Your injuries while working on Charger

[Charger_Croatia]

We have better weather here and I had a chance to do some cutting of rusty metal. During that, I lost my attention for a while and cut my thumb pretty bad. It will be fine but I can't use it for a week at least.
I'm just curious about others. Anyone?

[AKcharger]

A bizarre yet interesting post

[tan top]

cuts on my hands ,fingers,arms. smashed knuckles .mig splatters ( molten metal droplets)  arms ,legs,hands, back, chest, ear and head. rust & metal particles embedded in elbows, knees & eyes. strained back a few times . car paint ,thinners, paint stripper, wd40, carb cleaner in the eyes .  all of this buy working on my charger on and off for almost 20 years.   wearing the proper safety equipment as well , does not make sence i know   but only a few small cuts  / grazed knuckles and splashes with thinners doing my day job  being a mechanic/ body & paint guy for 20 years

[4402tuff4u]

burns from welding and the splatter from the mig. Hate it when weld splatter finds it way down your work boot!! It hurts for a couple of seconds until your flesh cools the particle enough to stop the burning. 

[TruckDriver]

Lotta of small cuts and bruises. Pretty much a given for me every time I work on any car.

[andy74]

i broke my hand once,pulling front seats out and the bolts were frozen with rust,damn thing broke and my hand smacked the door frame-broke 3 knuckles and 2 bones in my hand,that really sucked

[hemihead]

I was seriously injured once but not on a Mopar at all.I was putting a 351W engine in an 82 T-Bird and it fell on my head.I crushed C2,3,4,5 and part of 6 in my neck.I was in a Halo for 6 months and the DR. was amazed I wasn't dead or at least paralyzed.I am an inch shorter now. 

[tan top]

I was seriously injured once but not on a Mopar at all.I was putting a 351W engine in an 82 T-Bird and it fell on my head.I crushed C2,3,4,5 and part of 6 in my neck.I was in a Halo for 6 months and the DR. was amazed I wasn't dead or at least paralyzed.I am an inch shorter now.

 
                 damn  ( hemihead) you was lucky .that does doesn't bare thinking about you are ok now though ,
               

[Charger_Croatia]

I was seriously injured once but not on a Mopar at all.I was putting a 351W engine in an 82 T-Bird and it fell on my head.I crushed C2,3,4,5 and part of 6 in my neck.I was in a Halo for 6 months and the DR. was amazed I wasn't dead or at least paralyzed.I am an inch shorter now. 

Huh, that was serious. I hope you're OK now.

[greenpigs]

   Numerous smashed fingers and more cuts than I can remember. The car requires BLOOD before it will start each year also...its true. The worse was when I was replacing the trunk floor and cut my hand..no stitches but a couple scars.

[is_it_EVER_done?]

You forgot to add the "ALL OF THE ABOVE" vote! These cars are like women, -- bloodthirsty, vicious, and insanely expensive. All while maintaining an overpowering desirability.

[PocketThunder]

You forgot to add the "ALL OF THE ABOVE" vote! These cars are like women, -- bloodthirsty, vicious, and insanely expensive. All while maintaining an overpowering desirability.

You forgot Jealous.

[Mrfixit]

So far nothing major, mostly flesh wounds.  An updated tetnis shot might be in order.  But like a lot of things, your own blood, sweat, and tears makes it worth while.( i keep telling myself that)

[BigBlackDodge]

My car demands blood sacrifice for each minor repair.............................................lets not talk about major work!


BBD

[RECHRGD]

The usual scraped knuckles and such.  This weekends injury was from a single sided razor blade (w/ cardboard cover) that I keep in the door panel pocket to scrap the numbers off the windows when I go to the drags.  I stuck my hand down there looking for my tire guage and sliced right through my middle fingers nail right into the meat.  Lot's of blood and good fun showing people which finger sustained the injury.  Bob

[73dodge]

Bought a pair of mechanics gloves a while back

Best damn $10.00 I ever spent in my life, you won't believe how grateful you will be the first time your hand slips trying to get a rusted bolt off and instead of smashing a knukle and tearing the skin off you just get a small bump and no blood and man it's nice man handling a piece of rusted jagged metal without ripping your palm open on it.

