Garage Advice column.

[LeonardL]

YES! It does hurt!! She has these boney little fingers anyway and when she wads them things into a boney little fist, it's like getting hit with a rock!! She quit chasing me a long time ago. She just waits until I'm sitting down or laying in bed! Then she reminds me!! After the lump of course!!
I wear my band on our anniversary and that's it. I figure the law of averages would catch up to me sooner or later. I'd rather take a lump from her than loose a finger.

[LeonardL]

As they say in the mechanical world, you are never too old to learn something. Last night I learned a very valuable lesson and it fits in here for advice on things not to do.
If a friend is working with a propane torch and that torch suddenly erupts into flames, do not take the torch from the friend even when he or she is offering it to you!! If you do take it like I did, you will have the sudden urge to do something else with it!! So I returned the favor and handed it back to my friend! And he took it!! He then tried to give the flaming thing back to me!!!!!! I don't want the damn thing I exclaimed!! So my friend finally threw the thing out of the shop into the driveway! Where we watched it burn itself out!
So the lesson learned here was this; If a friend wants to hand you a flaming out of control torch, do not take it from him!

[digitup2]

My good friend doesn't wear his any more as he has no ring finger left he was jumping from one rail to the next on his boat and caught his ring finger to our amazement it popped off and laid there twitching with about a foot of tendon flailing on it on the boat floor .It took a lot of alcohol to get him to shore and when we got him to the emergency room they didn't even put it back on .I told him we could have went fishing with it if we knew they weren't putting it back on !!. Digitup.

[LeonardL]

Wow what fish bait!! A man just doesn't realize what he has until it's gone! That would have caught a lunker no doubt!!! Hell of a way to loose a finger though!! Plumb ruined a good fishing trip!!

[cdunn]

Wonder what fish he would have caught; fingerlings I bet.

[whiteclipse16]

Something very important I learned in my MSHA training class yesterday.
I'm sure everyone knows that brake clean isn't the best for our health but we still use it and are careful.
The article in the link below was presented to us in training though and tells about welding and brake clean.
Please read and take into consideration in the future.
http://www.brewracingframes.com/id75.htm

[jdlou]

Hey Thanks for the info whiteclipse16. Very eye awakening!!! By the way Leonard, I think I saw Curly do the same thing to Moe with the lit torch!!!!! I pulled a boner last week with a fuel injector slide hammer. I was sliding the hammer to pull the injector next to the firewall on a JD2240, and my ring finger caught a screw sticking through, and dang near rip my fingernail from the knuckle outward. Lesson learned: Look for protruding screws before jacking a slide hammer!!!! Lou

[Tigerhaze]

Something very important I learned in my MSHA training class yesterday.
I'm sure everyone knows that brake clean isn't the best for our health but we still use it and are careful.
The article in the link below was presented to us in training though and tells about welding and brake clean.
Please read and take into consideration in the future.
http://www.brewracingframes.com/id75.htm

That article is interesting, because phosgene was manufactured for use in WWI as a chemical warfare material (poison gas).

Even without heating or welding, PCE can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin and cause acute and chronic health effects as well as groundwater and soil contamination. That is why government promotes the use of non-chlorinated brake clean (although it doesn't work quite as well).

[gus]

After reading that, I'm going to stop using brake clean and go back to ether. Just have to stay up wind of that.
Gus

[LeonardL]

I really have to respectfully interject here and add my two cents worth. I agree that using brake clean is a hazard and should be handled with great care. Any time you add this type of chemical to a combustion process you are going to get toxic results.
I must say though, that using "Ether" for anything other than what it is designed to be used for is dangerous! Ether is so volatile that the least spark can set it off. Not to mention the harmful effects of inhaling the stuff. Whether you are up wind or not.
So please use the non-chlorinated brake clean or a good less volatile cleaner for your cleaning purposes.
I know this is coming from a guy who didn't exactly know what to do with an out of control flaming propane torch! But at least we were using the product in the proper manner. We just failed to see the crack in the screw on fitting. As they say Poop happens!!
Just be careful what you are using for cleaners. Flash fires can and will happen in just that... A flash!!