Shop stories–D8 and a Rat

I love funny shop stories, And this one is my favorite and the person who told it to me I trust. Back in the late 80's a friend of mine was working for a Cat dealer. He was working fork lift repair at the time. It was a Monday morning and he always arrived early. The main parts mgr asked him to go look in the storage building for an old D8 engine block and crank, It was fifties vintage parts. So he went back and found what they were looking for. The mgr told him to dig it out and ready it for shipping. He asked the mgr who in the hell wanted it, mgr said don't worry about that just get it ready I'll tell you later. The next day he got the story. An old D8 that was being restored at another Cat shop on the west side of the Cascades had a disaster late at night the Friday before. The alarms went off a security guard showed up and could find nothing, but things didn't look right to him so he called the Cat shop mgr. When the mgr showed up He found the engine was slammed through the frame rails. When the boys left at five to go drink beer they left the sling and over head hoist hooked to the engine they just set in place. The winch motor engaged in the middle of the night lifting the engine 25' till it broke the cable swage at the fairlead. When the insurance investigator showed up he had them rum him up in a man lift. It was an old over head winch with no covers over the solenoids. And There he found a dead RAT. NC tried to keep that one quite. Truck Shop