Gladiator wrenching, blood and mishaps.

[Summitsearcher]

Let me guess, the semi-rated jack stands that you forged from the scraps you cut off the ass end of you JT and TIG welded together...

BTW - If you've not checked out this gal's build page you've missed out. The comment will make more sense.

She is well………….,@Kindafearless ?

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[AmishMike]

Well John, glad that you are okay in the end. Scars are souvenirs you never lose.
I have been stitched, stapled, glue, butterflied, splinted, casted etc. but never at the ER; all done at home. The one time I went to the ER, they told me that there was not enough left to stitch to. So they wrapped it and I left. Still have all my fingers, toes, eyes and ears. I am a stickler about eye protection and ear muffs now that I am half deaf.
I had about 2 lbs. of molten lead explode giving me 3rd degree burns on the neck. Burt's Bees green stuff worked miracles on that.
Trying to put a SBC onto the engine stand went poorly once. My brother lost his end and it spun, hooking my right hand and delivering my hand to the concrete under the engine. It wasn't until halfway through the following cigarette that my hand decompressed enough to bleed. Yup, we still had to get the engine on the stand. We got it the second time.
Luckily learned from advice- don't ever put your arm between the tire and fender when changing a tire. Always the sides of the tires just incase it comes down.
Farming makes you learn things too. Like what can go wrong using a hi-lift jack to change a tire on a loaded wagon in the field? EVERYTHING
The big dangerous jobs we tend to plan safety into. It is the quick small jobs that get us- we let our guard down.
I have also learned to look for the 'Biggest Threat' in any situation. Small problems can happen and be dealt with later just make sure the BT doesn't happen.

 

[Summitsearcher]

Amen to that Michael. Any day outside of ER is a good day.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I do it too. I’ve seen jeeps fall off of lifts while doing suspensions. Don’t like things hanging above me.

I've seen so much scary stuff - I'm actually surprised that I have not witnessed a death or massive injury. In each case, no person was hurt but the vehicles did not come out so well......... People just don't think, don't use logic, whatever it is.
I have never had a vehicle even shift on a lift or move while working on it (or while not working on it, even)
The time taken to do it right is greatly outweighed by the cost of fixing something broken due to not taking time - or the tragedy in human health and life that could result from not spending that extra couple of minutes. It makes no sense!
Maybe people remember the early GM front wheel drive cars - Toronado, for example, from the 60s?
Morons would try to load them up on a single post lift like they did any other car...........fools!

My mechanical/tech career spans not only time, but a wide variety of vehicles and equipment. Know the weight distribution of each.
I've replaced king pins on Iowa Power boom trucks (before they were Mid-American Energy), extended the wheel base on big Case tractors (I owned the biggest 2 wheel drive Case made at the time and wanted a longer wheelbase - that involved lifting and supporting that tractor, removing the front axle, building out the frame, and reinstalling the front axle)
I've worked on tractors, boom trucks, back hoes, trenchers, you name it, and have had to support and work under every one of them.
On tractors, I used jack stands I made from steel plate and heavy-walled pipe stock, I used screw jacks that home movers used in the old days to lift houses off foundations, and a trick I used when I had that Case apart for the frame extension - stacks of wood.
I currently have 8 decent jack stands and 2 lighter ones which I use to hold my car hauler off the ground in the winter (to let the tires relax over winter)
I have 3 floor jacks (I used to have 5 but threw 2 away because they didn't hold pressure for more than a few seconds)
And I have a gantry crane that was engineered by a sprint car racer to load and unload his cars off the trailer - it's capable of lifting a car straight up with the right hoist on it.

When I prep for car shows, the car goes up on stands as high as I can get it so I can literally wash and scrub the underside, touch up anything that needs touched up, and repaint the exhaust system. So I'm used to laying under cars up on stands, washing, cleaning, whatever.

If you want to hold something solidly for a longer term on ground that may not be perfectly even - this trick works. It's not going anywhere......... unless the carpenter ants or termites move in->

I beams work well if I'm scrapping a car and need to support it on my trailer - but am unsure of the integrity of the car I'm scrapping -

Not uncommon to have one up on stands to wash and detail the underside - 4 6 ton stands under a 3,300 pounds car, and as I'm paranoid at times, sometimes I'll have additional stands as well, like under the rear axle ->

And sometimes it's nice to minimize the time spent under a car, too. In this case, the whole drivetrain except the rear differential was build on dolliess on the floor, cross members installed, and I simply rolled it all under the car, then let the car down so I could move the hoist to the engine and pull it up to meet the chassis, then simply put the cross member bolts into the frame. I put the drive train - engine, transmission, transfer case, front differential, all in as a unit with one arm in a sling (my left arm, I'm left-handed) the week after having surgery to re-attach my left bicep after ripping it loose from the bone a few days earlier.

Work smarter, not harder.........

 

[XraytecH]

 

[Snake Eyes]

Learned important lessons today. While wrenching on my Gladiator adjusting and dialing in my towing setup, I donated some blood. I was using a huge socket wrench to tighten some nuts before torquing them down. Since I saw in an earlier post about loose caliper bolts I’d check those too.

While doing so, I’ll be damned. That SOB slipped off the bolt and hit me square between the eyes. After stars and some well timed, pain relieving four letter words, I rolled out from underneath. Drip, drip, drip, right off the eyebrow and down my nose. Scared the crap out of my neighbor because head wounds bleed profusely. Small head wound means lots of blood.

