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The Daring Dufas[_7_]

On 5/21/2011 8:44 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 21 May 2011 04:54:38 -0500, Fat-Dumb and Happy
wrote:

mm wrote:
OT Watching a Patty Duke epiode from 1966, another teenager keeps
working under his car with nothing holding it up afaict but bumper
jack. There scenes like that.

I know I didn't have safety stands until 1970 or maybe much later, but
I also didn't lie under the car when it was jacked up.

Was this sort of standard in 1956, for teenagers, amateurs, even pros?

I've had my car fall off the bumper jack twice, once when it was on a
hill, I was only changing a tire and I didn't put anything under the
car, only my arms in the wheel well for a few seconds. Once I had to
borrow a jack from another guy on the street, to get my jack out, and
then I used both jacks.

Yes, Bumper jacks were the most common way to lift a car and probably
the only way for most shade tree mechanics. A lot of brake shoes were
changed using nothing but bumper jacks to get the wheel off the ground.
Most people were a lot skinnier back in those days, I could usually
take a drive shaft out with having to raise the vehicle. Oh the good
old days, a piece of cardboard to lay on and a hand full of tools and
you could fix a lot of things on the old cars....

I remember many times jacking up the car to replace a muffler bearing
or the AM Radio and I'd only have one jack to jack up all 4 tires. It
was pretty tricky to jack up the first tire, put my school books under
the tire, and move to the second tire. Then put a friends school
books under that tire, and so on until all 4 tires were off the ground
and no one could do their homework because they had no books. If we
didn't have enough books, basketballs would be used under the tires.
If you needed to change the engine, you'd unbolt everything, then find
the fattest chick at school, place her under the engine, and pet her
pussy until her boobs got really big and they would lift that 460ci
Big Block turbo boost V8 engine right out of the car. If she was not
around, we'd just inflate balloons under the engine until it came out
of the car.

And when it came time to change a flat tire, you'd just jack the car
up by the tire that's flat, place the spare tire under the car's
frame, lower the jack (for safety), and remove the flat tire. Then
you'd walk several miles to the nearest pay phone, insert a dime, call
dad, and bitch him out for taking your spare tire out of your trunk,
and not putting it back.

One of the biggest problems with bumper jacks was when the bumper
would come off the car halfway up. Of course that almost always
caused the lower or middle radiator hose to spring a leak. By this
time you not only needed to replace your clutch, but also the middle
radiator hose and the bumper, and had to do it before you took your
date to the malt shop, which gave you 40 minutes to complete the job.

Back on the farm I had a Yale chain hoist and an A frame which I would
use to lift each end of my Dodge Dart and set it on columns made of
concrete block. With a six foot column at each corner of the little car,
I could walk under it and do what ever repairs I needed to do. I was
never killed at any time. ^_^

TDD