Welding on a modern car bumper

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Subject Author Date
Welding on a modern car bumper SteveB 08-04-2008
Posted by Joe Pfeiffer on August 5, 2008, 10:06 am
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>
> I've done it both ways, main thing is to ground to what you're
> welding, if you're welding exhaust ground to the exhaust. If you're
> welding on the bumper ground to the bumper. If you're welding on the
> exhaust and you ground to the frame, you never know what's rusty and
> what path the current will take. If a nice path by way of the o2
> sensor through the ECM and back to the frame is the way the current
> travels then you just smoked the ECM.

Finally, an explanation for how welding can damage electronics that
makes sense! Note that the way to avoid it has nothing to do with the
battery.

Posted by Curt Welch on August 5, 2008, 3:09 pm
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> >
> > I've done it both ways, main thing is to ground to what you're
> > welding, if you're welding exhaust ground to the exhaust. If you're
> > welding on the bumper ground to the bumper. If you're welding on the
> > exhaust and you ground to the frame, you never know what's rusty and
> > what path the current will take. If a nice path by way of the o2
> > sensor through the ECM and back to the frame is the way the current
> > travels then you just smoked the ECM.
>
> Finally, an explanation for how welding can damage electronics that
> makes sense! Note that the way to avoid it has nothing to do with the
> battery.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. If you weld the exhaust, which will
likely have a very good electrical connection to the engine, but might have
a poor connection to the frame because of rusty brackets and rubber engine
mounts, and you ground to the frame instead of to what you are welding, the
path the current finds from the exhaust to the frame might well be through
many places you didn't want it to go including your drive train and
bearings as well as through sensitive electronics. I could see how that
could be a common error people could make which could lead to bad issues if
the engine wasn't well grounded to the frame.

--
Curt Welch http://CurtWelch.Com/
curt@kcwc.com http://NewsReader.Com/

Posted by Leo Lichtman on August 5, 2008, 3:52 pm
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Aside from all the issues about damaging the electronics, there is an
overriding reason to make a good ground connection near the weld. You'll
get a better weld. Welding currents are high, and arc voltage is low.
Voltage drop in the return path is going to have a bad effect.



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