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MUST READ Brakleen+Welding=VERY BAD

durallymax

durallymax

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I stumbled cross this on another forum and was glad I saw it.

Turns out welding where brakleen is present and comes into contact with the sheilding gas will produce a Toxic gas that will kill you or leave you with serious disabilities for the rest of your life.

Im glad I read this because i do alot of welding and religiously use brakleen.

Heres an article of one mans story.

Brake Cleaner = Phosgene Article
 
Yeah no kidding. Thats the importance of knowing what happens to the materials that you are in contact with are exposed to extreme heat ie: paints, solvents, plastics, and even some metals. Especially when welding.
 
I saw that on another forum and asked if the non clorinated brake cleaner did it too and no one answered. If it doesn't I am switching to the that stuff.
 
And I thought welding galveniized was bad! Not even close. Thanks for the heads-up.
 
I read that before somewhere.

Burning "Freon" will also produce "phosgene" gas, I'm not sure if all freon will do it but R12 will.
 
It has to do with welding, If freon is present, the extreme high heat will convert it to phosgene gas. It is most common when brazing an air cond. system. A regular fire won't as it is used in some fire extinguishers.
 
wow. Glad I stick to wire brushes and grinders whenever I'm welding instead of chemicals.

Makes me really want to think twice about not taking an extra minute to read the labels on the chemicals.
 
so does this only happen with Chlorinated brake cleaner, or will it still occur with Non-Chlorinated Brake Cleaner?

good stuff to know, thanks for posting!
 
yep.... good deals making this a sticky.... lots of people don't know this, but they do teach it at CWB courses

it hangs in the air and even a good deal of time later it still happens.. we had a guy at our shop working on his rig while some of the boys were still welding late one day... he didnt know either.. lucky nobody got hurt
 
I was telling my best bud about this and he said he had a close call with with the chlorinated brake cleaner stuff also. He was cleaning the carb on his Dodge Dakota with 300,000 k miles on it. He washed the outside of the carb down then started it up and proceeded to blast out the inside of the carb. He looked up and noticed a huge white cloud forming at the back of the truck, coming out of the exhaust of course. The breeze was moving it his way but even before it got to him in a visible way he noticed burning in the eyes nose and throat. He ran clear of the cloud and coughed and gagged a bit. He didn't have any of the spasms or apparent lung or other long term issues mentioned in the article. If he had been inside or had not reacted as quickly as he did things would have been much worse. Looking at the can he noticed he had brake clean and not carb cleaner. Then in the Advance Auto house brand both were in exactly the same can except for the name of course. So someone had mixed brake clean in the carb clean bin. He later went to the store and pointed out to the manager how dangerous that was.:eek:
 
GM Guy said:
so does this only happen with Chlorinated brake cleaner, or will it still occur with Non-Chlorinated Brake Cleaner?

good stuff to know, thanks for posting!
Click to expand...

Phosgene = Carbon Monoxide and Chlorine ... COCl2. It combines under high hear or arc conditions, doesn't really have much to do with the shielding gas (argon is inert)

No Chlorine, no phosgene.

Of course, the non-chlorinated stuff probably has a bunch of OTHER bad crap in it that you should avoid, but... at least your lungs won't think you're in Dieppe.
 
The original link is no good anymore. I get the jest of it- don't use chlorinated cleaner prior to welding. For how long, or just while it's wet is my question. Does anyone remember the details from this? Does the chlorine stay on the material after drying and could create a problem later? I've been a fabricator for years and never heard this. I knew the r12 thing but not chlorinated cleaners. Thanks.
 
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