Quite obviously, don't try this at home, kids!!
Rachet Rash.
During the reinstallation of the differential after fitting the LSD centre, it came time to do up the diff locating bolts in the crossmember. Having spent the day climbing in and out of the car, I decided I couldn't be bothered getting out from under the car - yet again - to find the breaker bar. So I chose to use the trusty rachet that was close by.
After initially tightening it, I thought, "I'm only using a rachet...probably should tighten it a bit more". Then it was tighten it just a bit more...and just a little bit more......until I had my feet planted in the wheel well for leverage and I was hanging all my body weight off it. Yep - a confessed over tightener. It was then the socket slipped off the bolt. All that pulling force suddenly had nowhere to go - but towards my head. I guess you could say a cracked myself in the head with the rachet. The result was that I knocked myself out cold and cut a large gash about 10mm above the left eye. Probably should have had stitches, but I'm not a fan of hospitals unless essential. I didn't go back to work on the car that day......nor the next.
Fire In The Hole!!!
At one stage I was working 2 jobs to try and fund the car. The trade off to this was that I didn't have much chance to work on the car, so it sat for a couple of months untouched. Eventually I left one of the jobs, freeing up some time to get back into the car. At this stage I decided to modify the rear crossmember.
After jacking up the car, I climbed under the car to assess how I was going to tackle the task. As I got closer to the crossmember (having climbed under behind the front wheel), it appeared to be buzzing. Buzzing?? I climbed a bit closer and suddenly noticed a wasp climb out and fly away. Not being sure as to if it was just one wasp or a number of them, I climbed out from under the car and found a hammer. Bending down and giving the crossmember a gentle tap it began buzzing again, although now more intensely.
Not being very keen to try and pull out a crossmember doubling as a wasps nest, I needed to figure a way to get rid of them. I went back in the shed and had a look at the back of a can of flyspray. The can listed the spray as being effective against wasps. I went back to the car, layed down and found a convient hole in the crossmember near where the buzzing was coming from. I opened up the can and let it go for a good 30 seconds. When I stopped the wasps went utterly insane!!! I moved away from the car and waited. After a minute or two, there was no reduction in the amount of activity in the crossmember - so being the impatient type I decided to take another course of action.
Going back to the shed I grabbed the butane blow torch, lit it up and headed back for the car, intent on burning them out. I was successful well beyond my expectations. There was obviously still alot of flyspray suspended in the air inside the crossmember and as soon as I put the naked flame near it, it ignited. It caused an explosion big enough to leave me temporarily deaf and rock the car on it's chassis stands. As I instinctivly retreated away from the car (I only had my arm under there) I saw flame exiting every hole along the crossmember. My parents who were inside the house - a good 20 meters away - came running down to the garage thinking I had blown up the fuel tank.
I decided to have a break for an hour or two to ensure I was going to think things through a bit better.....
Is That Chicken I Can Smell??
The first modification to the car was to seam weld it.
During the process of seam welding the car, there were times when the welds weren't up to standard and needed to be ground back with an angle grinder. This was a problem especially when the seam you were welding was under the car.
Having put the car up on chassis stands, I was having a bad run of welds under the car and decided to grind an entire seam back - probably 1.5 meters of welds. 3 cm welds separated by 3 cm gaps over a 1.5 meter distance is a fair few welds. Anyhow having grabbed the grinder I was attacking the welds along this particular seam with a fair bit of frustration. By the time I managed to get about 1 meter along the seam my left leg was feeling quite warm. I dismissed this sensation as it lying out from the shadow of the car, in the sun. I continued to grind on, thinking how annoying it was that I couldn't get the welds right. By the time I had covered another 20 cm, my leg was pretty hot and there was a bizarre smell. I ground for about another 20 seconds when I suddenly realised why my leg was feeling so hot. I switched off the grinder and layed it down (the guard keeping the wheel off the ground), pulled off the welding mask I was using for eye protection and looked down. My entire shin was alight from where the grinding sparks had been started a fire on my pants. What was left of my pant leg was burning and the hairs were alight. I rolled out from under the car and grabbed the nearest rag and smothered the fire.
No real damage to the skin (ie no burns to speak of), but my leg was hairless for a month or 2.