But they are not perfect I've gone through 2 pairs already because they get beat up pretty bad but better a tore up mechanics glove than a tore up hand i say

[TruckDriver]

Lotta of small cuts and bruises. Pretty much a given for me every time I work on any car.

Ha! I had to quote my self here. Today in fact I sliced my left hand "bird" finger while using a new razor blade to cut off the old tape from the engine wiring harness. I didn't even notice til I started seeing blood on the wires. Only about a quarter inch long and not that deep. But it hurts a little cause it's right along my finger nail.

[Old Moparz]

Had a cheap wrench snap while I was trying to loosen a rusted bolt on a shock absorber that was probably in place since 1969. Smashed my knuckes on the leaf spring, & came out with every four letter word I could think of. Lots of blood & missing skin, but no stitches. I took the car to a repair shop to have the new shocks put on. 

Never crushed my head.

[hemihead]

Thanks guys, I'm ok now except stiff all the time and a little pain when it rains.
   I have worn gloves working on cars the last about 13 years and is the best thing I've ever done.Now they just get bruised instead of cut and bruised.

[253862656971]

I came this close to being smashed by my Charger.  I had the rear up on jackstands and was just crawling out when it slipped off (didn't block the wheel duh!).  Had I been about 2 feet farther under it I would most likely not be here today.  Other than that the worst thing I did was whack myself in the head with a cheater pipe.  I was taking the bolts off the exhaust flange and they were rusted and heated TIGHT.  I had about a 3 foot cheater on the wrench pulling for all I was worth when the bolt finally broke.  The pipe came up and hit me in the forehead.  I was on the verge of blacking out but it never happened.  I had a lump shaped like half a golf ball on my head. 

The worst accident I've heard of happend about a year ago to a kid I know.  He as working on his chevelle when it slipped off the jack stands and crushed him.  He would've been a Junior in high school this year.  His brother and I had several classes together and I was a TA in one of the kid's classes.

Bad things can happen so you gotta be careful.

[The Ghoul]

Worst I hurt my self while working on the charger was shooting my self in the eye with PB blaster (pennatrating oil). It stung for a week.

I think the worst I hurt my self over-all working on any car was the day I learned that torque converters are heavy!!
I was swapping transmissions and my dad told me to take the TC off before I lower the trans all the way down. I asked him how heavy they were and he said 'starter heavy'. So, I slid it off the input shaft of the trans with one hand. It instenty pinned my hand to the concreet. I was almost sure that I broke it.

[ChgrSteve67]

Few smashed toes, Lots of smashed knuckles, many layers of skin lost, to many burns to count (Damn Shop Light).

Thankfully with all of the crazy crap I've done while working on cars there has been no injuries requiring the medics.

[Crazy Larry]

Bought a pair of mechanics gloves a while back

Best damn $10.00 I ever spent in my life, you won't believe how grateful you will be the first time your hand slips trying to get a rusted bolt off and instead of smashing a knukle and tearing the skin off you just get a small bump and no blood and man it's nice man handling a piece of rusted jagged metal without ripping your palm open on it.

But they are not perfect I've gone through 2 pairs already because they get beat up pretty bad but better a tore up mechanics glove than a tore up hand i say

absolutley agree with this one - those gloves have saved my hands and fingers many times - especially in the engine rooms of my ship back in the military.

[SeattleCharger]

A bizarre yet interesting post

    lol

[Slowpoke]

Only the normal blood sacrfices for the charger but like Hemihead my worse was with a Ford 351cleveland,
I managed to tin a freshly rebuilt one in to my lap, yes it was on one of those 3 point engine stands.
Luckly I was near the walll and just slowly sild down to the floor so nothing was really damaged but it sure didnt feel good .

[The Ghoul]

Bought a pair of mechanics gloves a while back

Best damn $10.00 I ever spent in my life, you won't believe how grateful you will be the first time your hand slips trying to get a rusted bolt off and instead of smashing a knukle and tearing the skin off you just get a small bump and no blood and man it's nice man handling a piece of rusted jagged metal without ripping your palm open on it.

But they are not perfect I've gone through 2 pairs already because they get beat up pretty bad but better a tore up mechanics glove than a tore up hand i say

absolutley agree with this one - those gloves have saved my hands and fingers many times - especially in the engine rooms of my ship back in the military.

