> I am SURE no-one out there has ever done anything as stupid.
> But if you have, and sufficient time has elapsed to share it,
> I'd love to hear. Misery loves company and repairing and
> repainting the front apron is going to cost - well, you know.
Not quite the same category, but even more stupid. Back when I was a teenager
(and dinosaurs roamed the earth), I bought an
Oldsmobile with a 425ci big block that needed to be rebuilt. Had practically
no tools at all, not even a decent place to work on
it, so I was trying to rebuild the engine with it just sitting on a stack of
concrete blocks (in place of a bench or engine stand).
Was undoing something, I forget what, and one of the cinder blocks tipped over,
letting the engine block fall towards the floor. I
caught it!
Pulled my right shoulder out of joint, apparently damaging the rotator cuff in
the process. The pain was intense, I probably passed
out momentarily from it (never was certain about that). At any rate, the next
thing I remember is being fully spread-eagle over the
top of that engine block, with the edge of it cutting into my chest. No one
around, no cell phone (nor 911 to call if I had one),
so I loaded myself up in the other car and drove myself home. The car had "3
on the tree" but I literally could not lift my right
arm at all. The shoulder was still out of place, and the only way I could move
the arm was to pick it up with the other hand. So I
shifted by reaching through the wheel with my left hand and reaching across.
About halfway home (10 miles or so), the shoulder popped back into place and
the pain moderated a bit. But the damage took many
years to fully heal, and for the longest time it would pop back out at
inopportune moments (like diving into a swimming pool).
To add insult to injury, the engine never ran right anyway. I got it back
together, but it threw a rod and ventilated the block
just a few weeks later. Apparently it's important for those holes in the
connecting rods to be round <g> So I finally did what I
should have done in the first place : Found a junkyard engine for $50 and
dropped that in. It ran for many years after that, and
was still running when we finally decided to get rid of the car.
-- Randall
** triumphs@autox.team.net **
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