oh sh*t moments

[91bronc300]

once while go-karting i checked the sparkplug to adjust the carb but forgot to tighten it before going on the track. at some point the damn thing popped out. the sound of an engine that is 8'' from your ear doing 10 000 rpms without a plug scarde the **** out of me. and at some point the plug grounded on my arm... ouch
it's hard to react cause you really don't know what is happening, you are focused on your line, gear changes, trottle input, braking and then BAM, loud noise pain on your arm
i went wtf for a few seconds
lesson learned!

And you're not deaf? A motor running with no plug is fawkin' LOUD! Those over before you know what happened things are scary because when you do realize what happened and go to access the damage to your body you don't know what you'll find.

 

[Chuck122]

And you're not deaf?

Was for a while

 

[Zelatore]

Coming home from work one night I fell asleep behind the wheel on the highway. I awoke upside down to a random trucker frantically trying to undo my seat belt. He cut the belt and dragged me out before I figured out what was going on.

Man, I know that feeling. Fell asleep on my way home one morning as a teen. I had been out all night, then worked an opening shift at McDonalds (hey, like I said, I was a kid) then fell asleep on the 30 minute drive home. Woke up confused as hell with a preacher from the church (Sunday) trying to get me out of the car.

Confusing, isn't it? I felt sorry for the preacher - I think the only thing I could say to him initially was 'get me the *%$# out of here!'

 

[A_Pmech]

del *.dwg in a very wrong directory.

So much fail in so few characters!

 

[bigcaddy]

When I first started rough carpentry/construction my boss told me to keep my hammer loop toward my backside. I didn't listen. Shortly after being told that, I walked down a ladder with my hammer in front of my tool belt. It caught one of the rungs and I went for a fun ride.

The ladder separated from the roof's edge with me stuck to it. Unfortunately 10-15' behind the ladder was a roll off dumpster that the ladder used as a pivot point a few feet below me causing me to speed up my impact into the ground.

I hit the ground so hard with my back it knocked the wind out of me - only to be smashed in the head with the ladder. The three guys on the roof were howling with laughter. All I could see was their faces on my way down.

Lesson learned, the hammer goes in the back for a reason.

I worked the rest of the day/week/summer/life never hearing the end of that one.

Lucky for you it was just a fall and nothing else. A close friend on mine fell off a roof with his hammer in the side bag of his tool belt, not in the loop. Once he hit, the hammer went into his armpit, handle first, stopping next to his heart. This was in the evening! In Lake Arrowhead! With no phone reception and he was bleeding out He survived but will never carry his hammer that way again.

Now to the funny stuff: I was helping an older friend work on his outboard motor since it was giving him hell and i had all the tool needed at my shop to do the work. Once it was fixed, we had to go out to test it, right? All the fishing gear was loaded up and we were off.
Once to the docks, i started to back the boat down when my cousin yelled to stop. So i did but he forgot to mention that he was in such a hurry to fish, he unhooked the winch hook from the front of the boat and the trailer had rollers.

If you can't figure out what came next, the boat promptly slid off the trailer and was launched onto the concrete, skeg first. I think the owner, my buddy, was fighting back tears but had to laugh his *** off with us. I think he paid 500.00 for the boat and was not that concerned about damage.

We still mention it from time to time and it always has us rolling on the floor with laughter

 

[TJay]

New here and still a young guy but I figure I'll add mine.

The first month on the job (18yr old telecom tech) I though I knew it all. We had damage to a line over a ravine and I figured as long as the hooks of the ladder were over the strand it wouldn't matter how the feet sat. Figured I could prove myself without using a bucket truck.

Well one foot of the ladder was completely off the ground due to the incline and when I was about 3/4 of the way up it slipped and retracted itself up to my boot. Needless to say as 2 of my superiors were laughing like crazy I was swinging over a 25ft drop feeling like I hadn't taken a breath in 10mins lol

Never made that mistake again...

