A friendly reminder to all of us who work on cars at home

[JRS]

For the love of all that is holy, secure your car with chocks when using ramps or a jack. Don't just rely on the parking brake/parking pawl on the transmission. Ma & pa's neighbour was working under his LR Discovery today, it slipped back down the ramps and crushed him. Police, fire and ambulance in attendance, doesn't look at all good.

He's a very good mechanic (***edit*** JRS note - sorry gang, according to @Dis86 I apparently can't say this, mea maxima culpa), forever working on stuff. But it doesn't take much going wrong to send your day south in a real hurry. Safety first.

 

[JRS]

ah jeez. Somebody did that in front of me a few years ago now. More blood than I had ever seen before or since. He was fine, thankfully. Hope the neighbour is too

Hope your neighbour survives and recovers. I'll remember this next time and get some bricks handy.

Sadly, I'm pretty sure he was dead when we got to him and rang 999.

Doesn't sound like it, it's one of the most basic safety points when the car is on ramps, jacked or on any kind of slope.

Yes, well done Dis86. Impressive that it took until the 5th reply for this. OcUK Motors, you're slipping.

Anyway, back on topic. Lots of people think 'oh, I can rely on the parking brake/stick the gearbox in park for a minute and be fine'. Lots of bloody good mechanics do just that and nothing ever goes wrong. Well, this time something went wrong. So please, everyone - secure your damned wheels.

 

[JRS]

I don't carry chocks(4x2's) if I ever had to change a wheel by roadside, but yes body wouldn't be underneath
]

I used to keep a pair in the spare wheel well of my old Seicento, since that latterly had the potential to come to a halt on the road and didn't have any breakdown cover (though, to be fair, it never did actually break down).

 

[JRS]

There's 1 claim in this thread and I'm saying it's a poor one.

Please consider the claim humbly withdrawn, if it's that important to you.

 

[JRS]

snip

I've looked at sets over the years. But the last few cars that have been worked on at home have been:

1) Fiat Barchetta - too low and too much front overhang for a lot of ramps.
2) Land Rover IIa - actually high enough off the ground all by itself for most jobs (I put a new exhaust mid and back section on it without lifting it at all, for example).
3) Citroen ID19 - just use the onboard hydraulics with jackstands and chocks (why don't all cars have this suspension?).

 

[JRS]

@JRS Any word on the poor chap?

In retrospect, he was gone when we got to him. His lad came over last night to thank us for what we did, I just wish we could have done more.

 

[JRS]

His partner has been over to thank us for what we did. If anyone needs me the rest of the evening I'll be inside a bottle of whisky.

 

[JRS]

<3

Back at'cha bud.

Might sound daft but don't be afraid to seek help if it really does start getting to you.

Yea, it’s very much ok to not be ok after seeing something like that.

Cheers guys. I'm in the fortunate position of having a decently robust support network with family and friends locally.

And to reiterate...

Use. God damned. Chocks.

Use a brick. Stack wheels underneath. Repurpose a tree trunk cutting. Anything. Quite apart from the damage it can do to you if things go wrong, think about the damage losing you is gonna do to your family.

 

[JRS]

I hope you’re ok pal.

I will be. Spent the afternoon doping out the new seatbelt fitment for the ID19 to occupy some brain runtime, because getting cross at Citroën for design decisions they made 50+ years ago is exceedingly useful in that regard

 

[JRS]

Urgh, this isn't the sort of stuff you want to hear about.

No. But it's the stuff that needs to be said and have people think about.

If just one person reads this thread and is saved next time they work underneath a car because they took precautions then I'll consider it mission ******* accomplished!

When I was a kid an uncle of mine that live just around the corner had a near one. He was working on his car parked outside his house and had it up on a large trolley jack and a bottle jack. Went inside for lunch, came back out and thought something seemed different when he got under the car again. The he realised someone had nicked the trolley jack whilst he was eating his lunch and it was only the smaller bottle jack keeping it up!

Yikes!

 

[JRS]

Horrible news, hope you're doing ok @JRS - speak up if you need to

Thanks Maccy, will do

 

[JRS]

@Acme, @Howard, @bainbridge - yeah, been there done that many a time

 

[JRS]

Any of you ever succeeded and dented your sill panel?

Naw. I suspect that takes a level of skill and judgement that I'm fortunately not blessed with

 

[JRS]

My original comment was poorly worded, what I meant to say is "it's never nice to hear of things like this".

All good, that was exactly what I took you to mean

 

[JRS]

Meh, not worth poking you.

 

[JRS]

I suffered at the hands of your old Jag XJ's electric seats at an OCUK meet once. That was no accident. I stand by my words.

 

[JRS]

Anyway after this thread I actually went and bought some chocks so my pair of bricks can retire now.

 

[JRS]

@Cyber-Mav - I honestly have no idea what Steve was working on underneath the car. My best guess regarding ground clearance though is that the car and ramps were lined up with wheel tracks on his unpaved and very uneven driveway, which obviously reduced the room underneath the centreline. Combine that with the air suspension being down (car was a third gen, L319 Disco), and whatever happened then happening...