I tried the mechanics gloves for a bit but realized I cant feel around that well, and they get nasty grubby quick.
What I do, and its been working out great, Is for $5 you can get a box of 100 letex gloves.
I love this because they cut way down on the little nicks, scratches, and cuts you normaly get. You can feel what your working on. and when your all done working on what ever, you just take em off and toss them... they cut way down on after-shop clean up.  Plus they are very handy to have around for the times where you dont want to get any thing on your hands (like por 15!).
you also dont have to buy hand cleaner any more with them

[Charger_Croatia]

Bought a pair of mechanics gloves a while back

Best damn $10.00 I ever spent in my life, you won't believe how grateful you will be the first time your hand slips trying to get a rusted bolt off and instead of smashing a knukle and tearing the skin off you just get a small bump and no blood and man it's nice man handling a piece of rusted jagged metal without ripping your palm open on it.

But they are not perfect I've gone through 2 pairs already because they get beat up pretty bad but better a tore up mechanics glove than a tore up hand i say

absolutley agree with this one - those gloves have saved my hands and fingers many times - especially in the engine rooms of my ship back in the military.

I tried the mechanics gloves for a bit but realized I cant feel around that well, and they get nasty grubby quick.
What I do, and its been working out great, Is for $5 you can get a box of 100 letex gloves.
I love this because they cut way down on the little nicks, scratches, and cuts you normaly get. You can feel what your working on. and when your all done working on what ever, you just take em off and toss them... they cut way down on after-shop clean up.  Plus they are very handy to have around for the times where you dont want to get any thing on your hands (like por 15!).
you also dont have to buy hand cleaner any more with them

I agree with you about "feeling thing" with standard mechanic gloves.
And I will try to use that cheap latex gloves, good idea. 

[resq302]

A couple years ago I was replacing the rear leaf springs on my 69 charger and has having difficulty getting them out of the rear shackles.  They were already disconnected from the front perch and the rear axle so I was trying to wiggle it out of the rubber bushing and all of a sudden it let loose.  My right thumb got sandwiched between the sharp edge of the quarter panel and the leaf spring.  Needless to say, it cut through my thumb nail, through the skin pretty deeply, and I now have a nice diagonal scar from the nail bed to my nuckle.  I think if it wasn't for my thumb nail, it would probably have went down to the bone.  Let me just say, I have never seen blood gush like that before.  Also probably the first time I almost passed out as everything started going white.

[SeattleCharger]

Bought a pair of mechanics gloves a while back

absolutley agree with this one - those gloves have saved my hands and fingers many times - especially in the engine rooms of my ship back in the military.

What I do, and its been working out great, Is for $5 you can get a box of 100 letex gloves.
I love this because they cut way down on the little nicks, scratches, and cuts you normaly get. You can feel what your working on. and when your all done working on what ever, you just take em off and toss them... they cut way down on after-shop clean up.  Plus they are very handy to have around for the times where you dont want to get any thing on your hands
you also dont have to buy hand cleaner any more with them

    These rubber latex gloves work great.   I first saw em when my step dad would be wearing em to do stuff, looked very unnecessary to me.   
             But once I tried em a couple time, now I use em almost everytime I get at my engine, changing the oil, changing a starter, alternator, I even
              wear now when I am shining up my tires, the rag is oily, or waxing my car, the wax goes through your skin, or polishing my rims with Mother's. 

            After wearing them for all this, if I don't now, I really notice how much this stuff is going through my skin, - just pull off the gloves and toss them, clean hands. 

[dodgecharger-fan]

Just a few nicks and cuts here and there.

and a sore back, shoulders, arms, legs, feet.....

[4402tuff4u]

Oh!! I forgot the bleeding ears and stress from the taunting and nagging    when the wife opens the credit card statement showing the cost of parts!! (actually the wife has been surprisingly quiet and great - that scares me even more!!! )

All I can picture when the Charger is done and at home and the wife saying: " honey, where are the keys to the R/T?, I'm meeting my girlfriends for lunch" then what?

[hemihead]

She will just be seeing how many young men will look at her driving it! 

