If you’ve ever worked on your own car, you’ve probably injured yourself working on your own car. Engine bays are a hotbed of tight spaces, sharp edges, and searing liquids ready to tear into your skin – ask me how I know. Brake jobs, exhaust swaps, clutch replacements – you name it, I’ve been injured in some way while performing common maintenance and repair tasks, leaving scars in places like my arms, legs, and chest. I’m sure anyone who’s turned a wrench has a few healed wounds of their own.
Now I can add my face to that list, thanks to a tow hook I just happened to forget existed while I was underneath the rear end of my 2003 Mazda MX-5 Miata.
Here’s how it all started: About a month ago, I began hearing a clanking sound coming from the rear end of my car. I figured it must be something loose, seeing as it only happened when I went over a bump, and wasn’t speed-dependent. I got on the ground and poked around the rear end, but couldn’t immediately find anything wrong – the suspension was all connected correctly, and nothing seemed to be obviously flopping around.
So I decided to go up to my parents’ house, where I work on my cars, and chuck the Miata onto some jackstands for a real diagnosis. With the car was in the air, it took about five seconds for me to discover the problem: A heat shield that sits over the muffler had mostly rotted away due to rust.
Rust: The Great Eraser
I live in the Northeast, which means I have to deal with rust. As far as Miatas go, mine actually isn’t terribly rusty, at least by Northeastern Miata standards. There’s some rust on the subframe and the trunklid, but other than that, it’s pretty clean—at least, that’s what I thought before I saw the muffler’s heat shield.
There’s a piece of metal bolted to the underside of the Miata’s trunk space meant to absorb the heat from the muffler, which rests just below. It shields the trunk area, which would otherwise cook your groceries if the shield weren’t there. It’s a simple item, bolted to the car via four bolts. Here’s what it’s supposed to look like:
The shielding itself is pretty thin, which means the rust ate through it far more quickly than any other metal on the car. The sound was coming from the front-most part of the shield (the middle area of the shield, where it’s darkest, in the photo above), which had rotted so badly that it was hanging off and slapping the top of the muffler over every bump. This part of the shield is tucked up and away above the muffler, so there’s no way I could’ve spotted it while the car was on the ground.
The Moment Of Contact
Rather than just remove the entire shield and let the exhaust cook everything in my trunk, I elected to remove the driver’s side portion of the shield, letting the part that hadn’t totally succumbed to rot remain in place. I undid the two 10-millimeter bolts on the left side and started tearing away at what was left of the metal.
The rust was bad enough that a good chunk of the shield crumbled away in my hands. I was able to rip most of it from the car with no tools at all. Here’s what the situation looked like:
And here’s a piece of the former heat shield that fell onto the ground:
Note the two pieces of rusted heat shield hanging from either side of the muffler. It was at this point that the shield could no longer be ripped away by hand. So I had to get a pair of heavy-duty snippers to slice out the rest of the cancerous metal that was too far gone. This is when disaster struck.
I was under the car at this point, poking at the shield, and when I realized I needed the tool, I quickly leaned up to go to my toolbox. While I thought my head would clear the bumper just fine, I forgot the metal tow hitch mounted to the frame was hanging in my path. I proceeded to thwack my face, specifically the area next to my eye, on the tow hook. It hurt a lot.
Here’s the culprit:
Sadly, my parents’ ring camera didn’t capture the moment of impact, which means my several minutes of screaming expletives weren’t recorded. Funnily, the bone beneath this area is called the zygomatic bone, which makes up the lower part of your eye socket and the outer part of your cheek. To me, zygomatic sounds more like a brand name for a ’50s-era three-speed transmission than a piece of skull.
Once I knew I hadn’t broken anything, I simply got back to working on my car (as is tradition whenever I injure myself on the job). I cut off the remainder of the panel that needed to be removed, and was left with this strikingly beautiful remains:
Though this injury has caused me mild discomfort over the past few days, I’m in no way mad at my Miata (despite initially hurling a few of those expletives in its direction at the time). It was, of course, fully my fault for putting my face into that piece of metal, not the car’s. I’d never fault a car for having readily accessible, permanently mounted tow hooks (something many new cars simply don’t have).
After I finally got the job done, I threw a pack of frozen green beans on my bruise and laid on my parents’ couch for a couple of hours contemplating my life choices while in seething pain. As always, I came to the same conclusion: No regrets… so long as the car is fixed.