 

[bowmard]

Two boo-boos come to mind. One cost some money to correct, the other wounded my pride. The first occurred 46 years ago when I was a 17 year old high school senior hired by the local Chevrolet dealer to help out in the parts department during the afternoons and Saturday morning. I also emptied trash cans and swept the shop floor when times were slow up front. One day I was sweeping and noticed a box containing some engine main bearing caps lying on top of a trash can. I dumped then in the can and took the can outside just as the garbage hauler was pulling up. A couple hours later the shop foreman asked if I'd seen the main caps. I told him what I did and he about passed out. Those caps were from a 327 Chevy block that had been sent out for a hot tank dip and cam bearing installation. I told the foreman that the garbage truck had already picked the trash up. The service manager obtained five small block Chevy main caps from a junk yard then had the 327 lined bored. I worked there until the next summer.

The second involved an antique tractor I restored many years in the mid '60s. The tractor was a 1929 McCormick-Deering 10-20. I had just backed the tractor in the garage and was taking the right front wheel off of it prior to painting the wheel assembly. A friend stopped in for a visit and was taking in the 10-20. He asked how it ran, I said she starts on the first crank when it's warm. I turned on the gas and grabbed hold of the crank then gave it a turn. The 10-20 fired right up and headed out the door. I'd forgotten to take it out of gear! It came off the jack, the spindle hit the floor and I got out of the way. I killed the magneto as the spindle was digging a hole in the driveway.

My buddy's eyes were big as saucers and he said something to the effect that I wasn't kidding about starting on the first crank. I had to dig a pretty good hole to get the jack back under the axle and the wheel back on. Another lesson learned.

 

[greasemonkey44]

wow i feel right at home
forgot to lube a tire before installing it; bubbled the sidewall
tried to patch too close to the sidewall and it bubbled like mad
the funniest, not dumbest anyway was putting an engine into a ford ranger
it was on 01 or 02 ford ranger and i was dropping a jasper into it
all going well, go to bolt the transmission to the engine
bell housing bolts all **** down just fine
try to turn the fly wheel to put the nuts on the torque converter studs( didnt even think about it.......so young and dumb)
realize i just bent the hell out of the flex plate
order a new flex plate; bolt it to the crank and this time make damn sure the studs are lined up
good to go
tighten bell housing bolts
cant roll the engine over
wtf........ look through the starter hole and realize they boxed the flywheel wrong
i just drug the teeth into the bell housing(cut nice clean grooves)
the third time was the charm though

 

[kursplat]

Now how could that happen Not like I have not herd the same sound before and yes its loud

hey Mark, i know you miss this stuff
getting warm there yet?

chuck

 

[oldtools]

I was in an important meeting with the customer when I got a really bad case of stomach pain. I excuse myself to go to the john. I could not make it in time and soiled my undie. I have to throw it away and work the whole day without wearing an undie. I drank milk that morning even though I knew I was lactose intolerance.

 

[Garage5.9]

Burned down a Genie boom man lift. Too embarrassed to say how.

come on we wont laugh

 

[OccupantRJ]

I worked in a plant that had a liquid tank farm with a 500,000 gallon vertical cylindrical tank. As I was walking by the tank, two guys who were propped up against a pipe running down the side of the tank, looked up from shooting the breeze and gave me a wave as I went by. As I was about to enter a warehouse nearby, I heard a low rumble sound and turned to see what the noise was. The two guys were running away from the tank so fast that one was panicked, running while falling. As I stood confused as to what was going on, another rumble erupted, but this time movement caught my eye. The tank was collapsing inward. Ran for dear life. Later found out one of the men had found the open end of the vent pipe and put a pipe plug in it to keep insects and foreign objects out. the pumps sucked the tank inward. The tank was a lined tank, and the whole inside of it had to be ground out and relined. This took months. They straightened the tank by wrapping cables around it.

