A really dumb mistake

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Jimmy9190

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I jacked my truck up yesterday to remove the left rear wheel and was surprised when it didn't go high enough. I thought I detected a faint gas smell when I leaned down to check it out and saw that I had put the saddle for the jack not on the frame but on the PLASTIC GAS TANK!! It was up off the ground for maybe 10 seconds with the weight of the truck resting on the gas tank and the jack buckling the plastic tank. Luckily for me someone was watching out for me because it does not look like it damaged the tank. It put a slight nick in the plastic in a couple of places. I am really glad and grateful I didn't do some real serious damage.

Now that I have admitted my dumb *ss mistake, has anyone else here had this bad of a mistake happen to them?
 
You sure it's safe? If it didn't break the tank, where was the faint gas smell coming from?

EDIT: Once I drove my gf's Volvo completely over my rhino ramps. The car came crashing down and buckled the ramps. I use a jack+stands for everything now.
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Oh I only smelled the gas for a brief instant when I first jacked it up. I think it must have pushed some vapor out the vent tube on the tank. I have checked it about 5 times since it happened. Crawled underneath and sniffed all around and I smelled no gas. I ran my hands all around as much of the surface area of the tank as I could reach and felt no cracks or holes or any other kind of damage. The spot where the tank buckled went back to normal too. I checked it again today and smelled no gas and there was no gas leaking on my carport floor. I'm not losing fuel either, and I went on about an 80 mile round trip last night after this happened.

I count myself very lucky that I didn't cause a lot worse damage. From now on I will get down and visually check the saddle contact point on the frame. I didn't do that yesterday because the pavement was too hot. What a dumb a$$ idiot mistake that was, but I thought the spot where I saw the saddle making contact was on the frame. I am also grateful they use such thick plastic on the tanks. Now that I think about that, they proabably have to use thick high-impact plastic so that road debris and the like don't puncture the tank, either.

Rhino ramps are a little spooky without a spotter. Yikes. You were lucky too.
 
MAn i did something worse. it was winter with 6 inches of snow and my mom was driving me to school. i had a exam that day 1st period. I noticed the passenger tire was flat. so i panicked and so in the snow i took out the spare, and a jack. i started lifting and i though i put it in the right direction. i take of the stock tire and i noticed that my fender is like an inch out of the frame. i put the freaking jack under the fender. WAt an Idiot i was,.
 
Originally Posted By: Jimmy9190

Rhino ramps are a little spooky without a spotter. Yikes. You were lucky too.


They are a bit spooky. I find them more difficult with manual trans cars but this one was an auto. No real safety risk in that situation, though. The thing I was lucky about was that I didn't to any damage to the car!

I'm glad your tank isn't leaking. It's pretty amazing, I wouldn't have thought it could hold all that weight.

Bulli, that's a good (bad?) one. Good thing you noticed before it was too late.
 
Too many stoooopid things to list in one post. Stuff like this is the gift that keeps on giving.
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Originally Posted By: rationull


EDIT: Once I drove my gf's Volvo completely over my rhino ramps. The car came crashing down and buckled the ramps. I use a jack+stands for everything now.
wink.gif



Ramps are evil. The extra time it takes to get out the jack and set up stands is very much worth it.
 
I agree. I have a set of Rhino ramps and have used them for several years, but I can use my jack and jack stands in about the same amount of time, they allow me to get the truck raised higher and I get more room to work from underneath. Plus I leave the jack engaged and just contacting the frame for added support.

I was lucky with my gas tank fiasco only because it was the left rear corner where the truck is pretty light. The front end was already up on jack stands when it happened. I feel your pain Bulli. I have learned you just can't be in a hurry when doing anything with your car.
 
About 15 years ago, I was trying to jack up my '90 Mazda MX6. I didn't quite understand exactly where the jack was supposed to go, and I didn't have an owner's manual. I put the jack in what looked to be a good spot, started jacking it up, then the car came CRASHING down.

After I changed pants, I took a closer look. The jack punctured the driver's side floor pan. It took some creative "patching" to get things back in order. I soon learned the proper way to use the jack. That moment of ignorance could have cost me my life.
 
I have learned that it is best to consider the lifting of a car a "job" all by itself. Any job that needs to have the car in the air begins with a careful lifting job, and I try to take my time and get it right. Once that is methodically taken care of, the actual work on the car can progress.