Top graphic photos: Brian Silvestro
Several years ago I was under my 1985 VW Jetta 1.6D which was up on jackstands (multiple, of course, lol) starting on replacing the CV axles, the tie rods, and some other items; while laying on my back I was pulling on a cheater bar when the bolt loosened so abruptly that my elbow slammed into the concrete driveway much like the way Tony Jaa slams his elbow into the elephant poachers in The Protector except that the concrete driveway was completely unfazed whereas the elephant poachers are deservedly obliterated. Possible that I fractured or outright broke something osseous but I didn’t seek out medical attention (I live in the U.S., you see, and that way lies financial ruin.)
Had to favor that elbow for several weeks; coupled with some cardiac episodes and some inclement winter weather it ended up taking me two and a half months to get the Jetta sorted out and all buttoned up and back on the road. If not for that incident with my elbow I very likely would’ve actually gotten the Jetta done in *one* weekend.
Since then I’ve been extremely particular about how and where I position my elbows, especially when I’m laying on my back, if I have to pull on anything, whether it be a 1/4″ drive ratchet wrench or a 1/2″ drive breaker bar.
Come to think of it, maybe that’s actually why they call it a breaker bar.
I’d have up voted you just for “osseous,” but that’s a great/terrible story, too.
While working in the Garage on a 1968 Mustang I am restoring, I tripped over a floor jack handle, and went Head (and Knee) first into the concrete. Now being a man (while dizzy) I attempted , and mostly succeeded, to get ice for the knee, and a friend who was helpful , called 911, and my wife, ( who went out with a GF after us fighting). Me not wanting to be the next Natasha Richardson (look it up) took the ambulance ride to the ER for a head and knee scan. Thankfully they located a brain and a very swollen knee, ( not to mention a bruised ego) and I lived to continue restoring the car.
Almost done, probable spring before it’s complete, as there is no heat in my NE garage.
You probably should have asked your GF to leave before your wife showed up.
It was her Girlfriend not mine (or ours, I don’t judge)…
Ow.
The number of times I have bonked my head during an oil change exceeds the number of oil changes I have performed.
I wore glasses since 4th grade, and once I knew what they were, I always ordered them with safety lenses. A few years ago I had cataract surgery and have no need for glasses for routine stuff. I have to consciously remember to grab safety glasses anytime I head out to do basically anything resembling hand work. I grab a hair containment device (hat) and gloves as well to be properly attired for whatever awaits.
Yeah, good that people are speaking out in the comments about using eye protection and even face shields.
Recently I acquired an old large Craftsman (vintage U.S.-made) angle grinder but I’m waiting to use it until I get a good face shield.
More than a decade ago when I was in trade school a classmate had a neatly trimmed but scraggly beard and quite even pearly whites. I didn’t think anything of it, as it actually wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, until he told a harrowing account as to why.
Several years earlier he was working on his farm where he was grinding off some bolts on the side of a metal silo with a large angle grinder while wearing a face shield. After finishing the task he had taken off his face shield and was about to start putting away the angle grinder when he noticed a small solitary bolt, not even 1/4″, sticking out so he decided to just buzz it off without putting his face shield back on because it was such a small bolt and it would only take a second.
The angle grinder snagged on either the bolt or the silo’s corrugated metal siding and kicked back. It smashed him in the face and broke his jaw into multiple pieces.
He had to have his jaw wired back together and wired shut (!!) but while recovering he developed a bad infection in his jaw which resulted in *all* of his teeth falling out and necessitated the removal of several pieces of his jaw. Hence the scraggly beard, to cover up the scars, and the even pearly whites (a full set of dentures.) He did make a full recovery ultimately, thankfully, but it took several years and it was quite painful all the while. All because of thinking it wasn’t worth the bother of putting a face shield back on for something that would only take a second.
Yeah, the lesson here, kids, is to *always* wear eye protection (& face protection as necessary)!!
What a horrible accident!
Doing a brake job on my old ’89 Cherokee a lug nut stuck in the impact socket. Somehow while driving it out I also drove a flat bladed screwdriver 1/4″ deep into the thumb muscle on my palm (I was young and dumb). By time I finshed the job my right hand was only good as a club.
Yes, I did have a tetanus shot. No, I did not see a doctor.
Cars and homes require regular blood sacrifice.
The basement at the old house was suitable for someone about 5’8 (I’m just shy of 6’0). Once running out the basement door I misjudged and crashed my head into the 2×10 framing for the back porch. I saw the time-flux capacitor… Drove the rivet on my baseball cap into my scalp and needed 3 stitches at the ER after my partner flat out demanded that we go (I had soaked several washclothes already).
BLOOD FOR THE PROJECT GODS!!!
