Thread: Be careful with springs!!!!

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I watched an apprentice at our shop almost lose his head!

He was using the spring compressor and dropped it. Damn thing went off like a grenade.

I agree. I have part of my rt thumb missing due to a spring compressor leaving go......not fun.
Don

agreed one of the most dangerous things I have even worked with other than a large oxygen tank falling over and knockin the valve off the top and rocketing across the shop floor and up the wall out the roof. I just renamed my newest project mustang project fingerless due to the miss hap I had two weeks ago when I was removing the 170k original stock springs and they would come out and unexpectadly one did and got the tip of my index finger...not fun stuff. All I can say is safety chains please

I have seen two men in the ER with hand injuries from taking springs out. Both were fortunate. It can be very dangerous.

Perhaps a real common thing in the ER is coolant burns which have occurred to people who have not learned to leave boiling radiators alone. These burns are not life threatening but they can be very painful and nasty.

Like that, when we were kids, my cousin was trying to impress the pretty girl down the street with his mechanical prowess by working on her mother's 56 Buick Special. He had the car up on bumper jack supported by a concrete block. The block spontaneously shattered and the car fell on top of him. I helped pull him out from under the car and rode with him in the ambulance to the hospital about 20 miles away. After we arrived and he was coherent, the first question he asked me was, "How fast did we go in the ambulance?" Are we not rednecks here or what? HA! He did well medically but girl-wise the adventure was a flop.

Proabably one of the more unusual things I have seen in the ER was a fellow who was standing beside the engine and revved it. A portion of a fan blade broke and flew off. It cut through his collar bone and dropped a lung. To my memory it also cut completely through the mandible in his jaw. He spen some time in surgery but all-in-all was very fortunate.

Well, I'd better stop. At home, when I start an "I remember..." stories our teenage boys usually draw a blank expression, yawn and start shaking their watches. You all are probably on the next thread by now. But you know that does remind me of the time when..... Ha!!

Rick

If your not a little nervous (and very careful) changing coil springs, inflating split rims, repairing gas tanks etc you are not doing it right!!!!!!

Have a SAFE New Year everyone