I used to have to work on my cars in a gravel parking lot. We had maybe 3" of crushed rock over roadbase, with bare earth underneath. I had cars fall off jackstands, fall off ramps, and so on. And you can not use a floor jack on that kind of ground, so all the lifting was done with a scissor jack.

I was always careful to make sure things were very secure before getting underneath.

My tire guy had a friend crushed to death when the RV he was working on fell off its jack.
 
I've driven over ramps once. That's when I went and bought a jack and jack stands. And since you can't be too safe, I rock the car back and forth when I lift and place them on jack stands. If it doesn't fall then it's probably safe to get under the car.

I even managed to screw up with a jack, too. Once I lowered the car too fast and it lost its grip and the car fell. I was using the front reinforced jack point (close to the radiator) but luckily the radiator didn't get damaged. The transmission housing was hit but fortunately no damage except for a scratch.
 
I always use jack and jackstands together. I would jack up the car to the height I want. put the jackstand, drop the jack a little bit, so the car would fall on the jackstand. pump up the jack to the same position just in case the jackstand fails.
 
Back when I was in college I did a snow/summer tire changeover on my mazda 323. I thought it was "bad" to lift at the pinch weld because you had to jack "forever" while the strut spring uncompressed and the tire finally left the ground. So I stuck the jack saddle under the lower control arm halfway between the frame and ball joint. Heard a "criiiick" as I lifted it.

Summer tires get on, I'm driving on the mass pike, and car is all over the road. Check my lugnuts and they're good. Go in for an oil change and the guy says I've got a bad ball joint. He fixes it and I'm back in good shape.

In hindsight, now that I have a bunch more mechancial knowledge, I feel somewhat responsible.

PS plastic fuel tanks rock up here in salt-land. Plus one never has flakes of rust etc inside the tank get sucked up etc.
 
I was doing an oil change on my parent's car and I did it with my jack and stands in my driveway. I did the oil change and then put the car down. When I removed the jacks, the two feet closest to the inside of the car embedded into the pavement.

The pavement was not very even there, so the weight on that side of the jack was mainly on those two inner legs of the stands. Pretty dangerous. I now make sure I do oil changes/work in the garage on a FLAT concrete floor.

Oh ya, I once forgot to remove the bricks used to chock the rear tires of my car after an oil change. As I let the clutch out the car basically went up in the air. Scared the bejesus out of me.

More recently, I replaced the rotors/brakes on my car. After taking it out for a test drive I was hearing some weird knocking in the right wheel well. It didn't take me long to realize what I did. Turns out I forgot to remove the hanger I used to hold the caliper. It was still strapped around the struts. I felt like an idiot on the side of the road pulling the hanger out of my strut.
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When I do use my ramps I put them on the rough surface of the concrete of my driveway where it meets the smooth concrete surface of the carport. The rough surface and the rubber feet on the ramps keep them from sliding and it always puts the engine compartment a few feet inside the carport, in the shade and out of any rain that might be falling. But unfortunately the carport is not wide enough to operate the floor jack, so I had to do the tire rotation on the driveway which is flat but very hot in the Florida summer sun.

It's good we can learn from our mistakes and laugh at ourselves. Some of this might be funny to us now but it sure was not so funny when it happened..
 
Originally Posted By: GMFan

Oh ya, I once forgot to remove the bricks used to chock the rear tires of my car after an oil change. As I let the clutch out the car basically went up in the air. Scared the bejesus out of me.


Hah! I did that, forgot to remove the chocks from the rear wheels when I was replacing the radiator in my girlfriend's Volvo. When I got in, turned it on and put it in reverse it wouldn't go (it's an auto trans) and I was scared for a second, wondering what I could've possibly done to the transmission during the job. Took a second for me to realize the real problem was far less severe :)
 
Originally Posted By: firemachine69
Love my Rhinos... I really don't know how anyone can have difficulty placing them... Just go slow and don't lose patience (how 98% of people mess up with ramps.)


Hey, the thread is about dumb mistakes, and I never said I didn't lose patience :) I agree in general and I used the ramps a bunch of times before I ran over them. How easy they are to use definitely depends on the surface of the ground.

Also, going up nice and slow is easy in an auto with slow throttle response, but I never did like doing it in my cars; I always felt bad for the clutches.
 
Bah, replacing a clutch is FUN!
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That was a blanket statement by the way, and in no way aimed at you in particular!


(My friend did almost the same thing when I asked him to drive up the ramps...
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)
 
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