Closed it with superglue and I’m good to go. They say Jeep is in your blood, now mine is in and on my Jeep! Lesson: Push away not pull towards. And trim your frickin caterpillar eye brows before taking a picture. Sheesh!

Any other knuckle busters out there?

Installing tonneau cover on Gladiator last month and when I was squiggling out I turned my head sitting up and caught my ear on the metal piece sticking out near the tail gate where the tonneau snaps in at the end. Filleted entire layer of skin off inside which bled like a pig for a while but what really hurt was it bruised all the ear cartilage inside. ear swelled up. Took 3 weeks to heal and made me say “Ow” every time I answered the phone.

 

[Lunentucker]

Nice bolt burn from removing a heated motor mount bolt, installing skids. It bounced off a bracket and made its way inside my overalls.

If you didn't go to a hardware store or Home Depot and ask them to match the threads you missed a great opportunity. ?

 

[WILDHOBO]

If you didn't go to a hardware store or Home Depot and ask them to match the threads you missed a great opportunity. ?

Well crafted. Golf clap.

 

[Free2roam]

Best part of waking up is busting your knuckles on your truck.
Yeah yeah it's a harkening back to an old coffee commercial.
Well when I had my Honda Civic. I had to change out the motor. It always seems to happen not when I'm near the end or even in the middle of working on something.
It's that first fucking bolt or nut because I'm excited to get working on something. Ripped the back side of my middle knuckle just about clean off.
Lucky for me the grease that went into the hole stopped the bleeding.
Well it ain't gonna fix itself. Keep on wrenching ya dumbass!
As far as burns go. @Kindafearless I was stick welding overhead. Multipass structural weld. Got a little to hot and dripped into my pocket down under my coveralls. Through my pants and down into my boot. Nice little red streak all the way down. I looked like a dancing clown. Ya can't never get clothes off fast enough when that shit happens.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

HAHA - love Monty Python movies. That was great. They were so absurd.

 

[Kindafearless]

Best part of waking up is busting your knuckles on your truck.
Yeah yeah it's a harkening back to an old coffee commercial.
Well when I had my Honda Civic. I had to change out the motor. It always seems to happen not when I'm near the end or even in the middle of working on something.
It's that first fucking bolt or nut because I'm excited to get working on something. Ripped the back side of my middle knuckle just about clean off.
Lucky for me the grease that went into the hole stopped the bleeding.
Well it ain't gonna fix itself. Keep on wrenching ya dumbass!
As far as burns go. @Kindafearless I was stick welding overhead. Multipass structural weld. Got a little to hot and dripped into my pocket down under my coveralls. Through my pants and down into my boot. Nice little red streak all the way down. I looked like a dancing clown. Ya can't never get clothes off fast enough when that shit happens.

Ouch, ya, I’m scared of that stuff now. Bought the thickest welding blanket I could find!

 

[Michael Oakley]

Learned important lessons today. While wrenching on my Gladiator adjusting and dialing in my towing setup, I donated some blood. I was using a huge socket wrench to tighten some nuts before torquing them down. Since I saw in an earlier post about loose caliper bolts I’d check those too.

While doing so, I’ll be damned. That SOB slipped off the bolt and hit me square between the eyes. After stars and some well timed, pain relieving four letter words, I rolled out from underneath. Drip, drip, drip, right off the eyebrow and down my nose. Scared the crap out of my neighbor because head wounds bleed profusely. Small head wound means lots of blood.

Closed it with superglue and I’m good to go. They say Jeep is in your blood, now mine is in and on my Jeep! Lesson: Push away not pull towards. And trim your frickin caterpillar eye brows before taking a picture. Sheesh!

Any other knuckle busters out there?

My moto “No job is done til it’s bled on”. I have bled on lots of jobs, automotive and carpentry especially.

 

[CPTRU1114]

Learned important lessons today. While wrenching on my Gladiator adjusting and dialing in my towing setup, I donated some blood. I was using a huge socket wrench to tighten some nuts before torquing them down. Since I saw in an earlier post about loose caliper bolts I’d check those too.

While doing so, I’ll be damned. That SOB slipped off the bolt and hit me square between the eyes. After stars and some well timed, pain relieving four letter words, I rolled out from underneath. Drip, drip, drip, right off the eyebrow and down my nose. Scared the crap out of my neighbor because head wounds bleed profusely. Small head wound means lots of blood.

Closed it with superglue and I’m good to go. They say Jeep is in your blood, now mine is in and on my Jeep! Lesson: Push away not pull towards. And trim your frickin caterpillar eye brows before taking a picture. Sheesh!

Any other knuckle busters out there?

I did the same exactly thing. Felt like I almost knocked myself out also.

 

[KX L]

Split the top of my head wide open [about a 3 inch split] when I was a kid so of course the blood coming out was crazy. My mom ran me over to an old retired doctor around the corner and he stitched me up with fishing line.....just to piss off my plastic surgeon father.

Dad thought it was hilarious.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Split the top of my head wide open [about a 3 inch split] when I was a kid so of course the blood coming out was crazy. My mom ran me over to an old retired doctor around the corner and he stitched me up with fishing line.....just to piss off my plastic surgeon father.

Dad thought it was hilarious.

The algae on the line could have had medicinal effects

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