When you appreciate safety equipment......

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Abodybomber

Abodybomber

Breaking street machines , since 1983.....:)
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Something different... Share the situations, where stuff breaks...

Situation number one : 1983... A '67 Camaro, small block / Muncie setup. A buddy drops the clutch at 3500, the McLeod clutch pops a pressure plate bolt off, inside the scatter shield..Sounds like a shot gun , going off....
Situation number two... Rat motor El Camino,new 12 bolt 4:10 gear setup, first pass..
Installed new rear end, along with sticky Sportsman Pro wrinkle walls...( and a late evening trip ,to the parts house..for a conversion 1310-1330 u joint...) OOPS.... First pass on a freeway on ramp...BOOM!!!!! U joint splinters, drive shaft rope a dopes and launches itself, rearward.. Thank God ,... I had enough common sense, to install a drive shaft loop...
Share your own, personal tortures.....
 
Not a car but.....first new street bike. Even back then I knew to not get behind heavy trucks with dual wheels....just never know what may be wedged between them. Had bike and brand new helmet for a week. Driving down a 2 lane road, approaching a cement mixer. Was hanging back a bit...just about to enter a passing area....rock about the size of a softball got launched....cracked my brand new Bell helmet...gave me a concussion....
 
Good brakes saved the life of a motorcyclist who dumped his bike in front of my car as we were launching. He was a bit quicker than me, so he got ahead, wobbled, dumped it, and the bike and the rider came to a stop in front of my Dart. I was running skinny fronts and slicks on the rear. Barely stopped in time.
 
i was 17
my car didnt pass inspection, so i decided to ride one of my dirtbikes to work
i always wear a helmet
always

i approached an intersection where i had the right of way and crossed it
i musta hit that VW eurovan at about 50 miles per hour

hard enough to knock a contact lens out of my eye
i broke my skull in 3 different places and snapped my femur in half

that was WHILE wearing a helmet

it took me two days to wake up from that hit, six months to learn how to walk again

im pretty sure that helmet made the difference between being here today, and having been an organ donor
 
73AbodEE said:
I have a friend , had one blow apart , took one of his eyes out, literally
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People have been killed by those things and even though I had done them without a cage the place I worked had one and a real long air chuck so you didn't have to put any part of you in the cage with it.
I have never had one come loose even when I put them in the cage, because if you pay attention to how the ring is centered and where it's ends are you pretty much got it.
Still always squatted down low beside them airing them up though. :D
 
diymirage said:
i was 17
my car didnt pass inspection, so i decided to ride one of my dirtbikes to work
i always wear a helmet
always

i approached an intersection where i had the right of way and crossed it
i musta hit that VW eurovan at about 50 miles per hour

hard enough to knock a contact lens out of my eye
i broke my skull in 3 different places and snapped my femur in half

that was WHILE wearing a helmet

it took me two days to wake up from that hit, six months to learn how to walk again

im pretty sure that helmet made the difference between being here today, and having been an organ donor
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Damn man, you are lucky to be here.
 
no kidding, months later i talked to the first officer on scene (it was a small town, and being 17, we had met before)
she mentioned her first assessment of the situation was i was dead
with the broken femur i close to bled out into myself too, they transfused over 2 quarts of blood into me

(i think i posted this picture before, but this is the bike i was on)

bike.jpg
 
diymirage said:
no kidding, months later i talked to the first officer on scene (it was a small town, and being 17, we had met before)
she mentioned her first assessment of the situation was i was dead
with the broken femur i close to bled out into myself too, they transfused over 2 quarts of blood into me

(i think i posted this picture before, but this is the bike i was on)
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Yea, I remember that.
 
When you lose a BME aluminum rod thru the pan, at the top end of the track and the engine Diaper you put on your engine catches 8 qts of oil rather than your Slicks!
 
Did a head stand on the trunk of a 1991 Cutlass after rearending it on my first motorcycle. I distinctly felt the sides of the helmet digging into my shoulders, thinking "that's it. I'm either paralyzed or dead"

Ended up neither thanks to that helmet.
 
I think I was 15 and was doing an engine job on an old 70s U Haul with a 391 heavy duty FE truck engine. 4 speed, of course. Had the engine hoist in front with everything disconnected and jacking the engine up. I was between the hoist and the front end of the truck.

