Your jacking safety reminder

[drdano]

I've always been good about using jack stands and probably over careful when raising cars up.  Despite all that, had one hell of a close call last night.  Jacking the front of the Galaxie with a 4x4 chunk of pressure treated lumber like I've done for years and years.  Pulled the jack stands and started to lower the car and the block blew in half spitting the jack under the motor and the whole damn thing came crashing to the floor from two feet up.  Oil pan is toast, as are my motor mounts most likely and the left side of the front bumper is nicely tweaked.  I wasn't hurt, which is great...nobody needs a wife to find their spouse dead and pinned under a car because they were being stupid and not minding the laws of gravity.

So, be careful out there!  Yeap, sounds just like the old auto shop teacher, just more sober.

BTW, does anyone have a good used front sump pan with a baffle in it?   

[cammerfe]

In preparation for a project I went and bought a new set of (inexpensive) jack stands. Didn't need heavy duty---it's only a Mustang Fox---doesn't weigh that much!! Got it jacked up and stands situated. Crawled under and got myself situated. Happened to roll my head to the side while looking at the underside of the car and watched a weld begin to fail on my new jackstand.

Did a lying broadjump out from under the car in approximately one thousandth of a second and then watched the completion of the collapse, leaving about a half-inch of space under the car.

Took the failed jackstand back to Murray's and watched all color leave the face of the manager when I put the mangled jackstand on the counter.

Took my new, gift, best-in-the-house jackstands back home and went back to work on the car.

Moral to the story---for some things the VERY BEST is none too good.

KS

[machoneman]

Yep, when I was a kid, a neighbor was working on his big aqua blue Merc to replace some rotten exhaust pipes.  Saw about 1/2 of him under the driver's door banging away with a tool, likely a hammer.  Don't remember all the details but he used a scissor's jack (and likely not even a block of wood to chock the tires). Came back from playing with a pal and found the Chicago police and a ambulance in the alley. Seems the fellow rocked the car a tad, the jack tilted over and the frame rail (think it was a Monterey, the one with the power rear window) fell on his chest. Saw the fellow' face up after they pulled him out and he was blue all the way up from the indent left in his chest.  Sad indeed but it taught me a lesson too on jacking, blocking etc.

[afret]

Glad you didn't get hurt.

Hope your block is OK where the oil pump bolts on.  I think Richie Pauley cracked the oil pump mounting area on his sleeved 427 block when he slammed his pan after a big wheelie.  We were lucky we only squashed the pan and broke the pickup after the pan hit the track.

[jayb]

Yikes, I hate it when stuff like that happens.  Sounds like you were doing everything right and just got bit by a weak piece of wood.  Hope you get it fixed up without too much trouble!

[Wreckless Warren]

I was an explorer scout back then with my childhood buddy Dale. Me were the gearheads in the troop and wanted to get a car angle started. One of the parents had a gas station that sponsored a hobby stock 54 Chevy that had a blown Blue Flame 6 cylinder engine.

So we as a troop were going to remove the engine with Dale & I being the lead wrenches and the rest would watch & learn.  Both of our Dad's had preached to us the need to make sure a car was safe when up in the air.  The rule was once you got it up (on jack stands) you kicked the hell out of the bumper a few times and if it wiggled at all you were not safe.

And Never Work Under a Jack

At the gas station they had a big Coats air jack with a big base platform and lifting arms that went under the bumpers, we also had a creeper.  Never had it so good (or so we thought).

We lifted the front of the car (no jack stands) and I went under to disconnect the linkages. As I'm seeing what I needed for tools I heard a loud crack and down it came. I managed to turn my head sideways but the x-member pinched my head against the head pad of the creeper.

Since it was a stock car they had real stiff shocks and lead bumpers in the front coil springs so the car did not bounce like it would have normally.  That coulpled with the flex of the creeper & head pad kept it from popping my skull like a grape.

The front pads of the jack were resting on a galvanized pipe arrangment built to protect the radiator.  As the car lifted the car rolled off the radiused edge but we thought the bumper was a secondary protection, but the bumper was welded on and when the jack hit the bumper it flew off.

The troop actually picked up the car and I scrambled out, blood pooring from my nose.  I also knew I was in trouble because with my mouth closed I could feel space inbetween the molors on the left side.

Somebody said all I had was a bloody nose but I told my friend Dale to get me to the hospital

I fractured all the bone in my face, my jaw and cocked my teeth on the right side in at an angle.

The next day, a Hollywood makup artist could not have made me look any worse, my head and face were extreamly swollen and my face was purple.  The oral surgon needed to let the swelling go down before he could get everything back in place so I was placed flat on my back.  The neurosergon made his regular visits and noticed I was using allot of tissues., I told him my nose was running.

A few hours later he comes back in and orders me to be kept in an upright position and to sit up when ever I could. He then took my parents outside.  When they came back in they were pale and I could see my mom had been crying.

They hauled me be back to xray again and find out I had fractured the portion of my skull undr the brain and spinal fluid was seeping thru the crack and out my nose.

