Blood, Sweat and Gears...whats your story?

rambos_ride

I was looking at some pictures Chaz put out on his rotisserie and thought how much easier it would have been making repairs and scraping off undercoating and sealer having the car upside down - when another thing ocurred to me I would have made 2 less trips to the doctor last year to get [email="cr@p"]crud[/email] scraped out of my eyeballs from working on and mostly underneath the Hudson!

Hmmm made me think of a good thread question...How many times and what damage has your Hudson done to you resulting in the need for urgent professional medical attention?

So far other than the normal cuts and scrapes and bruises my record on the 49 is 2 times within a 3 month span - both for scraping my eyeballs! No stiches or lingering after effects yet...knock on wood!

faustmb

No Hudson injuries yet, but the rear hatch on the '63 VW bus I had fell on my forhead last year... The rusty edge scraped a few layers of skin off of my forehead. I went for a tetanus (sp?) shot the next day. It was a lightbulb moment... can you say gas shocks?



Matt

[Deleted User]

Nothing requiring an ER visit yet. Just the usual....scraped knuckles, cuts, blisters, knots on the head, and aches and pains from laying on the ground/floor!



Bob

Unknown

Many, many moons ago... Being a 16 year old kid, I was disassembling a front suspension from a '48 Commodore that had been rolled. Good for parts only. Mind you, the front subframe was upside down so the lower A arms were readily available.



You guessed it, I popped the lower portion of the spindle off and promptly ate the coil spring. Broke my nose for the first time, didn't go to the ER though. (It's been broken two times since then, another story or two) I got a healthy respect for a coil spring compressor that day, wouldn't be without one now.

rambos_ride

backtohudsons wrote:

Many, many moons ago... Being a 16 year old kid, I was disassembling a front suspension from a '48 Commodore that had been rolled. Good for parts only. Mind you, the front subframe was upside down so the lower A arms were readily available.

You guessed it, I popped the lower portion of the spindle off and promptly ate the coil spring. Broke my nose for the first time, didn't go to the ER though. (It's been broken two times since then, another story or two) I got a healthy respect for a coil spring compressor that day, wouldn't be without one now.

Given the nature of the thread I only had to read the first paragraph to know what was coming next! LOL! I've never had the pleasure of being hit by one - only near misses. That old saying "the right tool for the right job" really applies to springs.

Your the winner so far - that had to hurt way more than my 2 trips to the eye doctor.:D

dwardo99

No Hudson injuries other than the obligatory cuts on my head due to the hood corners. I damn near cut my finger off a couple of years ago using an angle grinder on an MGB though. That required an immediate trip to the emergency room. That will teach me to leave the guard off and not use gloves ...

hdsn49

I have had only minor scratches,cuts and something in my eye. My brother Dan got into restoring cars about 30 years ago like myself. At the time he was not mechanically minded. Within the first few weeks he ended up in the emergency room for stitches on his hands twice. Someone made a cartoon of him that hangs in his office (He is an accountant) "You can push a pencil but can't swing a wrench".

hudsontech

Tightening down a cylinder head on a 308 - socket slipped off one of the nuts next to the firewall. Middle finger on my left hand still hasn't straightened and the finger nail is still v shaped.

As for non-auto injuries there are numerous scars on my hands from knicks, scratches and safety wire gouges on aircraft engines.



Hudsonly,

Alex B

[Deleted User]

Well, I haven't had many car related injuries, which is odd considering the 12 auto (3 were totals) and 2 motorcycle accidents I've had over the years. That along with the extreme number of times (and I'm not really proud of this) I was under pharmaceuticals while driving, it is amazing that I was never killed, nor killed anyone else. Let this be a warning to everyone. I also green broke horses from the age of 7 to 15 which hasn't helped by body's frame much!



But nothing more than a few cuts and bruises (and hopefully some wisdom) have afflicted me. I do have a metal plate in my neck where they had to do a fusion (c-6/c-7) because my disk had exploded and put 3 fragments into my spinal column. When the doc asked what happened (cause I'm only 43) I told how many accidents I had been in (and I have never broken any bones), horses kicking me in the back and stomping my chest in, and my folks like of horsewhips, 2x4's, and electric cattle prods......he stopped asking! :-)



Personally, I think cars can be safer than many other things! lol Though my young son, I think, has decided to be a monkey and is constantly freaking his mother out jumping off of everything in and out of the house! :-)



Jay

RG53Hornet

dwardo99 wrote:

No Hudson injuries other than the obligatory cuts on my head due to the hood corners.

