A friend of mine, who is a trained Jaguar mechanic, has for some time now
sported a full beard. One day, while working on the rear suspension of an
XJ6, he had to compress the springs. Jaguar makes a special tool for this
purpose, which he used. However, he did not get it set up quite right. The
spring he was compressing got loose and hit him in the mouth. He lost a
number of teeth, his upper jaw was fractured, and there were facial
lacerations. He spent a good deal of time in the hospital, "eating" through
a straw. The medical and dental bills were high, he lost a great deal of
time, and the pain was not inconsiderable. Oh yes, the beard. He grew the
beard to cover the scars. Works pretty well.
He was lucky. Those things can really, truly kill you. If you work on
springs, triple check everything and don't experiment. Belt plus suspenders
is the philosophy to apply.
Jim Knight
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