The deal was hopefully the crack would heal it's self and stop the leak before the brain went low on fluid and overheat which would kill me.

Fortunatly that happened and after two week they moved all the bones and teeth back where the belond and wired my jaws shut for 7 weeks.

My friend Dale lives around the corner and we are still hotrodding together

Sometimes gravity is not your friend, be safe out there (and under there). ww

[lovehamr]

Holy crapo Warren, you're lucky to be here!  As am I.  I wasn't going to tell this because I still feel like such a tool for having let it happen but here goes anyway.  As a young USAF enlisted guy I didn't have a lot of $$ back in the early eighties.  Come to think about it, I still don't but that's another story.   At any rate I was living with my wife (also enlisted) and young son in base housing on Dover AFB and as such had no garage or car port to work in.  We could use the "auto hobby shop" and did quite often but it wasn't always practical to go over there.  So one day I need to do a clutch adjustment on my 70 Boss 302 which was my daily driver.  At this point it was a -5 minute job for me just because I'd done it so many times.  So I jacked the side of the car up using my trusty crappy scissor jack and rolled up under it with a couple of wrenches to get the job done.  As I was finishing up I was vaguely aware of some movement but it wasn't fore and aft and it didn't cause alarm bells in my head.  Then, as I was rolling out, the jack completely folded and the car landed with me on my left side and the body seam pressing into my right side.  There was absolutely nothing I could do, I couldn't move, I couldn't yell, I couldn't even breath.  Serious thoughts about dying raced through my head because I could think of no way that I could get out from under that car.  Fortunately for me there was a cable repair guy working on one of the town houses that I hadn't even seen.  He heard the jack collapse, saw my legs flailing, ran over, grabbed a wheel well and lifted the thing enough for me to roll out from under it.  So many things happened to save me from my own stupidity that it's staggering to me.  If I'd had even one wheel off, I'd be toast.  If I'd still been under the front frame rail, I'd be toast.  If that super human cable man hadn't been there, I'd be toast. etc. etc. 

These days I have a lift in my biggass garage.  Think I work under it without safety locks and/or stands?  Not on my life!   Well, that was my "I was a young tool" story for this year!

[jayb]

Geez, you guys are scaring me!  Glad to hear you both came out of those very dangerous situations intact.

I had a scissors jack collapse once also, back in 1976.  Right rear tire of my '67 Mustang was off and the car came crashing down on the brake drum.  Fortunately, I wasn't under the car when it happened, but it scared the heck out of me nonetheless.  This was right at the beginning of my hot rodding career, and I went out that very day and bought jackstands 

[machoneman]

Some stunning and tragic news. My old buddy Dave Young (Sr.) just lost his son David due to a floor jack failure. I have no futher details but it would seem he was under his car without a jackstand, proving tragically it can happen to anyone. And yes, the well-known here in the Midwest Verlo Matress Co. as noted was his baby and is quite successful. He will be missed.   


Dave Young
Friends, colleagues, business associates and the community at large today were remembering Da­v­id R. Young, co-founder of the Fort Atkinson-based VyMaC Corp., who died Sunday in an accident while working on his car.

Young, 45, of Elkhorn, WI was fatally injured when pinned beneath his vehicle after a floor jack failed.

Jefferson County Sher­­iff's Office Detective Sgt. Don Hunt­er said deputies were dispatched to the Town of Cold Spring mainten­ance facility at W3130 State Highway 59 at 1:08 p.m. Sunday.

The Jefferson County Coroner's Office has ruled the death as accidental.

A memorial service is slated for 1 p.m. Friday at Hasse-Lockwood & Associates Funeral Home, 730 N. Wisconsin St., Elk­horn, with the Rev. Dr. Scott Mc­Leod officiating. Visitation was slated for 4 to 8 p.m. today at the funeral home.

Young began his career in the sleep products industry in 1985 as the general manager of a Verlo Mattress Factory Stores franchise. In 1990, he was hired as cor­porate general manager of Verlo Mattress in Whitewater.

A decade later, Verlo Mattress Company Inc. changed its nameto VyMaC Corp., which he co-founded to differentiate the Verlo Mattress Company Inc. corporate identity from Verlo Mattress Factory Stores retail operations.

VyMaC remained the parent company of Verlo Mattress Factory stores until January 2012, when the Milwaukee-­based investment firm Marcus Investments purchased the Verlo Mattress Fac­tory Stores and brand name. Under the purchase agreement, VyMaC Corp., continues to be the primary supplier of mattress materials for Verlo stores.

"Our immediate thoughts trans­cend to his family and friends left behind and the impact he had on their lives," VyMaC Corp. Vice President Mike Schwei­ger said. "Dave spent his entire career building many businesses related to the mattress industry, including VyMaC Corp."

[Wreckless Warren]

Very sorry to hear about your friend, such an unnessary thing to happen.

You should post this in the FE big block forum, unfortunatly folks get careless and don't think it can happen to them.  Possibly if your friend had read this thread he would have used jack stands.  Again, my condolences to you and your friends family. ww