When I opened my first shop in 74, I worked almost entirely alone. I put in 20 hour days until Friday. Fridays I closed the shop at noon because I went racing Saturday night. From noon Friday until we unloaded very early Sunday mornings, sometimes I never saw the bed. Couldn't quit earlier in the week because the business supported the habit. Many long hours and stories I forget until I start telling one... Isn't that how it goes Larry?
I still get in a hurry and don't think. I can't say I ran over the gas can with a snow blower, but I had a guy tackle me once because I was blowing out the driveway and he got plastered with the snow. I had an 8 horse power 2 stage blower and I mean you could hurl snow with that thing. He took exception to getting all the snow thrown on his car and my wife said he was waving his hands in the air and I didn't pay him any attention... I've been a total since I was 12 so it was lost on me. It was a mistake I'm sure he'll never forget. One of those things that goes from bad to worse. I have to laugh every time I think of it. I used my first table saw as a work table at times and there are marks all over the edge where I ran my carbide blade on the circular saw into the table. And if you need one to make you feel much better... I owned an Olds Cutlass once. Living outside of Buffalo at that time, you know how the winters get there. I had rebuilt the carb on my Cutlass and thinking it would be a great idea to fill the float bowl with gas. Why not? The engine would be cold, the fuel pump would have to fill the float bowl before I could get the engine to fire, and filling the carb with gas to would help it start right up... So I mounted the carb on the engine, stopped for something or other, came back out and never took a last look at my work. I turned the key, and as thought the engine fired right up. Only problem was I never threaded the fuel line in. Car fired up and my perfectly good fuel pump was spraying gas all the way to the back of the engine compartment. Of course that was where the coil and distributor were on that engine. I thumped the accelerator once and the engine roared for a few seconds and shut off. I thought that was strange because it should run a good while with the gas in the float bowl. And it never crossed my mind that the line was still off. It didn't run out of gas, my plug wires melted in the fire and shut the engine off. Went through a dry chemical and a 10 pound C O2 extinguisher before I got things put out. And to add insult to injury, someone called the fire department and of course the local paper had a scanner and heard the call and the next day there was my crippled Cutlass and me with our pictures in the paper;. I couldn't go anywhere without people asking about the fire. They announced it on the PA system later that spring at the track just to rub it in some more. Not one of my finer moments to say the least... ----- Original Message ----- From: robert moore To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 7:48 PM Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] spilled gasoline Bob I don't feel so bad now, After all you have worked around gas engines for what did you say 30 years. That would be how many countless thousands of hours. Figure close to 2000 per year if you were full time. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Bob Kennedy Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 6:02 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] spilled gasoline As for the part of you being the only one to do something like that, you aren't. Last summer I rebuilt a carburetor for a chain saw and fired it up. Without thinking I gave it a couple quick revs and punched the end of the bar through the side of the plastic can. Doesn't stand up to a sharp chain for any length of time. I'd move the snow with a shovel just to be safe, but it's already diluted quite a bit mixing with the snow. But anyone living near the Cleveland area can tell you that water will burn if polluted enough. Remember the river that caught fire? Gas is nothing to play games with but it would take a pretty good spark to ignite it now. If you have a plastic dust pan you might use that to scoop up the left over. If you are really worried, you can dump a bag of kitty litter over the area and wait for it to soak up the gas which it will do. ----- Original Message ----- From: robert moore To: Blind Handyman Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 1:10 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] spilled gasoline To make a short story long I went out and dug out my snow blower and tried to start it and it would not start so I added some new gas. There was some in the tank but not much. I hooked up the electric start and after a while I gave up and went into the house. Well wen I went out to try it again I forgot that I had left the gas tank on the ground and once I got it started I began to clear some snow with it. Low and behold I found the gas can with the snow blower. It was junping around and then I started smelling gas and that is when I remembered the gas can. It is plastic. The two good things are that I did not blow myself up and the other good thing is that I cut into the back side instead of the front so I think I only lost maybe a quart to a half gallon. There is still a fair amounht in the can which I will use to top off the tank and probably put the rest in the car. My question is assuming I spilled say a half gallon on the ground in a pile of snow. How long do you think it might take for it to evaporate to the point that it would be safe to use the snow blower in that area? Also I wonder if I should just use the shovel to move that snow out of that spot. Am I really the only one that does that kind of dumb stuff. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
