Intresting story... I'm working on a friend's car, filling in the trim holes in the doors with my welder.... Anyway, as you know, you need to grind welds down to the level of the surface metal.... I'm using an air sander hooked up to an air compressor the size of a soda bottle... SO, I've got about 4 seconds of full-scale ***-kicking sanding, then about 30 seconds of half-***ed flacid air-tool sanding.... SO, I get into a ****ing "groove" here... I weld while the compressor charges, then grind the weld down so my future welds won't be above the door's surface and SERIOUSLY piss me off when I FINALLY get them grinded down 3 hours later and find soft spots and holes..... I'm going along pretty smoothly... The "DEAD BOYS" are cranking over the ****ty compressor... After a bit, I smell something "foreign".... I'm thinking "that could be anything".... So, I keep welding and grinding for a few more minutes... STOP....... I'm going to interject this.... If you're welding OR grinding and you smell something that DOESN'T smell like burning METAL, it's time to think twice................ Time to stand up and ***ess the situation.... So, I decide that the smell hasn't gone away... NO, it has intensified..... I stand up to see that smoke is coming out of the top of the door.... Lovely... ****ing "terriff".... At this point in time I remember how I got drunk a few weeks ago and sprayed the entire contents of the fire extinguisher onto my unsuspecting friends.......... Double-****ed...... I look down the hole in the top of the door and see nothing... So, I put the air-jet attachment on the line and shoot air into the top of the door..... BINGO...!!! There's embers and some FLAMES... I pour my drinking water in there and add more air to see if the fire is out... Nope.... Go to the pool, fill the bottle, irrigate the door, repeat several times..... This extinguishes the fire.... Bottom line: When welding on doors remember that people park under trees , and trees have leaves, branches, and/or needles that like to collect between the layers of car doors.... Factor in that the car is 40 years old (or more), and that adds up to a ****-ton of dead vegetation in your ride's nether-regions...... SO, weld safe and don't get ****-faced and think it's rad to waste the ****ty little fire extinguisher.... ALL fires start as "****ty little fires"... It just depends on how long you let 'em go..... I'm just glad I nabbed that little ****er before the other flammable **** caught on fire..... The only "GOOD" fires are INTENTIONAL....
I remember cutting boot hinges off of a 55 olds with Shiny ages ago, and no mater how hard we tried we kept getting litle spots burning away on the interior. It was a parts car so we didn't care, but it only takes one ember to start a huge fire.
**** man, thats not a fire. I just let those burn themselves out. I was cutting out some pieces to make a bracket the other day. I had my torch set up in the garage....I had the metal in my big ****o vice.....I started cutting. I failed to notice that I had forgotten to remove the curtain I put over the door in the winter time..(you can probably guess where this is going). Yep, I caught that mutha on fire. I noticed it when the flames got about head height (6ft). YIKES. I grabbed that curtain, fire and all, and yanked it down and threw it outside into the driveway. It made an impressive show. My wife had just gotten back from walking the dog and I'm sure I impressed the hell out of her. The bad thing is that later I found an unopened bottle of oil which had been hiding behind the curtain. It was melted and almost to the point of leaking....I shudder to think what would have happened if that had caught. Be safe. TINGLER
....glad you made quick work of it......I've been doing some cutting and welding lately. I took one of my 3 ext. and sat it right beside me....after I saw this: This fella over on MSN wasn't so lucky....look at the pics!!!! horrible! http://groups.msn.com/FordFlathead1...essage=41824&LastModified=4675526376219140281
We cut the roof off a valiant once.....forgot about the jerry can in the trunk, then some ***hole sprayed water on the burning gas and made a real mess out of it. Bottom line, don't use a gas powered concrete chop saw to cut the roof off a car....unless you like to have fun. Glad to hear you didn't burn everything down though!
When I was a teenager, I took a cl*** for bodywork. One guy was welding on a car, a spot between the door and rear wheel, and it caught on fire. The fire didn't damage the interior at all (they figured it was sound deadener that burned), but they were vacuuming on that car for 2 days trying to get the powder out of the interior, especially the headliner. It was a serious mess, it was hard to believe how much of that stuff was in everything.
The mess a fire extinguisher makes is almost as bad as a fire..... I'll probably go out and get a new extinguisher fairly soon..... That way I'll have something ready when I weld in the new floor pans around the ruptured fuel lines... hahaha.....
i remember i was filling trim holes using a torch and coat hangers. i had the window rolled up obviously not to mess it up, so i gat about halfway through the door and i look up and see the WHOLE DOOR ON FIRE about 4 feet of flames comming out the top. i grabbed a fire extinguser and put it out... but the heat had already cracked the window!! GRRRR i guess i lite the under coating on fire.....
When you first smelled it, did you suspect that it was the hot sauce from the Showdown finally leaving your system? Stop drop and roll- ~ Rob
Ahahaha man you're killing me. Reminds me of this ****ed up incident in college. I ownt tell it here...I'll never live it down. Dannny
The Jalopy Journal
