anyone weld after cleaning part with brake kleen? better read this!
 

as posted on the H.A.M.B. pretty scary.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=382835

Good information to know! I believe phosgene gas was used by the Germans in the first world war.
Steve

yup, now you can make it at home. also called mustard gas. the scary part is 2 parts per million can kill you. even less can fuk you up for life. anyone ever use it to check for vacuum leaks on a running engine and get a whiff of the exhaust? smells pretty evil. probably not phosgene in that case, but it ain't good. this post will probably float away and be pages back in short order, in spite of it's importance.

In my early porsche days, I was doing head studs on a 3.0, had the case all cleaned with solvent, and gave it a final spray down with brake cleaner, and then blew off with air hose. When I started heating the spigot bores to loosen the studs, some left over solvent flashed, and besides scaring the hell out of me,, I noticed that my throat and nose hurt for a couple of days, Holy Sheet batman I guess, I was lucky . Thanks for posting this , I use a couple cans of brake cleaner nearly every day.

Holy S***!

Yep, Heating R-12 does the same thing. Use care if you have to heat any old A/C stuff too.

tig welding with an argon shield on aluminum after brake kleen is probably the worst thing you can do.

I will definitely give this to our safety guy and all the welders in our shop. Thanks!

This has been on a couple of the Harley forums as well. Poor bastard will never be the same. It really sucks that a guy can get so messed up just pursuing a hobby he loves, and from a totally unexpected source.

When I first saw your post, my first thought was Phosgene gas, nasty, nasty stuff. Did you know one of the biggest killers in the house is mixing liquid bleach and scouring powder, like in a toilet. You want a great way to kill yourself, try mixing chlorine pool shock powder and brake fluid, or even a Coke. If you try either one as an experiment, make sure you aren't near any cars you don't want to repaint, or your neighbors house or any living thing.

John, thanks for the info! I have actually done this before. Maybe I should have bought a lotto tix that day.

Good of you to post this. I can't believe how much Brakecleen some people use, though. I remember reading posts on the tech board years ago where guys would use a whole can to clean some large part, holy christ!! Are you fking nuts?? You can't tell by the smell how toxic that stuff is?

I use very, very little BK. Only in weird situations where something must be cleaned in situ, ie. cannot be removed and cleaned properly. I am a parts cleaning fool, cleaning things that don't need to be cleaned but I take things apart and clean them in mineral spirits that I recycle/reuse, then rinse w/ water and dry. Water works great as a "broom" after cleaning in solvents. Because they don't mix, it somehow works(?)

Anyhow..., sorry to hear about that guy.

We haven't allowed tetra-chloroethylene in our shop for almost 10 years. One drop of the stuff can change a 55 gallon drum of non-hazardous waste to hazardous.

I still have it in my garage at home :rolleyes:

Thanks for the warning. This should be a sticky at the top of all forums, not OT.

Don't be screwing around trying to make any of this stuff at home pelicans.

Yep.

Remember that guy a few years ago that tried to make ricin and ended up killing himself?

My brother does a little welding, I passed the link on to him.

Aren't most brake cleaning solvents now non-chlorinated? I know the green can of Brake-Kleen from NAPA is mostly non-chlorinated organic solvents. The stuff the guy used in the article had tetrachloroethylene. It's the combustion of chlorinated compounds that makes phosgene gas.

Also don't subsititute brake clean for carb clean when trying to find an intake / carb / injection vacuum leak. Same result. Ask me how I know. I almost did not make it out of my garage and the door was open. It was 25 years ago and it still haunts me. I almost died.

I know there is a non-chlorinated version available, but I don't think it is standard.

I use only the non-chlorinated kind. I didn't know what the real difference was, but figured it was safer. Now I know why!

What moron wouldn't immediately go to the hospital after having a seizure to the point of not being able to control their body?

"Hmm, I think I'll just sit around for a few days and sip cranberry juice until I feel better or die."

Complete ramrod.

Ditto - I just did this less about a week ago (the welding not the lotto).

I have probably used more than my fair share of brake cleaner in the past and this info has scared the crap out of me. I've always wanted to get/make a parts washer, but funds are limited. What are most folks doing/using to clean their parts?

Speeder - what kind of set-up are you using?

You can get a 15 gallon parts washer and Farm & Fleet for around $100.

Here's mine

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/437366-parts-washers-immersion-dishwasher.html

Thanks widebody - did you end up with an air agitation system? Do you have any more details on how you set up the heater elements, etc?

I've only used the air agitation system once; it foamed up more than I liked, but I haven't gone back to the drawing board yet to find a solution (no pun intended).

Here's another pic with the element:
http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/575020.jpg

And a home-made oil cooler flushing adapter
http://images.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/576836.jpg

Thanks for the additional pics. It looks like you have the 20 gallon washer. How often (if ever) have you wished you had a larger one? Maybe a better question to ask is what's the largest part you've been able to fit? I'm hoping to re-do my suspension this winter and would love to put everything through the washer. Or is it worth just paying someone to clean parts that size?

Yes, it's a 20-gallon unit.

I've done a VW engine case half, and a VW fan shroud. It would be nice to be able to do bus reduction axle tubes.

There's nothing magical about the tank - you could mod any similar tank to work. I've thought about building a custom one out of stainless.

The next mod will be a new pump - I burned this one out - and then I'll engineer some sort of filtration system. I think the cleaning solution would last longer if I could get the particulates out. The next time I clean an oil cooler, I'm going to rig a lamp timer so I have on/off cycling, rather than continuous flow.

I guess being the sloppy, dirty motherfker that I am is a blessing in disguise. Hell, I don't even wash my car if I can avoid it...

Thanks for posting this warning, John. I though argon was inert? Does it catalyze the reaction somehow to create phosgene?

There is no question that I am not safety conscious near enough - no eye protection, no ear protection, no respirator crap, no nothing. Then I hear something like this and I am on "level red" alert for a day or two. . .

A friend was cleaning his case several years back and was using both carb cleaner and brake cleaner. I can't recall if he was using heat for anything, but he ended up having to go to the E-room because he had a hard time breathing and was light headed...

I haven't alwasy been very safe in my own garage, and there are times when I'm in the garage by myself late at night....thankfully I haven't had a bad experience...and been knocked out in the garage all night.

I remember a fire call I had a bunch of yrs back. A guy was doing something with his running snowblower and a can of brake cleaner. The guy got burned pretty bad ( had to be medevac'd to a burn center) and nearly leveled his garage.

are there any chemists here that could ID the stinky exhaust fumes after brake kleen goes through the engine?

Mine is about as simple, (and cheap), as it gets. I have a couple of gallons of old mineral spirits that I re-use endlessly and a few different-sized plastic pans/tubs that I put the parts in to clean. I just did my bicycle wheel and cluster in one. Just laid the wheel on the tub w/ the cluster over the pan, poured mineral spirits over it and cleaned w/ a small brush. Kept dipping the brush in the pan and brushing grease off. When done, rinsed w/ hose nozzle and blew it dry w/ compressed air. Went from years old caked black grease to looking like a new part.

Works equally as well w/ auto or MC parts. When done, I use a funnel and pour the MS back into jugs. If you let a jug of MS sit for a while, all of the dirt (or paint) goes to the bottom and you can draw clean stuff off the top again. Dirty works just as well for parts cleaning. :cool: