Setting the timing on my O/T car: left hand holding a metal timing gun, right hand on the distributor, thumb on a terminal boot. The MSD ignition zapped the piss out of me. I wasn't able to let go until the MSD got about five capacitive discharges into me
Where shall I begin? At 17, it took 7 stitches to put my upper lip back together after being split by the crowbar I was using to pry the springs apart on my '50 Chevy to remove the pound-in spring spacers from the front coils... Several years later, I almost lost my eyebrows soldering the filler neck back on the gas tank of a John Deere 2-cylinder tractor... Then, I nearly lost a 4430 JD tractor from the truck - someone else neglected to put the pin back in the eyelet that held the chain to the bed of the truck... It was interesting to watch the back end of the tractor moving ever closer to the cab... And my latest mishap almost a year ago - was building some cabinets for the basement and ripping some facing material on the table saw. Still not sure exactly how it happened, but almost cut the end of my right thumb off. Six stitches and eleven months later, I still can't tell how hard I'm squeezing anything with my thumb. It must run in the family - on my brother's first day of work at a JD dealership, he put a clutch in a 70 JD tractor - those hand clutches worked by over-centering, and if you didn't adjust them correctly, they would engage at both ends of the travel. He hopped on the seat to pull it outside and proceeded to back over the hood. Going forward to get off the hood, he almost put the tool rack and the tractor through the side of the building...
The Jalopy Journal