 

[Kev442]

So much fail in so few characters!

Very few of us here know that up to 50,000 man hours might have evaporated in 3 seconds.

 

[Danglerb]

Wasn't me, but was fun to watch. I'm in the lumber section of Home Depot and one of the kids has a huge load of very long 2x10 on the forklift raised all the way up to clear the stuff on the very top shelf. As he backs away and turns the forklift the top half of the load snags on something and rotates about 45 degrees fanned like a deck of cards. Nothing falls, but the boards reach from side to side in the aisle so there is no way to lower it down. No real damage, but restacking that load that high must of been a chore.

 

[metal1313]

Man, I know that feeling. Fell asleep on my way home one morning as a teen. I had been out all night, then worked an opening shift at McDonalds (hey, like I said, I was a kid) then fell asleep on the 30 minute drive home. Woke up confused as hell with a preacher from the church (Sunday) trying to get me out of the car.

Confusing, isn't it? I felt sorry for the preacher - I think the only thing I could say to him initially was 'get me the *%$# out of here!'

i tired to fight the guy, i honestly had no idea what happened, that i fell asleep and wrecked. i awoke to a stranger grabbing at me and tugging for his life at the seat belt.

because i said i fell asleep and did not wake during the crash i had to get transported to the hospital. a trooper showed up to check on me and showed myself and some of the staff pictures of the truck and the measurements of the gouge in the highway wall. its amazing i was not hurt. i also destroyed about a half million worth of truck, equipment and materials

 

[William Payne]

Mine pales compared to some on here. I work in a machine shop that does general machine work as well as tool and die. A very expensive injection mold tool had to be shipped out so I carefully put it on a pallet strapped it down really good and it was picked up and shipped off. About a week later I got told the pallet broke. Lucky the tool was fine and no harm done but man that could have been expensive.

I am on my way to another oh sh*t moment, the family that owns the business I work for is a very very religious family who stick to themselves they are one in one of those old fashioned style churches who practice seperation from those who arent in their church and wont even get married to anyone outside their church.

I myself however am not religious at all but my boss is happy with it as I just treat him and his family just like anyone else. I don't make a big deal out of their beliefs.

Here is where its oh sh*t. The bosses daughter is awesome, she is nice, she is funny, she jokes around and has a great sense of humour. This girl is pretty damn special really. We are both in our twenties and I would like nothing more then to get to know this girl outside work. Now because of her church this is a big no no, I mean these people don't even eat with those outside their church.

She doesn't know I am interested but I did kind of ask without asking my boss about getting to know her outside of work and was told to not even go there.

So for me the oh sh*t is if I pursue an interest in my bosses daughter then byebye my job.

 

[shiftdrift]

Just bang her.

 

[Heavy Metal Doctor]

Machine shop moment back when I was 18 or so and aspiring young machinist right outta high school: Programming / setup my own work on CNC milling machine. Input a position wrong and when the part ran the tap missed the hole that had been drilled and ran the tap into a 2" thick piece of aluminum. Surprising, even being 1/4-20 or smalle, it ran all the way in and didn't snap till it reversed to back out. That bad part was it all happened in a second and made hell of a noise of the machine motors straining ending with a loud snap...stopped the entire shop...here I am the 18YO "kid" in the shop with about 10 "old guy" machinists all staring at me....the shift supervisor came away from his desk and tlaked to me for one of the first times ever...next job I was cutting blanks on the bandsaw for a few shifts before they let me back in the CNC area!

 

[Danglerb]

Religious clients can be "interesting". One of my friends had spent months working on a big software package and the money behind the project was very conservative and very religious. To correct mistakes in data entry they patched in an old dictionary program that was leftover from a previous project. Two big problems, it didn't know what an apostrophe was ' and people had been horsing around with the code for a year or so.

During the client demo the word "can't" was typed in, and the program came back with a vulgar suggestion using U instead of A. The client just walked out the door.

