed a mid 70's Chrysler New Yorker accidentally.
He was a bit damaged, but got over it!
 
RustyRatRod said:
Happens to the best of us. Glad you are ok.

Quick story. When I was 19, I was doing an engine job on a UHaul cube van. 370 Lima engine. That's a truck only engine based of the 460.

Had the engine hoist hooked up. All bolts out. I was standing between the hoist and the grill.

I began to raise the engine. As it broke loose from the transmission, the truck began rolling backwards......because you guessed it, I forgot to chock the wheels.

As the truck continued to roll back, the hoist tipped more and more over........towards me. Had the shop owner not run over and jammed his foot on the brake, I would have been pinned between the hoist and the truck.

I have never come close to repeating that mistake.
Click to expand...
Geeze that sounds freightening! You definite dodged one there. You bet I'll Be on top of it from now on.

Thanks for sharing.
 
Darthomas said:
I warmed up the 383, running fuel from an elevated tank to the carb, to verify dead fuel pump. Fuel pump arrived a few hours later.
Went to change it and forgot a warm motor will always drop the fuel pump push rod on ya. Not nearly as scary. Just annoying.
I know a guy who once bench pressed a mid 70's Chrysler New Yorker accidentally.
He was a bit damaged, but got over it!
Click to expand...
Holy crap! I could imagine.
 
We were pulling a motor out of a buddies 69 Barracuda and the car nose was still in the garage. The picker had wheels but it got stuck in the concrete to asphalt joint so we were pulling on it in a left/right manner to get it out of the rut. Well, the motor is now swinging on the boom and the whole thing topples over sending the motor crashing onto the playpen the guys kid was playing in not more than 5 minutes before this. Mom had picked him out to feed him....The motor landed about 10 feet from the car, the guy must have thought a playpen 10 feet from the work zone was safe. That boy is 8 now.
 
Around 2000 not long after "my big wreck" (Still have a pin in my left leg from the knee down to my angle) in early spring I was just good enough to gimp around, certainly not very strong. I had Mom's tractor, a White with a front bucket, trying to get some concrete slabs placed in the "crick." That tractor was notoriously front heavy with the bucket. I had a slab in the bucket, and had eased downhill into the crick.

I shut the tractor off to keep it "corralled" in gear, and got off and round front to see where the slab would be ending up. The bucket was maybe 3-4 ft off the ground. I was in front and to the side of the bucket. The weight tipped the damn thing off the rear wheels just enough to slide, and it turned my way and slid down towards me. Only reason it didn't finish the job was the slab fell out of the bucket, allowing the rear tires to gain some traction again, and stopped it as it was shut down in gear

This is me plowing snow at Mom's most likely the winter before this happened. We DID have some snow that year!!!

SCAN05d.JPG
 
Failure to chock seems to be a theme. Was working on the Wife's 74 LaGuna replacing the center console. I was sitting on the passenger side of the car and had to put it in neutral to get the console over the gear shift. I wasn't even smart enough to set the parking brake....I reached across and turned on the key and pulled the shifter out of park. Yup.... rolled right down the drive way into my Step- Daughter's friends car. That one cost me $ 300 to fix the front end of her Monza
 
pishta said:
We were pulling a motor out of a buddies 69 Barracuda and the car nose was still in the garage. The picker had wheels but it got stuck in the concrete to asphalt joint so we were pulling on it in a left/right manner to get it out of the rut. Well, the motor is now swinging on the boom and the whole thing topples over sending the motor crashing onto the playpen the guys kid was playing in not more than 5 minutes before this. Mom had picked him out to feed him....The motor landed about 10 feet from the car, the guy must have thought a playpen 10 feet from the work zone was safe. That boy is 8 now.
Click to expand...
10 feet seems like a very safe distance! That is chilling! Thank God the playpen was empty.
 
67Dart273 said:
Around 2000 not long after "my big wreck" (Still have a pin in my left leg from the knee down to my angle) in early spring I was just good enough to gimp around, certainly not very strong. I had Mom's tractor, a White with a front bucket, trying to get some concrete slabs placed in the "crick." That tractor was notoriously front heavy with the bucket. I had a slab in the bucket, and had eased downhill into the crick.

I shut the tractor off to keep it "corralled" in gear, and got off and round front to see where the slab would be ending up. The bucket was maybe 3-4 ft off the ground. I was in front and to the side of the bucket. The weight tipped the damn thing off the rear wheels just enough to slide, and it turned my way and slid down towards me. Only reason it didn't finish the job was the slab fell out of the bucket, allowing the rear tires to gain some traction again, and stopped it as it was shut down in gear

This is me plowing snow at Mom's most likely the winter before this happened. We DID have some snow that year!!!

View attachment 1714946605
Click to expand...
Ugh. Close call! In that moment you couldn't have been very mobile and so much crosses ones mind .
 
Back in Time said:
Failure to chock seems to be a theme. Was working on the Wife's 74 LaGuna replacing the center console. I was sitting on the passenger side of the car and had to put it in neutral to get the console over the gear shift. I wasn't even smart enough to set the parking brake....I reached across and turned on the key and pulled the shifter out of park. Yup.... rolled right down the drive way into my Step- Daughter's friends car. That one cost me $ 300 to fix the front end of her Monza
Click to expand...
I'm right there with you. In my case the stinkin parking brake wasn't engaged as well as I had originally thought and my neighbors car was definitely in peril.
 
