Fire fire Car's on fire!

[Matchless]

"Big red thing" - made me an old man smile - LOL

We had the "no welding in the last hour" well worth enforcing .........

 

[Erie Fred]

I think I would be happier with the CO2 approach that forcing more air into it.!

Have you tried it ?
or do you just "think" ?
FWIW I done it with pure O2, cutting with my torch, stop, hit the blow lever to put OUT the fire.
But the compressed air method is used allot.
At the garage I worked at the old timer always got the air hoe with blow gun ready before starting any hot work.

 

[premmington]

We had the "no welding in the last hour" well worth enforcing .........

Really simple good advice that one....

 

[TEO]

Spray water bottle - or wet rags - when you lost control - straight Co2 fire extinguisher (dry powder ones make too much mess).

The rules are:

No welding in the last hour of work
No woodwork machining in the same building
Sweep the floor up - no rags or other stuff lying about.

And when you finished welding the car up - take it outside and don't park it too close to any other c

Just don't use a foam extinguisher!



Issue is that it is what you can't see that matters. Paint and perhaps old oily protection wax inside the chassis can catch fire out of sight. A puff from a weld nozzle won't help with that. But cool the weld then blow into the chassis with 120psi+ air gun and any flame will be put out easily.

Point taken, no foam........gently slides foam extinguishers back, pulls water extinguisher forward

 

[MetalMonkey]

Have a compressed air gun and use it to cool whe welds and blow into the box section behind to put out any fire and keep doing that each weld burst to ensure no fire gets started.

This Tbh.
The underseal or cavity wax is probably catching fire - just keep the panel cool (which you want to do to avoid distortion anyway) and blow out any smouldering with compressed air. For extra insurance have the garden hose handy, and as above fire watch before packing it in for the day.

I usually do 30 mins of tidying up, go inside for dinner and come out and do a final safety check before locking up the workshop.

 

[JOEPRO]

This Tbh.
The underseal or cavity wax is probably catching fire - just keep the panel cool (which you want to do to avoid distortion anyway) and blow out any smouldering with compressed air. For extra insurance have the garden hose handy, and as above fire watch before packing it in for the day.

I usually do 30 mins of tidying up, go inside for dinner and come out and do a final safety check before locking up the workshop.

Yes good point as others said - I stay with the car for at least 1 hour after welding to ensure it's OK

 

[Craig-SM]

I set fire to Shogun whilst welding the wheel arches up. A stray spark ignited a piece of foam in a cavity, which in turn set fire to sunroof drain pipe, rear light wiring and 3rd row seat belt. Not much in the way of flames just lots of smoke and blistered paint. First reaction was to run around like a headless chicken yelling to my wife that the cars on fire. Probably during this period of flapping most of th3 damage would have happened before I stuck the airline through rear light wiring hole and blasted the fire out before drenching with water.
Easy enough to repair except the paint never matched up.

 

[premmington]

Point taken, no foam........gently slides foam extinguishers back, pulls water extinguisher forward

I only have Co2 extinguishers in the workshop - yearly tested ones!

I used to use Halon ones - but they banned in 2003... (bad for the planet).

Co2 fire extinguisher will shut down a "run a way diesel" as well - pointed into the air intake!

 

[TEO]

I set fire to Shogun whilst welding the wheel arches up. A stray spark ignited a piece of foam in a cavity, which in turn set fire to sunroof drain pipe, rear light wiring and 3rd row seat belt. Not much in the way of flames just lots of smoke and blistered paint. First reaction was to run around like a headless chicken yelling to my wife that the cars on fire. Probably during this period of flapping most of th3 damage would have happened before I stuck the airline through rear light wiring hole and blasted the fire out before drenching with water.
Easy enough to repair except the paint never matched up.

Lol I might have had a moment of headlessness too, blowing out the flames while wondering what I was going to do if option 1 failed

 

[minimutly]

Spray water bottle - or wet rags - when you lost control - straight Co2 fire extinguisher (dry powder ones make too much mess).