In my infinite wisdom and total inexperience, I forgot to chock the wheels or apply the parking brake.......shifter in reverse in the NP435. Soon as the engine breaks loose from the transmission, the truck starts rolling slowly backwards........pulling the engine hoist at an angle and trapping me between the hoist and front end of the truck. Luckily, one of my coworkers came running over and jumped in and stopped the truck.

No, I never made that mistake again.
 
TrailBeast said:
Tire cage for split rims.
Need I say more?
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We didn't have a tire cage in my day. We would put the split rim under the hoist and lower the hoist to where it barely touched the rim. We would stand on one of the hoist arms and inflate the inner tube until the split ring seated the assembly.
 
Spent ~$750 on a helmet for my street plated dirt bike (xr650r). Parents and friends etc said I was crazy for spending that on a helmet.

Four months later cruising home from work on the fwy, a gas tanker decided he needed my lane more than I did. Takes me out, oversize plastic tank on bike lets go, spraying me with gas and the sparks lit me. Witnesses report seeing "a fireball then a guy on fire doing somersaults"...the helmet was a street/dirt hybrid and as such had a closable face shield like a typical street bike full face helmet. That kept the fire off my face and likely outta my lungs. My goatee was about an inch shorter and ends were singed. Impacted hard enough to crack the helmet and it has scorches/sooty residue all over it.

I was knocked out for most of it, but I can't complain-my brain isn't any more scrambled than it was before! Suddenly that high dollar helmet was some of the best money I ever spent.

Normally I'm really good about wearing leather jacket but it was 100+ out that day. So now I have second degree burn scars up both arms. Ankles, stomach, left hamstring/butt cheek got sprayed with gas and torched pretty bad too. (28% burns, split about 50/50 between 2nd and 3rd degree) I can assure you all fire protection is well worth the money and hot layers of clothing-burns REALLY SUCK.
Same bike in pics, literally 48 hours apart....
And a shot of my arm in ER that night.
Stay safe people!

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At work, I have a sarcastic motto: " Safety is for ****."
Okay, it is a joke but hear me out: CAL-OSHA is an organization that imposes some of the most intrusive safety regulations in the entire country. I'll bet that NONE of the people that devise these procedures and equipment ever will have to be subjected to it. This is on par with Politicians that pass tough laws that they never have to abide by. **** that. I am all about the matter of "Reasonable risk". If it is windy as can be and I am working up high, sure... a safety harness makes sense. Otherwise, a guardrail or proper scaffold works well and does not intrude into my ability to do the work. A smart guy with reasonable skills will know what feels safe and what does not. Intrusive safety regulations are like any other Government program: Take the brain out of the equation. Again, **** that. A smart guy with NO safety equipment is far safer than an idiot in a plastic bubble.
In construction, there are accidents that happen mostly because of mistakes made. It rarely is due to weather or equipment. In 20 years of construction, the only time I heard of people falling and getting hurt were drunks or new guys. Once we started wearing harnesses, guys tripped over the ropes often, (Sometimes falling on the roof, not to the ground) they worked slower, took more breaks due to the increased heat from a tight harness....
I do agree with many of the guidelines. Power cords should be grounded. Saws should have operational blade guards. Eye protection should be used as well as ear plugs.
 
WE occasionally have the OSHA guys drop by. I never worry about my tools being in compliance because I am not a drugged out tweeker using worn out stuff. The problem arises when a NEW regulation is put in place that makes no practical sense. You can buy a new 8 foot step ladder and takeoff all the stickers the factory placed on it....THEN get told the ladder is not compliant for use simply because it lacks the proper stickers. Anyone with a printer can copy and put stickers on a 20 year old ladder and they'd just walk right past it without a problem.
 
Even more....
It used to be that we could work in shorts and without a shirt. THEN the housing market took a **** and the only work our company could get was Commercial work funded by the government. Government work carries a huge amount of conditions and restrictions that do nothing to improve the conditions for either the company or the employees. Boots, pants, hard hats, high visibility shirts, etc.
Reflective Safety Vests:
I understand the need for employees to be visible so they do not get hurt by Forklifts, cranes, trucks, etc. We used to be required to wear the "ugly as hell" green or orange shirts for high visibility. Okay... that is fine. NO chance of me wearing this ugly **** after work or on my days off so they did last longer.
THEN they started requiring that we wear the reflective vests too. Try wearing MORE layers of clothes when it is already 90, 95 or 100 degrees out. Again, the fuckface jerkoffs in the air conditioned offices of CAL-OSHA make the rules that they will never have to live with. Some companies banned their employees from putting any stickers on their hardhats, claiming that stickers could hide cracks. In reality, these companies were reacting to complaints from some employees about the political content of the stickers.
 