I’m not too proud to admit I’ve punched myself in the head before, when a stuck underbody bolt finally came loose unexpectedly.
Oh gods. Not a car story, but I was at work, hanging off a post pounding in a nail on the other side with a waffle faced framing hammer. Looked ’round the corner hit myself in the head. Hard. Screamed, then yelled I was OK. Everyone on the crew knew what was up even before I emerged with a waffle print on my forehead. Much laughter the rest of the day, with plenty of good stories.
I’m normally a furious opponent of any suggestion of mechanical planned obsolescence, just because it’s simply too hard to design something to fail at the right time. But I could be very easily convinced that the primary purpose of several heat shields is to create annoying rattles.
I used to rent a barn on a farm to work on my drift MX5, and a couple of times I woke up on the cold concrete under the four-post lift, wondering where the hell I was. I loved that lift, it turned a clutch change from a two day job to a four hour job, including a bit of time unconscious.
Wrenching on my 2003 Miata resulted in some blunt force trauma to my face as well.
I was replacing my driveshaft (long story) and was struggling to get it to break loose. The Miata was on jack-stands which means I was lying on my back on the garage floor. Of course, my dumb ass was directly underneath the driveshaft and I was too cheap to buy eye protection; safety squint for the win!
It popped loose all of a sudden, hitting me near my hairline.
Looking back on it, I’m lucky I survived my early 20’s mostly unscathed.
“forbidden potato chips” reminded me of…
Land of the glass pinecones
Their seeds are made of rhinestones
The squirrels never scatter them
They know what rhinestone seeds portend – HSR
Human Sexual Response was a staple in my college radio days at WUSM / WSMU, back when it was Southeastern Massachusetts University and not “UMASS Dartmouth”
https://youtu.be/RShAxvg5MJE?si=isLBjAc368orcd6Y
So did you end up loving or hating concrete brutalist buildings? Weirdly lovely campus. It looks like they “sold” their FCC broadcast license (and tower?) to RI public radio and took their station online in 2017. This online-only “radio” station is probably a bad idea.
This was too far gone, but as an FYI, for a rattling top heat shield where the bottom has fallen off or nearly so, but that is too intact to remove without dropping the exhaust that will have rusted fasteners, you can stitch together some stainless hose clamps and tighten everything up.
I hate safety glasses. Unless they’re chemical lab types that seal to the face, offending pieces of whatever always seem to find their way around them. I prefer to use a face shield, though it’s not great for tight spots.
Dealing with one on the Corolla now, can’t pull it out – can’t really secure it. It is behind the exhaust manifold near the firewall. No real room to cut it out.
For me, it was on top of a Subaru GL Y-pipe that cost more to replace than the car was worth in the likely event it got damaged trying to get the top heat shield off, so that’s when I came up with that solution and ended up doing this multiple times since without issue. My ’90 Legacy even had the original muffler at 270+k miles with bands holding the sides on. Passed MA emissions inspection like that. Get the better clamps you can put some torque on as I suspect the real cheap-ass clamps out there would strip out before you could got them tight enough. When I was doing this, I don’t recall the cheap junk ones existing.
Black eye seems a bit dramatic here Brian but glad it was not some sharp rust that poked you in the same spot – crisis averted.
I wonder if David is current with his tetanus shot? Wait he’s not in Michigan so all good.
Believe it or not but tetanus has nothing to do with rust. It’s a bacterial infection that comes from getting soil into a wound. Only reason for the association is that people that most likely to get cut by rust used to be farmers / ranchers and rust related injuries are more often a tear vs clean cut so take longer to hear and harder to clean.
The more you know! Thanks fellow reader, I appreciate that.
Tell women (or whomever) you got into a fight. 😉
My go to is telling people that whatever visible injury I have was from saving a puppy.
PSA for safety glasses: I used to hate wearing them until I sucked it up and
got prescription ones. Now that I actually wear them I have lost count of how many times a little spring or rock or metal chip has gone pinging off of them instead of embedding itself in or around my eyes.
I bought readers versions that are full lens magnifiers and it helps a ton https://a.co/d/gjoGBrd
That’s a good idea. I have the goggles that go over my regular glasses, and they work pretty well but can be clunky.
I need goggles that won’t fog up my glasses after a minute.
As of now I just put safety glasses over my eyeglasses.
Zenni is a great source for prescription safety glasses for a very affordable price. I get a new pair every year or so.
I’ve heard good things about Zenni – thanks for an actual real-life recommendation.
And you’re back! I’ve been doing my best to hold down the hey-kids-just-because-they’re-popular-doesn’t-make-Mustangs-all-bad fort around here but we need the heavy hitters!