 

[celticbhoy]

Nothing too bad, just locked the keys in a car that automatically locks itself thanks to an aftermarket alarm system and would go off whenever I went near the damn thing. Took me 10 minutes to unlock the door with that alarm going off in the work bay lol.

 

[William Payne]

I had an anoying one yesterday, I had to broach some keyways. Our broach was away getting sharpened so went and got it when it was ready. I went to use it and the strangest thing it would cut a bit then lock up solid would not budge. I checked my setup and procedure and as far as I know I was doing everything right yet it kept locking up would not broach. Eventually it gave way with a bang also taking one of its teeth with it. I felt really bad having to explain that to my boss but I really have no idea what happened it was freshly sharpened and as far as I know I was doing it properly.

 

[TheGrooveking]

What probably happened is whoever sharpened it didn't give a linear sharpening to it, meaning the same amount of of each tooth, the tooth that it stalled on either was trying to remove too much stock or it didn't have the right geometry.

TheGrooveking

 

[flht1997]

Had a dink customer that complained his trunk hinges squeaked on his brand new car. The service manager orders new hinges had them painted and when the car came in he interrupted on another job to "Do this one quick, guys waiting" I was pissed and in a hurry, I pull it in, get the hinges, zip the bolts out of the deck lid throw them on the trunk floor, zip the bolts out of the body throw them on the floor then install the new hinge, re-install the bolts in the deck lid, repeat on the other side and close the trunk, well as it turned out the body bolts were about 1/8 longer than the deck bolts and I had accidentally put all the bolts in the wrong holes and had four nice dents in the trunk lid. All this while the guy watched, we pulled it around back to "wash it" and also get a new deck lid off a new car on the lot.

 

[maddawg1952]

I owned a 1983 Harley Flht with a shovel head engine that vibrated pretty good in high idle with the choke out. Backed it out of the grage one evening, started her then went back in the garage closed the door came out the breezeway after locking up the house. Just as I walk in between the garage door and the bike I hear "KLUNCK" and the bike drops into 1st gear and pins me to the garage door,just as my wife drives up from work. I wrestled the bike some and finally hit the kill switch on the handle bars, and drop the bike in the driveway. As I go to stand the bike up my wife says "look at the door" there was a ********* streak up the door where every time the bike hit the compression stroke it drove me and my leather jacket up the door a little more. She wasn't to thrilled that I was still going out for a ride after my own bike tried to kill me.

 

[G1GRANDEUR]

dat feel when I tighten the bolt all the sudden loose feel.

 

[ShawnJ]

Working with a genie boom lift in a warehouse about 40ft up, a forklift driving by nudged the side of the lift. Now it doesn't take much movement at the bottom to equal a lot of movement at the top! For a few seconds I thought about attaching my harness up to the ceiling joists. Luckily I stayed in the basket. I never did find out who the driver was...

 

[WVBrady]

This was on my own car. The igniter in my '89 Probe had gone bad and I needed to replace it that weekend, because I was working out of town. I marked the distributor before I pulled it, but something went wrong because when I went to reinsert it, it wasn't in the right position. No problem, right? In my Chevy's you could put it in either way; if it wouldn't start you just put it in the other way. I put it in one way and felt just a little resistance, but being in a hurry, tightened the bolt. I heard a tiny little clink and knew it sounded expensive. Turns out I had broken a chip off the end of the camshaft. Why they made it that way I don't know. If they wanted to make it obvious which way it went, they should have made the wrong way not even close to fitting. I should have just driven my old truck that week instead of getting in a hurry.

 

[atwageman]

Biggest mistake at my current job (overhauling looms in a textile mill):
I was putting in a new $500 reed (makes everything perfectly straight, and the yarn compact on a piece of cloth) on a loom. To set it up, you use a large straight bar to line up the left and right sides. I accidently left my straight bar sitting in front of the reed. Went to turn the machine over (not start it, just turn it over). It wouldn't turn over all the way, just stopped at a point. I took it out of gear, cut the power, and attempted to force the machine over with a break bar + cheater. At the moment when I'm leaning on that cheater bar about as hard as I can -- I see my straight bar bending the **** out of that brand new reed. Panic.

