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diesel4me

diesel4me

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Sitting here on a boring cloudy Sunday that started off with enough rain to spoil outdoor activities ,listening to my police scanner,and I heard a call come in for a "person trapped under a car" on a nearby street about a mile away..:eek:

Guy was working on his car evidently,he called for help himself..
Naturally the PD and Fire Dept.were notified and they raced to the scene..

They determined his legs were pinned under the car,but luckily they were not crushed badly,just pinched enough not to let the guy get free..

They used an air bag to get the car off him,and last I heard the guy was walking unassisted,but was going to be taken to the ER by ambulance to get checked out in case of a blood clot,etc..he was freed within a few minutes after the Firemen came.

They didn't give many details ,but I heard them say the jack tipped over and there was jack stands under the car,but it appears they were knocked over as the car came off the jack--luckily they just tall enough lying on their side to have prevented the whole weight of the car from crushing his legs..good thing his cell phone was within reach!..

I am guilty of doing many things like changing tires or replacing brake pads and just rely on the jack alone ,and keep myself clear of anything I could get crushed under like the rotors or brake drums..

I have a healthy fear of being under a jacked up vehicle,especially a 3 ton truck that can make a jacks wheels sink into the hot asphalt slowly,and let it tilt enough to let the vehicle come off or slide sideways..after seeing a guy dead under a car that fell on him at a body shop decades ago,that picture in my mind sticks with me..I am not crazy about working under a vehicle on a lift either,but it is better than lying under one..

I try to do as much under my truck as possible without jacking it up or using ramps to reduce the possibility of being trapped under it..the higher ground clearance of a 4x4 lets you do a lot without having to jack it up,but on cars and low riding SUV's you don't have much choice but to jack it up..
Bottom line--put something under the vehicle so if the jack fails and the jack stands dont end up being effective,you wont get crushed..I used few spare tires on rims as a "safety" at the junkyard..
 
I’ve been under a car before when everything went wrong. Had wood blocks under there

K5 came of the hilift once dropping the drum on the dirt. That’s some scary stuff there
 
way way back in my early days of wrenching when i was learning how to use a 2 post lift i nose dived a ford ranger off the front . i didnt take in to account the extra weight up front of the snow plow on it . it was like slow motion nooooooooooooo :eek1::eek::eek::eek:

after this i always check my pads for full contact and after i am no more than 6" off the ground with the tires i bounce test it to see if it wants to tip off . i also use a tripod jack stand if there real long and have a WARNING note i hang on the dump lever so i dont forget the tripod stand .
 
Each tire that I take off goes back under the truck on the ground and under the frame. One time I was just finishing up an axle swap with a friend who just happened to drop by. Kind of jokingly I told him just let me put the tire back on before we have an earthquake. Wouldn’t you know it, no more than five minutes after the tire was on we had a minor quake, just over 4.0, large enough that I would’ve been very uncomfortable had I been under it on jack stands.
 
About 10 years ago i was using an angle grinder to cut up a truck bed i was going to take to the scrap yard when the disc exploded and cut through the left side of my chin, just missing nerves and bone. Happened so quick, didnt even feel it, but blood was everywhere and you could see my jaw bone. After all the stitches i have a scar to show for it and always sport a beard as a result. I was very lucky.
 
I pulled a 1" wire out of my beard in night school once from a wire cup wheel on a grinder. I always wear glasses but the car I was restoring I must have been in a hurry or didn't have a face shield. That sucker was really in there n I didn't find it for 3-4 hours even after a shower.
 
SpeedlabDan said:
I pulled a 1" wire out of my beard in night school once from a wire cup wheel on a grinder. I always wear glasses but the car I was restoring I must have been in a hurry or didn't have a face shield. That sucker was really in there n I didn't find it for 3-4 hours even after a shower.
Click to expand...

That would’ve been funny if you tried going through airport security. :haha:
 
I've found wire bristles from a wire wheel sticking out of me in the cheat and belly button area 1-2 days after using the brush on a 9" grinder...a few were in me a good 3/4" !..had to use pliers to extract them,tweezers didn't grip tight enough..

I also had metal shards from a wheel bearing that blew apart I was pressing off at work end up sticking in me next to my belly button and didn't feel a thing until a day later,it felt like a piece of glass was stuck under the skin..I dug out several shards about 1/4" long that came from the outer race of the bearing..I wore goggles,but I seem to have metal somehow find its way under them or face shields--I have had metal get behind my glasses or safety glasses and bounce off the lens and go right in my eye too!..

I got metal in my eyes twice using the press too,to remove u-joints,the cap on one shattered and I had to go right to an optometrist,he had to put drops in my eye to "freeze" it,then dig out the metal bits with a needle..he said I was lucky that none went in the retina,and he was right down the street--just putting off getting that done a few hours could have blinded me..

I had a severe migraine for 2 days after,couldn't work,had to hide in a dark room till the eye healed up enough to remove the patch..

One day about 6 months ago I decided to get my '85 Suburban started,as I'd let it sit all winter--took me a long time to finally get it started,and as I was standing in front of it looking around under the hood looking for any leaks,etc,I noticed the wire for the low coolant sensor was dangling very close to the fan blade,and was about to get cut up..

I tried reaching out to pull it away,and my crappy depth perception made my hand get too close and "BRRRRRIIIING"--my hand glanced off the spinning fan blades,:yikes: and I thought sure my next sight would be blood splattered everywhere and a stub where my fingers used to be!..by some grace of God though,the fan didn't even break the skin,but it felt like all my fingers had been hit with a hammer for several days..one turned black & blue..

About a year ago I got my left hand index finger burnt by a glowing wire that had shorted out--to this day the skin on that finger is still hard as a rock,it has never scabbed up or had the skin come off ..
 
If you're under something heavy with a hydraulic device supporting it, and it falls...that's just Darwinism at work. The chances of mechanical supports failing enough to crush you under a vehicle are extremely small, assuming you're not doing stupid stuff. Using proper sized and placed jackstands, you'd have to have at least a pair of them fail at the same time to get pinned underneath.

Yeah, we've all "heard of" someone getting killed like this, but the actual reports are what?? A handful over the past 50 years? Compared to the billions of times people have been under cars without incident.....

If it's my time, it's my time. I'm not living in fear because a bunch of people do stupid shit every day, lol.
 
My truck is lifted up high enough that even if it fell of the jack stands onto its drums or rotors it would still be up in the air high enough for me not to get crushed, unless I was under one of the axles.
 
Anyways, back to working underneath cars etc.:

In addition to using jackstands, i always put at least one rim(s) on it's side underneath the work----this way if the jacks and jackstands fail, you might still get trapped, but you won't get flattened into a piece of paper. Someone will eventually hear you/you can use your phone.....
 
On the cut off wheels,go to harbor freight and get a roter control ,,it let you set the speed on on any 120 vote drill or cut off grinder a must if you put a wire wheel on it ,just what I found the hard way.
 
Moody Bricker said:
On the cut off wheels,go to harbor freight and get a roter control ,,it let you set the speed on on any 120 vote drill or cut off grinder a must if you put a wire wheel on it ,just what I found the hard way.
Click to expand...

If you were running the HF wire wheels, that's the problem. They're not crimped correctly, and they use a steel that's too soft, so the wires go flying out.

I've run all of my wire wheels on 4.5 angle grinders, full speed, and never have had an issue, but my wheels are made in place like USA, Germany, Italy, etc. Yes, they cost a bunch more, but they last FAR longer than HF stuff, and continue cutting until they're about gone.

I get a month or two out of HF wire wheels, if I'm lucky. I'm going on two years with my last German made wire wheel....
 
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