Glad I’m not the only one getting caught by those evil things. Got to remember to step back…then stand up. Must have been easy to spot a balding Hudson mechanic back in the day by the scars on the back of his head!

Unknown

No, I think that in today's "not my fault" society, the question was asked properly. I'm sure that the front coil spring had it out for me and was just waiting... :eek: :rolleyes:

dwardo99

Well, I'm still going to sue the engineer who designed that hood, just as soon as I can find where he is buried... no, better yet, I'll sue the manufacturer ... no wait, DOH!

mrsbojigger

OH MAN THAT HURTS!!! Being a nubie to owning a Hudson, I have dents in my head and tears in my eyes from raising up too quickly into the hood corner. Now when I am working under the hood for any length of time I wrap the two corners with shop rags to give me a little cushion when I forget. I think I finally figured out where the trend came from back in the '40s and '50s of rounding the corners of the hoods and trunks on their custom cars.

Peace,

Chaz

rambos_ride

Great responses all! I knew I wouldn't be the only one who has a "mishap" along the way!

Those pointy sheet metal corners will always bite you when you are not looking.

Although I am not going to the extreme of rounding the hood corners off as I go through my build I take and grind down any corners of brackets or mounting points that have sharp edges.

For instance the rear bumper brackets are welded on the car and once you take the chrome off these are a real "knee biter" with some sharp edges - so I ground the corners smooth - they can still rattle you knee a little but no deep wounds!

It's a little hard to tell (I've got to learn about lighting and picture taking!) but in the first picture in the lower left you can barely see the 90degree square edges on the bracket. In the second picture you will notice I've smoothed those edges off - or what I like to call "Child Proofing" it! Of course no one but you guy's and gals will ever know I went to all the trouble througout the entire car to round off areas like this- but I know!

SamJ

Way, way back in my long-hair days, I was repacing a u-joint, lying on a creeper. My hair was hanging in a puddle of water and ?. When the trouble light fell in the puddle, I had what my mother would call a 'rude awakening.' No permanent mental damage from the shock (although some might argue that), but I banged my face convulsively on the undercarriage until the breaker tripped. It's always gratifying to be such a source of amusement to one's friends...

Unknown

I am a female and I don't know how many other females out there work on thier cars, but I want to warn them. I have gone to the doctor because of my Hudson also. I had been working diligently on my car evey night for a week; when one night a grey liquid began leaking out of my breast. I started freaking out because it just wasn't supossed to happen. I imediately visited my doctor who tried in the nicest way possible to ask if I had over stimulated myself in some manner. It took me a while to figure it out, but I asked if using an orbital sander a lot might cause this to happen. My doctor gave a little chuckle and replied with a delighted look on his face; "Yes, I just don't usually ask my female patients if they have been using power tools." I became much more aware of it the next time I began to sand. My arms would become really tired after so long. I would bend my elbows to apply pressure with my shoulders, but it wasn't my shoulders. I had my arms against my breast to use all of my upper body strength. I have since stopped using that method and just taken a break when my arms were tired.

Unknown

rambos_ride wrote:

I was looking at some pictures Chaz put out on his rotisserie and thought how much easier it would have been making repairs and scraping off undercoating and sealer having the car upside down - when another thing ocurred to me I would have made 2 less trips to the doctor last year to get [email="cr@p"]crud[/email] scraped out of my eyeballs from working on and mostly underneath the Hudson!



Hmmm made me think of a good thread question...How many times and what damage has your Hudson done to you resulting in the need for urgent professional medical attention?



So far other than the normal cuts and scrapes and bruises my record on the 49 is 2 times within a 3 month span - both for scraping my eyeballs! No stiches or lingering after effects yet...knock on wood!

Hi,

Hope not to scare too many of you but just to let you know I am a glaucoma sufferer for some two years now, I'm told by the hostpital it may well have been brought on by trauma to the eyes for having had crap dug out. So take good care of your eyes and I know it's a pain but wear protective eyewear when you can.