I got really lucky, because I was able to rig the loom to run with a bent reed. Cloth passed QC, and I didn't get written up. Amazingly that straight bar is still straight as an arrow.

Your post got me thinking. It's been almost 14 years since I last turned a wrench in a textile mill. It's nice to know there are some out there still making what I hope is a living in a industry that has seen its share of decimation in this country.

 

[Dick in Wisconsin]

Had the engine quit on a Piper Archer and landed dead stick on the Interstate between Oklahoma City and Tulsa at about 5pm during the week. No damage; landed with traffic. Almost made it out of there before the Oklahoma Highway Patrol showed up!

 

[48Classic]

So my boss goes to one of our company approved fast lube locations for ab oil change. After the oil change he has about a 45 minute drive home. 30 minutes into the drive he starts to lose compression then starts blowing smoke... Well after the tow the repair local repair shop drained over 8 1/2 quarts.. Humm I guess they did not drain the oil or looked at the dip stick afterwards!!! Well new engine time...

 

[treimers]

Didn't see this one happen, but I saw the aftermath of when a mechanic
forget to lock the hydraulic system (or something like that, I was told)
on a Simon-Duplex 65' heavy rescue.

He started the engine, put it in reverse, and started backing out of the service bay just in time
to have the hydraulic system decide to lift the tilt ladder
off the mounts at the back of the truck, and use the 250lb water line head and bridge to punch an I-beam and all the sheet metal
off the entire side of the building!

!

That was a freaking MESS!

What was amazing was that the ladder was pretty much just fine, the only
major vehicle damage was the bridge was whacked and the water head wouldn't traverse all the way.
FWIU, the ladder frame was later USED to lift the I-beam back into place.

Wish I had pictures.


Not, however, as exciting as what happens
when a pilot with 43 hours in an airframe tries to land for probably the SECOND time ever in an airframe, without his pilot landing aids of ILS, PAPI, and VLSI available.
He needed that "you're too low" voice coming from the tower, evidently...

I find it VERY disturbing that an airline would put someone with only FORTY THREE hours in an airframe in charge!!

 

[Mr.Nutcase]

i was doing a alignment on gmc truck. finish the alignment, as I was backing out of the alignment bay the outlet reel( think air hose) got stuck the trucks door, causing the reel to retract. It got the fluorescent light on the ceiling. breaking the bulb and there was shitload of bulb glass

Each station has a two air hoses and one eletrical outlet reel.

 

[Chuck122]

So my boss goes to one of our company approved fast lube locations for ab oil change. After the oil change he has about a 45 minute drive home. 30 minutes into the drive he starts to lose compression then starts blowing smoke... Well after the tow the repair local repair shop drained over 8 1/2 quarts.. Humm I guess they did not drain the oil or looked at the dip stick afterwards!!! Well new engine time...

A guy at work was doing an oil change and dumped the ATF by mistake, then poured the normal amount of motor oil in the crankcase. Meaning the car left with a dry ****** and twice the motor oil.
He is lucky I'm not his boss, cause he would be my former employee

 

[firebox40dash5]

One of our regulars at the shop is a landscaper's late 90s F350 biig block. It regularly burns wires or plugs, or does various other things that cause it to misfire and overheat. It came in Friday doing both those things, and as I usually do I took it for a skull-drag up the steepest road around, it's about a mile of probably 6% to close to 10% grade, with an even steeper, twistier downhill on the way back. I got it back in the shop and held the brakes to load it up and see exactly where it's missing and try to trip a code. Put it in reverse to put it on a lift, and the brake pedal just pops right to the floor. It was just spewing fluid out the crossover line on the front.