Been there too! Back when I was around 18, I was replacing the rear brakes on a 1969 Cougar on the street beside my parent's home. The street had a slight slope to it so I blocked up the front wheels to keep it from rolling downhill. I jacked up the car with a scissors Jack and pulled one rear wheel and drum. While straddling the brake backer plate with my feet so I could be comfortable in pulling the shoes, the car rolled uphill enough to roll off the Jack and pin both of my feet under the leaf springs. As the backing plate cut into the hot asphalt road, my feet were getting more crushed. Fortunately my mom, sister and little brother heard me yelling and came out to help. They all grabbed the bumper and lifted it enough for me to pull my feet out. Both feet were flat as pancakes! Thank God that I was still young enough for my bones to be spongy, so none of them had broken. Crutches for a few weeks was all I needed to heal. That was a lesson I never forgot! Always block wheels from rolling both ways!
 
To change a tire on one of these beast we put A frame stand under it. and raised the drive unit via the vertical drive jack screws.
The tires are recapped aircraft rubber on a split heavy aluminum hub.
Sometimes the bearings would get seized on the spindle and you couldn't' get it apart to change the tire.

(Rotate the "horizontal" drive unit 90 degrees in the picture. The red arrow shows the direction of the hub when it let go.)
Many many years ago, the experienced mechanic was on the nitrogen bottle cart.
The idea was to put pressure back in the tire and pop the outer hub bearing loose.
The only problem was instead of leaving the bolts in the rim and backing off the nuts, the bolts had been removed. We should have left them in.
I didn't know how much pressure he was putting in it. I was between the cart and the wheel.
Fortunately I was standing beside it and not in front of it when it let go.
All I saw was white light. The aluminum hub bent a 6 inch I beam and rolled across the ramp.
I turned around and asked if I was missing any body parts.
Another problem was the tires were recapped and they would recap them when they had flat spots down in the core from landing.
I would never stand around them when we were putting pressure in them.
Around 180 PSI IIRC. Not sure. Been a while

View attachment 1714946678

AnimatedJetway.jpg
 
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68gtxman said:
Been there too! Back when I was around 18, I was replacing the rear brakes on a 1969 Cougar on the street beside my parent's home. The street had a slight slope to it so I blocked up the front wheels to keep it from rolling downhill. I jacked up the car with a scissors Jack and pulled one rear wheel and drum. While straddling the brake backer plate with my feet so I could be comfortable in pulling the shoes, the car rolled uphill enough to roll off the Jack and pin both of my feet under the leaf springs. As the backing plate cut into the hot asphalt road, my feet were getting more crushed. Fortunately my mom, sister and little brother heard me yelling and came out to help. They all grabbed the bumper and lifted it enough for me to pull my feet out. Both feet were flat as pancakes! Thank God that I was still young enough for my bones to be spongy, so none of them had broken. Crutches for a few weeks was all I needed to heal. That was a lesson I never forgot! Always block wheels from rolling both ways!
Click to expand...
Flat like Pancakes! WoW! I'm glad to hear you healed.
 
adriver said:
To change a tire on one of these beast we put A frame stand under it. and raised the drive unit via the vertical drive jack screws.
The tires are recapped aircraft rubber on a split heavy aluminum hub.
Sometimes the bearings would get seized on the spindle and you couldn't' get it apart to change the tire.

(Rotate the "horizontal" drive unit 90 degrees in the picture. The red arrow shows the direction of the hub when it let go.)
Many many years ago, the experienced mechanic was on the nitrogen bottle cart.
The idea was to put pressure back in the tire and pop the outer hub bearing loose.
The only problem was instead of leaving the bolts in the rim and backing off the nuts, the bolts had been removed. We should have left them in.
I didn't know how much pressure he was putting in it. I was between the cart and the wheel.
Fortunately I was standing beside it and not in front of it when it let go.
All I saw was white light. The aluminum hub bent a 6 inch I beam and rolled across the ramp.
I turned around and asked if I was missing any body parts.
Another problem was the tires were recapped and they would recap them when they had flat spots down in the core from landing.
I would never stand around them when we were putting pressure in them.
Around 180 PSI IIRC. Not sure. Been a while

View attachment 1714946678

View attachment 1714946679
Click to expand...

Sounds frightening! Geeze
 
Worked at Ziebart rust proofing vehicles. Tim, the owner, was a cheap bastard. Had a very old in the ground hydraulic lift. In order to lift high clearance stuff we had to stand the feet up and put 4×4 blocks on top of them. Lift was in the corner of the building. Had a brand new Comet delivery van. Was a Dodge, pretty red. Don't know the term for it but it looked like the last foot or so of body was an afterthought. Had the van up, spraying. Heard a crack. Took a look around...all looked good. Heard it again, more looking. Few minutes later heard it again but choose to ignore it. Bad move...one of the front blocks split...van started to fall forward...into the corner...which is right where I ran. Bumper ends up spanning both walls...firmly pressed against me...I was the only one there...so I stood and waited. And waited. Customer came in...and freaked..
2 days later I had a short bus on it...bus was about 1500 pounds over the lifts capacity. Would only pick it up about chest high...I was under it on a roll around stool...
 
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