Wash your hands and wear gloves.

Many of you reading this will be saying 'No poop, Sherlock!', because you've learned already. This post is not really for you, other than a reminder.

Manos = hands. Manual dexterity. Our hands are very important.

You are not going to like getting an emergency tetanus shot...or worse, actual tetanus.

You are not going to like scalding your hand to 3rd degree burns.

You are not going to like losing any of your fingers or thumbs.

You are not going to like smashing your hands in any way, shape, or form.

Pay attention and play it smart while working on your vehicles. Lives depend on it, and so do your hands...the hands that put man in human.


I write this today because there have been some posts started recently from folks who seem totally new to the idea of wrenching on their cars, and there has been lots of good advice given to them about how to go about fixing their stuff....but not enough information about safety. Safety issues that noobs may not be aware of, and one cannot learn a finger back to life.

Stay safe, my friends.

 

FYI, if you have a Tuesday Morning store in your area, they sometimes have Mechanix gloves for about half price.

 

Working on cars a lot of things can hurt you and maybe kill you if your not careful.Let things cool off and think before you do it.

 

In my 50+ years of working on them I think I have experienced most all of them.......Except DEATH!


When I was young and dumb and I thought that all it needed was a bigger breakover or hammer to get it done more of those happened then. As time rolled by and I ran short on new places to damage on my body I started using more finesse and reading material for work being done with less damage to myself 8>)

 

How many of us wear eye protection? I've gotten to where I'm wearing safety glasses pretty much any time I get under the truck. It has actually helped save my hands in some cases, since I was able to keep my eyes open and see what I was doing while crap was falling on me.

Also, how many of us keep a fully charged fire extinguisher around? I have two in my garage, just in case.

 

Something most of us forget is hearing protection while using air tools or any loud tools.Anything louder then a hair dryer on high you need hearing protection.

 

X2 on the hearing thing. Early part of my working career spent in body shop and then working fabricating stainless steel pressure tanks (favorite trick to annoy fellow worker was to bang on tank with ball peen while he was inside).

At any rate cannot hear midtones. Makes hearing what people say very difficult especially if background noise or low volume. Makes you seem stupid saying Heh all the time.

Not sure how much AC/DC and Led Zep played into that though ;-)

 

There are hundreds of thousands of Jeeps out there, in a wide range of budgets...but no amount of money will grow you a new hand, ear or eyeball. It sucks when the car doesn't run, but that will mean diddly-squat if you lose your physical ability to drive it...or live.

I also don't care if one feels insulted for suggesting safety issues to them.

 

Gloves! If nothing else, no one should be wrenching without gloves, I never even thought about it until my buddy saw me installing my lift with nothing on, he called me out on it, and handed me his extra pair, suddenly my hands didn't hurt all the time, they weren't covered in cuts and scrapes all the time anymore, and when I finish what I'm doing, my hands aren't stained in dirt, oil, and grease. A nice pair of goggles, are def great too, especially when you have rust dust raining down on you while your laying on your back looking up.

edit: I don't know how to spell =p

 

Nothing worse then having your hands covered in gears and oil and you gotta take a leak or your face itches.I to have some hearing lost and im only 32,Its from loud music and air tools.My step dad has been a mechanic since the 70s and i always helped him work on stuff in the drive way as a kid.I learned a lot off him but looking back at it all the air tools with out ear plugs wasn't a good idea but i didn't know better.

 

I ALWAYS wear gloves when working on a vehicle unless I am doing wiring. And I don't own any air tools or a compressor. I use all hand tools and my muscles. I know I should wear safety glasses but most of the time I don't think of it until its too late.

 

When my brother was a teenager working on his '67 Chevelle, he was cleaning a part on the wire brush without eye protection and suddenly felt a pain in his eye. One of the wires had broken off and embedded itself in the sclera. He had to go to the emergency room to get it pulled out. He fully recovered, but a 1/4" to one side and he would have done serious damage to his cornea.

That was a wake up call. My dad, brother and I were all a lot more careful after that.

One suggestion that I would make is to spend a little extra money on good protection glasses. Growing up, we always had these really uncomfortable cheap crap safety glasses like you use in high school chemistry class, and they were beat to hell so you could hardly see through them. I think that's probably why my brother wasn't wearing them, because he couldn't see what he was doing.

You're more likely to use them if they're comfortable and clear. I now use a nice set of 3M glasses that are so light and comfortable that I forget I'm wearing them. If they get scratched up, I throw them away and get another set, but the better 3M ones are actually pretty scratch resistant.

On the first day of class, my welding instructor said, "I've worked with a one-armed welder. Never worked with a blind one, though."