The rules are:

No welding in the last hour of work
No woodwork machining in the same building
Sweep the floor up - no rags or other stuff lying about.

And when you finished welding the car up - take it outside and don't park it too close to any other cars!

Blue rolls are one of the worst thing...

 

[finyuk2005]

My phone has a built in thermal imaging camera, i always use that to look for any hot spots after welding, comes in really handy! easy to see any stray sparks or welding rod stubs that have rolled away out of sight and might smolder away

 

[Smallfry]

Still have two green extinguishers, just in case.

 

[Erie Fred]

Some people don't grasp the T.E.L. numbers, nor the make up of what we all breath.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

If it's a closed panel I just give it a blast of co2 into the panel...I keep a few fire extinguishers handy whenever I'm welding.

 

[GRW]

Co2 fire extinguisher will shut down a "run a way diesel" as well - pointed into the air intake!

Seen that done a couple of times (& a Co2 Extinguisher on hand "just in case") on some biggish genset engines.

I wasn't there (unfortunately because it would have been excellent viewing) when my old boss managed to short the electronic engine governor out on a 700kva Doosan genset - resulting in the throttle going full "pedal to the metal" .... & he had no way (i.e. Co2) to shut it down to hand....

.... 1500rpm alternators have a safe upper speed limit of 2250rpm. Once much over that & thr centrifugal force causes the copper windings to "grow" & close the air gap between rotor & stator, creating a very big, very expensive, one-time-only -drum brake!
Cue lots of noise, lots of sparks & smoke, one utterly totalled alternator.... & one very frightened boss facing a very, very large repair bill.

 

[premmington]

Seen that done a couple of times (& a Co2 Extinguisher on hand "just in case") on some biggish genset engines.

I wasn't there (unfortunately because it would have been excellent viewing) when my old boss managed to short the electronic engine governor out on a 700kva Doosan genset - resulting in the throttle going full "pedal to the metal" .... & he had no way (i.e. Co2) to shut it down to hand....

.... 1500rpm alternators have a safe upper speed limit of 2250rpm. Once much over that & thr centrifugal force causes the copper windings to "grow" & close the air gap between rotor & stator, creating a very big, very expensive, one-time-only -drum brake!
Cue lots of noise, lots of sparks & smoke, one utterly totalled alternator.... & one very frightened boss facing a very, very large repair bill.

I have managed to "stall" my way out of a few "run a way diesel" incidents.

You OK with a manual transmission car/van - it is an auto which is your enemy...

 

[mr haynes]

Having your old mig gauntlets handy is also useful for patting out the odd flame and protecting the flammables near the weld.
I also jam them in places and behind to help stop unwanted consequences

 

[Erie Fred]

Seen that done a couple of times (& a Co2 Extinguisher on hand "just in case") on some biggish genset engines.

I wasn't there (unfortunately because it would have been excellent viewing) when my old boss managed to short the electronic engine governor out on a 700kva Doosan genset - resulting in the throttle going full "pedal to the metal" .... & he had no way (i.e. Co2) to shut it down to hand....

.... 1500rpm alternators have a safe upper speed limit of 2250rpm. Once much over that & thr centrifugal force causes the copper windings to "grow" & close the air gap between rotor & stator, creating a very big, very expensive, one-time-only -drum brake!
Cue lots of noise, lots of sparks & smoke, one utterly totalled alternator.... & one very frightened boss facing a very, very large repair bill.

The runaways I have heard about came by the engine drinking it's own oil.

 

[Farside]

At the garage I worked at the old timer always got the air hoe with blow gun ready before starting any hot work.

I always dreamt of working in shop with its own hoe.

 

[Cobbler]

I always dreamt of working in shop with its own hoe.

An air hoe as well, just the job for the garden, “I need a bigger compressor dear, to run your air hoe”