Kern Dog said:
Even more....
THEN they started requiring that we wear the reflective vests too. Try wearing MORE layers of clothes when it is already 90, 95 or 100 degrees out. Again, the fuckface jerkoffs in the air conditioned offices of CAL-OSHA make the rules that they will never have to live with. Some companies banned their employees from putting any stickers on their hardhats, claiming that stickers could hide cracks. In reality, these companies were reacting to complaints from some employees about the political content of the stickers.
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I totally get that-I'm close by in Rocklin and coach at Granite Bay, way hot out here in summers to be wearing extra BS for the bean counters sitting in air conditioned cubicle hell!
 
safety equipment is nothing to take lightly. ESPECIALLY if you are taking on a inherently risky activity such as racing, which adds even MORE of a risk of death or injury. good safety equipment isnt expensive, its PRICELESS. this is my experience with not only having good safety equipment, but using it.
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wow< some bad stuff here . I had a front u joint fail when I let off the gas , crossing the finish line back in the day. The driveshaft loop did nothing, the shaft came out in about one foot pieces, tore up the trans, and cut the 14 w x 32 slick on the right rear. With 7 pounds of air in the left slick, and 48 pounds in the front skinneys, the ride got pretty hairy before it stopped. When it was side ways for about the third time, I thot GOD, I`m going over, it was like a big hand came and set the car straight! I stomped the brakes and locked everything up. One of the few times , I got even for all the Chevrolets blowing up and shutting our piss poor run track (back then) down for an hour and a half. True story !!
 
Building trains. I was interior assembly lead on B-car for the Houston Metro project at CAF. Most of my guys used to ***** about the bump caps we had to wear. I admit, I wasn't too fond of them, especially on a 100 degree day with no air movement in the train.

We'd have to install hand rail brackets in the ceiling profiles (long pieces of aluminum channel that everything on the ceiling attached to) with one near the rear of the car that hung down about six inches.

We'd work on ladders installing the ceiling panels and this bracket would be right near our heads.

Cracked my head off it, hard, several times. Just about everyone of my guys did, too.

The first I did, I stopped bitching about the bump caps. When a new guy would ***** I would just smile and tell him to wait.

Soon afterwards he'd slam his head off that bracket.

I don't know how many skulls those caps saved from getting split. I know I hit that bracket hard enough a couple of times that I saw stars. Tells me the damned thing would have been in my skull.
 
I was helping a couple of friends in the pits...they were road racing a Honda CBR600F2. Ex wife was the time keeper....she was the first to know when something wasn't right. Lisa showed me the stop watch...Joe was 10 seconds off of his usual lap times. Soon as I reached for the binoculars the announcer stated track is under red flag...roll the ambulances. Dale, Joes teammate, told me to wait by the pit...few minutes later here comes the track pickup with the bike. All the fairings are gone, clip on handlebars are gone, no throttle, front brake master cylinder gone. Foot pegs bent, carbs are dislodged, hanging off the air filter box. Dale tells me to get busy. Half hour later here comes the ambulance. Side door opens up, there stands Joe. Joe was a 20 year clean and sober drug addict/drunk. He looked like he was on the tail end of a week long drunk. Eyes were glassed over, slurring his words. We help him to a lawn chairs under the shade canopy...it was mid-August in Phoenix so it was like an inferno. Lisa is tending to Joe, Dale is runningredients the pits, looking for parts. Hour later, Joe is back on what's left of the bike. Took a full quarter-mile of 2 of us pushing the bike to get it running.
Two guys got tangled up and went down in front of Joe, soaking the track with fluids. Happened in the fastest section of the track. Joe was just shy of the chip in 6th gear, was about 135mph. Had just passed the safety crew member that was in the process of red flagging the track. Was starting to bank over for the slight bend in the track when he came up on the wreck. He didn't remember a thing. Thanks to the armored one piece leathers and his high dollar Shoei helmet he walked away from a wild crash.
Seen several wild crashes there. Only injury I saw in the 12 or so events I attended that required a ride to the ER was a low speed (30mph) crash that happened right in front of me. Young guy from Australia. Was coming into the tower turn. Misjudged the entry and hit the guard rail. The tower turn was where the staging lanes dumped onto the burn out box (Firebird Raceway). Ended up high siding...he exited the bike...in doing so heasy got tangled up in the front brake line...
 
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