I never left, just got a lot less likely to comment lol. Been very busy at work which is where I do most of my article perusing, allegedly.
I do come bearing bad(or good?) news however, as I have sold my Mach 1. I felt it was time to move on and the new owner absolutely loves it and is prepping it for paint now.
Congrats – I hope this is a good thing for you! The SN95 Mach 1 is such an underappreciated gem right now, much less one so well-sorted, so the new owner really scored.
It was a parent of a friend. He had recently sold his 67 Mustang and wanted a newer one that was more comfortable but still scratched that itch.
I am happy. I had done everything I wanted to do with it. I am busy with the 3 Miatas I currently own and have been window shopping FD RX-7s.
The science teacher in my head makes me put in safety glasses for all car repairs. This would have probably hurt worse when the edge of the safety classes was pushed into your face.
Brian didn’t wear safety glasses. Now he doesn’t need them.
I usually figure that any repair job done for the first time tends to take three times as much time as it should and inflict one minor wound.
is it even car repair if there is not some blood?
The car gods require a blood sacrifice, or it’ll just go wrong again.
The Mopar version of that saying is “The car gods require a blood sacrifice, and it’ll just go wrong again.”
Was recently given a 09 Corolla with high miles in the Northeast and both heat shields were just resting on the exhaust. Fortunately, the rust was limited to just around the bolt holes. Was lucky enough to get all the bolts loose without snapping any, made some large fender washers out of some scrap aluminum flashing, and bolted everything back up. And managed to avoid the tow hook 🙂
Never a black eye but I’ve banged my bald head enough to always wear a hat while wrenching.
An old wooly had is jammed into the pocket of my (ex-RAF, and way too small) coveralls for thsi reason. Except that I have loads of hair, which tends to pick up all the rust and dirt under a car if it’s not covered.
I remember my buddy and I were working on his Firebird back in the 80s. We were underneath trying to install traction bars, when my buddy sneezed and jerked his head.
He made contact with the exhaust, which gave him a nasty black eye that lasted for weeks.
If I had a dollar for every time I was wrenching on a car and ended up bleeding somewhere…(basically I’d have a dollar for every time I wrenched on anything, including tractors on the farm…)
I’ve resorted to wearing leather gloves for most of the work.
Same here, but then you need to get your fingers on some little part somewhere, or unplug a thing and the gloves have to come off and inevitably a knuckle gets nicked, or my wrist, right after the end of the glove, or my leg balancing something…I could go on and on…
These stretchy, nitrile-coated-palm gloves are better than leather for most automotive work. I’ve used these for years (not the same pair the whole time of course)
SHOWA Atlas 370 Nitrile Palm Coated General Purpose Work Gloves with Nylon Liner, Black, Medium (12 Pair): Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement
I’ve tried those, but they rip too easy. I also use leather gloves for yard work, which I also never did as a kid. I guess we appreciate our hands & fingers more as we get old.
Good luck picking up an 8mm bolt or a flat washer with leather gloves on! Leather gloves are nice for rough work with lots of sharp edges, or stuff like the yard work that you mentioned.
I use mechanics cloth gloves and I find I can pick up and manipulate pretty much anything just fine.
The first thing I do when I walk in the garage is put on the gloves. I even wear them to build bicycle wheels, and spoke nipples are fiddly little bastards.
I especially use them for wheel removal, brakes, struts, etc. And of course exhaust!
I guess I wouldn’t want to rebuild a carb in them.
8- or 9-mil nitrile gloves with a grippy surface are great, but your hands will sweat like a pig in a latex S&M suit.
Little Brian: Someday I want a dark blue 2003 Mazda MX-5 Miata.
Brian’s Mom: You’ll put your eye out.
Well, its more creative than the tired old waking into a door excuse, I’ll give you that
If you’re not bleeding after wrenching on your car you’re not trying hard enough 😉
Yikes! My Mk7 Golf SportWagen gave me a scar that still lingers on my thumb from the plastichrome shift trim peeling and turning into a razor blade. Black eye’s are no fun, but at least no emergency room trip!
Had a similar run in with a driveshaft after beating it into submission I lay under the car wondering how to get it to come loose, then it fell on my head. I wonder how the ‘installation is the reverse of disassembly’ would work here
“Then it fell on my head” is the most shadetree mechanic thing ever.
Intentionally hit your head with the driveshaft before lifting it in, of course!
Use your forehead to apply suitable pressure to re-seat the driveshaft, lubricate with your own blood