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PSA: Injury Hiatus

June 15, 2013 by Matt

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Well, my new (to me) car got its pound of flesh. Eerily similar to an injury I had to my pinkie about ten years ago when working on my Supra’s driveshaft (you’d think I would have learned), the BMW’s left front wheel hub backing plate made a nice incision in my middle finger while undergoing a damper replacement, requiring five stitches. I was buttoning up a Koni Sport install, tightening the sway bar end link on the strut bracket and…the wrench slipped. As much as I’ll miss the tactile nature of car work with bare hands, I think it’s time to invest in a good pair of work gloves.

So, faithful readers, everything will be just a little slower for a few days while my finger heals, including updates. I’ll do my best to have some original content up in the next few days. In the meantime, check out our archives, featured series or one of the excellent blogs on the sidebar. Cheers!

Filed under: Blog, Miscellaneous, Tinkering

4 Comments

  1. Jay says:

    Same injury (tightening endlink nut, wrench slipped, backing plate into middle finger) compelled me to buy nice work gloves. Haven’t suffered any major cuts since then (over 2 years at this point).

    I still pull off my gloves if I need to do any fine finger work but if a knife or lots of force is required, the gloves are most definitely on.

  2. John D says:

    Sorry to hear it, Matt. I, too, have resisted using gloves while working on cars. There are always tight spaces to squeeze into and a ‘feel’ to the work that you lose using gloves. The only time I can use gloves is when I am doing a brake job, even then I use latex gloves simply to keep the brake dust and fluid off my hands. They’re pretty unobtrusive, but I still find myself going through several pairs of them per session as I can’t stand working with them once they get dirty.

    All the best and a speedy recovery!

    • Matt says:

      Thanks John. For jobs that don’t involve a whole lot of torque and/or heavy parts, I think I could get away with no gloves, but I’m definitely wearing them for any suspension/under car work from now on.

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