Posted by Cliff Robb on January 21, 1999 at 12:12:52:
In Reply to: Re: stupidity has no bounds! posted by Bill Bowes on January 20, 1999 at 22:08:11:
Wow!! You win the prize for the most creative way to get a skinnier waistline. Glad you are still with us. I think we have all done stupid stuff thinking "It won't happen to me". I was an accessory to similar stupidity a long while back helping a friend with his car in his garage. He jacked up the front of his big block Camaro to verify that he had broken his clutch pushrod. "Aw this will only take a second" was his quote. Turns out his relic of a floor jack decides that was the time to let loose. I saw the car start coming down while he was scooching his way under. He did not even realize it was moving, and I literally dragged him out by his ankles. He thought it was some kind of a joke on my part until he looked back at his lowered car with quite a bit less than head & chest room underneath. The most ironic thing was that I tripped over his jackstands that he had pulled out to get to his floor jack as I yanked him out. He now has 2 new floor jacks that he leaves under the car while it's on the stands just in case. I'm glad he is still here too.
: That's a good one. But if you REALLY want stupid, how about the time I rushed home at noon to replace my slave cylander. My wife needed her car to pick up the kids, and I needed my car, which was parked in my driveway, disabled with no slave on the clutch.
: But the slave is, what, two bolts, a hydraulic line, and then you push the pedal a couple of times to bleed it, right?
: So I rush home at lunch, jack up the car, and put the thing in. Go in and get my wife to push the pedal so we can bleed it, clean up a bit and I'm outta here.
: So she gets in, and I get under. So I tell her PUSH, and nothing much happens. After a couple of times I start to figure this deal out. I sort of prime the slave a bit and she pushes.
: With that, the clutch disengages slightly. Unfortunately, in my haste, I'd neglected to set the hand brake, or use jack stands. To make matters worse, the car was on an incline, so it started to move backwards on the floor jack.
: It's amazing how fast the brain processes information. Especially when extreme stupidity is involved. I don't recall the exact moment when my brain recognized the seriousness of the situation, but by the time I could utter the the words "Oh, Sh$T! I had moved from under the transmission, out from under the car, as it started to roll down the driveway, and stood up. I then had to yell to my wife to lift her foor off the clutch.
: After explaining to her that I almost died, I went in and got the jack stands, finished the bleeding, and drove back to work.
: Don't work rushed, and DON'T EVER GET UNDER A CAR WITHOUT JACK STANDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
: Bill Bowes
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