I really hate that damn truck, but apparently it doesn't hate me too much. Glad it didn't decide to do that when I was loading up the trans 6' from the wall... or going down a 10% hill with sharp turns everywhere.

 

[870chrisb]

I work for a chemical company and one day I finished up a 200,000 lb (liquid) batch and pumped it into the proper storage tank. The final temperature was around 42 degrees but the shipping temperature is around 22 degrees. I turned on the chill on the storage tank but forgot to turn on the agitator. In that condition, the tank will show not show a true temperature because its not getting mixed at all. Shipping comes in to work and notes the temperature in the 20's and loads 130,000 lbs onto trailers. Meanwhile, I check that tank and actually turn on the agitator I had forgot earlier...the temperature reading then reads correctly....41 degrees... ****. I get on the phone and call them. Needless to say, they werent real pleased to offload 3 tanker trucks of product. They pumped it right back into my reactor and said...you made it...you chill it.

 

[4BT]

First job out of HS in a small shop I did a radiator on a 32v cobra. Needless to say I went through the normal coolant fill procedure and though I had burped the system. Customer left the shop and was back 20 mins later with an overheated motor. Lead mechanic asked if I cracked open the bleeder on the coolant crossover............ ooops!


I've never heard a motor make popping noises like that while it was cooling off

 

[turdferguson13]

A guy at work was doing an oil change and dumped the ATF by mistake, then poured the normal amount of motor oil in the crankcase. Meaning the car left with a dry ****** and twice the motor oil.
He is lucky I'm not his boss, cause he would be my former employee

I did this when I was first starting out in my shop to a w8 passat. My shop foreman came and helped me fix it, he wasn't too happy. Luckily nothing was damaged.

Another guy in our shop did this to a Mercedes. Drained the ****** and mistook the engine oil dipstick tube for the transmission oil dipstick tube. The engine tube sits near the back of the motor in front of the trans tube but much more visible on this motor. Was a little confused when it wouldn't shift into gear lol.

 

[Chuck122]

I did this when I was first starting out in my shop to a w8 passat. My shop foreman came and helped me fix it, he wasn't too happy. Luckily nothing was damaged.

Another guy in our shop did this to a Mercedes. Drained the ****** and mistook the engine oil dipstick tube for the transmission oil dipstick tube. The engine tube sits near the back of the motor in front of the trans tube but much more visible on this motor. Was a little confused when it wouldn't shift into gear lol.

The funny/sad part is, my guy did not realize his mistake until the clien was back with a broken down car

 

[4x4gearhead]

I once installed a brand new stiebel gearbox into a machine (basically the transfer case in between the diesel engine and the hydrostatic pumps) and never tightened the drain plug on it. Machine ran 40 hrs and died on the top of a mountain since the gearbox is responsible for making the whole machine work. It was a $6000 gearbox, and it was $6000 the second time too! that was about 6 years ago now and I will say, it has never happened again.

 

[jerryd68]

I work for a chemical company and one day I finished up a 200,000 lb (liquid) batch and pumped it into the proper storage tank. The final temperature was around 42 degrees but the shipping temperature is around 22 degrees. I turned on the chill on the storage tank but forgot to turn on the agitator. In that condition, the tank will show not show a true temperature because its not getting mixed at all. Shipping comes in to work and notes the temperature in the 20's and loads 130,000 lbs onto trailers. Meanwhile, I check that tank and actually turn on the agitator I had forgot earlier...the temperature reading then reads correctly....41 degrees... ****. I get on the phone and call them. Needless to say, they werent real pleased to offload 3 tanker trucks of product. They pumped it right back into my reactor and said...you made it...you chill it.

We have had operators do this same thing with Milk and Cream, We recently replaced several silos, I did all the control work on for them and wrote the programming so that once the silo has so much product in it the cooling and agitation starts automatically so that an operator doesnt have to remember to turn it on.