Brake Cleaner & Welding /Heating warning

[torqueman2002]

Take a minute or 2 to read this guy's story about welding a part that still had some brake cleaner on it.

Brake Cleaner = Phosgene Article

http://www.brewracingframes.com/id75.htm

I've heard the same thing about R-12 (R-134A too?).

 

[crustyoldfe]

Trichloroethane was banned as a parts cleaner in my airforce as it formed phosgene gas when exposed to flame.
The fellas would go out for a smoke break after working with this stuff. It would be in their clothes and evaporating all around them. We'd light up a smoke and not think anything of it. We didn't know at first. We soon found out. Luckily, no one was ever affected, that we knew of.

Bob

 

[ImportTuner]

Wow, pretty damm scary ..

 

[torqueman2002]

Wow, pretty damm scary ..

You bet!

The plant I use to work in years ago had 'air' scrubbers attached to the parts degreasers that used 'Tri-Clor' & 'Per-Clor'. The scrubbers had activated charcoal beds to adsorb the fumes from the cleaning process and 4x/day super heated steam was used to purge the charcoal beds and collect the distillate.

More than a few times the plant was evacuated because the 'VIC' units cought fire and there was a very real danger to the plant personnel.

The UAW eventually negotiated their removal. When the cement slabs under the machines were broken up for removal the fumes from the dirt below required the area to be contained for the work to continue.

 

[35mastr]

Benzine was also in that stuff for years.

 

[benjamming]

That is the chlorinated brake cleaner. Non-chlorinated usually contains xylene, etc. It's a danger in & out itself though through skin ingestion, etc. Always wear gloves that will block the absorption of brake cleaner fluids, etc.

 

[Mike83]

Scary. I'd say that's an OSHA recordable incident.

 

[ddawg16]

And there are some people who ***** when stuff is removed from the market....how does it go? "Now my costs are going up because I have to use something that costs more and is 'safer'."

Thanks for posting....

 

[benjamming]

There's no reason to take it off the market. Everything has unintended consequences. Water is dangerous - many people drown every year. I use that silly example to show that its a matter of knowing the warning, cautions, MSDS, etc. of what is currently being used.

 

[Yoke]

You know a hot exhaust has the same effect with brake clean, I've had flames before when I didn't let the brake kleen evaporate first.

 

[Torque1st]

Teflon spray will release Phosgene when heated also.