Got a strange one here. I just had a guy come over and weld the bracket on the frame for the clutch linkage. He stick welded the small bracket on the frame. I had most everything out of the way but when he was done there was brake fluid on the ground. I put the car up in the air and the front Stainless Steel lines are toast. They literally toasted and the lines are junk. The calipers were not hot and nothing around it was hot even the fluid coming out was not hot. The brake lines got very hot somehow. Is there some type of current that went through them? The ground was hooked to the frame right by the bracket being welded. There had to be some type of current running through this to cook the line. The plastic sleeve was melted and the one line is discolored by heat. I'm stumped. Can any of the electrical people here explain why this would happen?

 

Was your ground clamped to the actual frame?
You didnt put it on the control arm by accident, did you?
It seems like current had to have some reason to pass through the brake lines.

 

The ground clamps can be sorta large.Could the handle end have been touching the caliper or a-arm?

 

I can assure the cables were not touching the control arms. The cables for sure were on the frame and not even near the control arms. It was clamped right under the bracket right by the steering ram mount. I thought at first it was the PS ram but here are a few pictures of the lines. Pretty ugly. It is like the ymelted from the inside out. The insides just came through the SS wire. As you can see it happened on both sides and the passenger side was not even close to the weld area. Could current have been flowing into the frame and looking for a place to go and traveled through the lines out to the caliper/ brake assembly?

 

It shouldnt have. Electricity is lazy.
It follows the path of least resistance. Im stumped.

 

Pretty strange.

Years ago up north, we used to hook welders to frozen underground water lines to thaw them out in sub freezing temps. But both leads were connected directly to the pipe and the pipe only warmed up in between the lead connections and of course it was always a metal pipe.


Maybe your brake fluid is some kind of super conductor.

 

A stick welder huh, what did he have the polarity set at?

 

Betcha he touched the stick to the hard line that runs right by the clutch pivot mount. New lines and brake fluid flush are in order

 

Looks like your SS lines became the ground for the welding. If they were the OEM rubber hoses it may not have happened.

see, the rear rubber line was not affected

 

I see it got both front lines,have you looked at the rear lines?

 

Rear lines are OK. No sign at all of this problem. The line that runs by the bracket for the linkage goes to the rear lines also. I'll have to check and see if maybe he touched one of the front lines. Yes it was both front lines which stumped me.

 

I had the same thing happen last week, to the right rear s.s. brake line.
was stick welding on the transmission crossmember with the ground on my drive shaft loop, which is welded to the rear cross member- toasted the rt. rear brakeline! caliper was not hot or any thing else. fixed up a ground site very close to the cross member & then was fine. I was perplexed as I had sticked welded many times over the years on frames & never had anything like this happen

 

Must be some kind'a electro-chemical reaction. I don't see a current path through those brakes lines to anything at lower potential. Must be something from the magnetic fields in the welding machine starting a chem reaction in the fluid. Did the welder use AC? I would expect DC straight polarity with a stick welder but cheap machines (buzz boxes) can use AC with the correct rod.

Interesting and thx for post Gordon,
cardo0

 

So is the polarity going to be an issue here? I'm all ears cause I've never seen this on brake lines unless the obvious of grounding through the line.Sounds like Vtwin might have the answer.
I've seen some guys fuse their door hinge bushings by welding on the door with the ground attached to the wrong side of hinge.

 

Not being a welder I have no idea what the polarity was set at. This guy is a welder by trade and has been doing it for many years. He welds gas mains and does this kind of stuff on the side. He had a truck mounted machine that is gas driven so I know it has a lot of power. What ever it was/is the lines have to be replaced. I checked everything over today and these two lines are the only thing that got buzzed or whatever.

I wish I knew more about welding. I sell our tools (Lenox) to welding shops and distributers so I have the access to it just never persued it. I can seperate the steel just can't put it back together.

 

Yup, saw them today and they are definitely toasted from the inside, I'm calling the MFG/Goodridge tomorrow and see what they can tell me about the melt down.....but the weld came out great.....

 

Question out of curiosity for you Gordon. Any chance the brake lines were covered by condensation when the welding was taking place? Moisture may have been a contributing factor, but it does seems odd that the melt-down appears to have been from the inside out! Wonder if you will be able to pinpoint the actual cause.

I agree with others who say this is an interesting occurence and look forward to the answer.

 

OK, I can explain it....

A welder buddy of mine has a stick/TIG machine and this is from what HE said over the last ten years.....he is a pro UNION welder of some decades experience.....

I know he used the full AC setting for TIG on aluminum....

but on iron/steel he uses a DC setting....well the transformers in his rig, being 220v house current input at 60 amps.....OR the output off any alternator being gas driven ....is a sine wave...

meaning the voltage/current/power alternates around the negative or ground lead......reverses polarity but does so smoothly and regularly like ripples on water it rises and falls, with a mid point being directly in between the peak and trough.....

so when you put a polarity on this AC signal, you have to run the power through a diode stack, which depending on which direction you want the diodes to 'point' you can make the resulting currents either positive or negative....soon as the diode sees the power go to the UNdesired direction, it is cut off......well, this cut off is very sharp, flat like hitting a solid wall, motion stops....

the resulting wave is nothing but a series of bumps and then a flat line to zero, then another bump....

what happens is what my buddy calls....HIGH FREQ.....short for frequency....that cutoff generates a LOT of RF energy being as it's very sharp....and VERY strong....and VERY close to the lines....which saw that on that mesh...and they fried from induction....

stick on in a microwave you don't beleive me.....not for long as that MW will destroy itself very fast.....

 

That certainly sounds like a good explination and he being a Pro welder would know. I guess we just need to chalk this one up to experience and hope others can learn from this. You learn something new everyday.

 

I agree with the explanation but if that's the case why were the back brake lines not fried, due to distance? and could any other wiring/items be damaged......