[dodgecharger-fan]

Oh!! I forgot the bleeding ears and stress from the taunting and nagging    when the wife opens the credit card statement showing the cost of parts!! (actually the wife has been surprisingly quiet and great - that scares me even more!!! )

All I can picture when the Charger is done and at home and the wife saying: " honey, where are the keys to the R/T?, I'm meeting my girlfriends for lunch" then what?

Nah. It'll be more like when you open up the statement and see the $700 bill for new foo-foo frilly curtains and bedding, and wallpaper, and paint, and... and... and...
Are you going to give her a hard time afer she didn't give you such a hard time about the parts.
Nah! I wouldn't either.
Besides, you sleep with your eyes closed, right? Me too.

"Flowers on the bedspread? Yeah, whatever you want honey."

[squeakfinder]

Take your watch off when reaching under the dash.

Maybee not one of the worst injures but the most strange I've had. It was a few years ago and I can't remember what I was reaching for under the dash but my steal watch band got hooked on the ammeter posts. It shorted so quickly the band left a burn mark on my wrist. Also, one of the posts was touching my wrist, it got hot so fast it melted a spot on my skin.

[CB]

same here, cuts and so

[Brock Samson]

well,..
  ...I got the usual nicks, gashes, scrapes and the occasional bruise and sore back (i sure hate working under dashboards) but the most notable "injury" i ever received was i when i had a can of hemi orange spray paint and it was clogged, and i stuck the sharp end of a pair of scissors into the biz. end to unclog the thing and I got a good coat of HEMI orange on and in my face for my efforts, up my nose and in my mouth too,.. as I said something when this unexpected event transpired,..  i was alone in the garage and completely blinded as it also went into my both my eyes... and,.. it surprised me so bad I bolted my head up out of the engine compartment and took a pretty good sized divot outta the back on my head on the hood latch... 
I can't remember what i wanted to paint orange either as my small block was blue and there was absolutly nothing orange on or in my Charger till I finally got the 440 ten years later... 

I swore pretty good for a long time and used alotta words multiple times and in complete and incomplete sentences...
See?.. So That one injury sticks out pretty good in my memory still...   

[Charger Steve]

Just a resonse to this, no injury to me but I bought a cherry picker type engine hoist from a guy for $40 because he broke his ankle while putting an engine in a car. He was sitting in the engine compartment while someone else was lowering the engine in and it hit his ankle and broke it. He blamed the hoist insteasd of himself and his helper. There was nothing wrong with the hoist just the way they went about doing it. He didn't want the hoist after that, maybe he thought it was possesed or something but I was at the right place at the right time and bought dirt cheap. I have dropped engines in many times with it and it works just fine. As for myself, like they say it takes blood, sweat, and tears to restore cars and I have experienced all of them. In the end it is worth every drop of blood.

[Sublime/Sixpack]

 Nothing serious, just a few almost humorous little inciidents like when I was using a hammer and chisel and a small piece of the chisel broke off and apparently went into my cheek (I didn't know for sure). I noticed blood, and slight swelling, so I got out a mirror and a magnet. Sure enough when I placed the magnet near the wound the skin lifted to the magnet. Off to the hospital for minor surgery and a shot.
Another time a automatic trans slipped and fell on my left middle finger. The sharp edge of the pan cut the finger leaving a flap of skin dangling. I was in a hurry and had to get the job done so I used tin snips to cut off the flap of skin and threw it away, then wrapped the finger with a paper towel and electrical tape to stop the bleeding, and allow me to finish the job. Once I got to the Dr's office he said "you really shouldn't have cut the flap off". He was right, now theres a lump of scar tissue there thats a bit annoying.
Then recently I was working under the hood of the Diplomat when the wrist watch (metal band) I was wearing made contact between a hot lead and a ground. It got hot quickly and actually spot welded the hasp of the watch band so I couldn't get the dang thing off. The watch band was so hot it burned my wrist pretty good. All I could do was grab a spray bottle with water in it and spray the hot metal to cool it down. Had to grind downt the spot weld to get the wrist watch off.
Funny how these stupid little things happen. Although they do tend to be the things you remember and laugh about later on.

[squeakfinder]

Yep, read the post about my watch band experience.

[71440charger]

well all i can say is minor dents and scratches and my wife beeating me to death for spending so much money i have had to pull glass out of my arm from her breaking a glass bowl.