hey guys,

so i'm having a roll bar welded in, its a 8 pt s&w. so i dropped it off at my guy "jerry" and he says it will take 2 days to do. he decides to tig weld it and also install the 5pt simpson harness for both seats. now i'm getting all of this done for 200$ so keep that in mind at the end of the story. jerry is a SCCA spec class race car builder out of my town. he does miata's and bmw, to porche's and all that stuff, even the lil formula 1 cars. hes a great welder and has welded 26 cages without problems, and has raced for 15 years. well that changed today!!!!

anyways, we pull everything out and after i give him the okay to go a head jerry starts to weld it in, he gets the main hoop and rear bars done along with the cross bar, everything is looking great.i stop in to see how things are going, and jerrys doing a great job, really good welding. anyways i give him his payment of 200 and some food( those that know me ) and we concure that it should be done tonight .

well on my way out to lapeer, to handle a big resturant problem, i get a call from jerry telling meMY CAR CAUGHT FIRE DURING THE FRONT FLOOR PLATE WELDING ON THE DRIVERSIDE!!!!!

so the fuel line was melted from a bead or something he told me, he even have 2x4 and a steel plate covering the lines. he didnt have a wet rag like i asked him to, but anyways it wasnt enought i guess cuz one spot melted the line right in half. fire flames up and goes both ways, and set jerry's arm on fire!!!!

first fire extingusher was empty and the other was missing, so he has to go outside and into his house and grab one from in there. anyways, puts the fire out and calls me!!!!!!

luckly i'm painting the car and i removed all the panels and carpet before we welded this in, so he was able to see the fire and get it out before the fire goto the engine!

i so now i need to replace the fuel lines (3 plastic) and the fuel filter.

anyone know how much those things cost?

anyways, lesson to be learned from this?

REMOVE THE FUEL LINES or DROP THEM DOWN A LIL before you weld, no matter how good you are!!!!!!!

so i'm ordering the a new fuel line asap tommorow morning and i donno . told him i'd pay for half the damage!

 

anyone ever removed the fuel lines?

 

Well thats a no biggie, could be alot worse. Fuel lines are a easy replacement. Don't see you spending more then 30-40 bucks. You sound like one hell of a good guy first food then you offer to pay for half the damages on something you did not do.

 

well i know the guy pretty well, hes never had this happen and hes giving me a deal, so i dont wanna take it for granted...... so i pay half since a tig welded roll bar isnt cheap!!!!

 

Reminds me of the pics I saw of another guy that was welding in a roll bar. Fire completely gutted the interior and totaled the car. No bit of hot metal can be allowed to touch the nylon fuel lines.

 

anyonew have that pic of the white car thats burnt or anythig from that post. i looked already

 

I caught my car on fire in 99 installing Subframe connectors. I was under the car and had every thing out of the car save the seat belts and front seats. I was the one to find out our cars are completely galvinized

Yup anyone who has welded on galvinized plate knows the other side burns in a six inch or so flame. caught the seat belt on fire and gutter the car. A hose was all that would put it out.

I saved the car. bought all new interior and cleaned on it for a month. You can not even tell now and there is NO smell at all. That is the hard part cleanign the smell out. I used that purple stuff from the local parts store then I painted every thing and used febreeze. I came home every night for two weeks and climbed inside my car with engine cleaning brushes and a hose..broken arm and all.

A year and a half later I put a eight point roll bar in it. I had the fuel lines wrapped in wet rags and pulled away from the frame. 2x4 and metal plate where I was welding. I was sticking 1/2 inch at a time and checking after every stich. I STILL popped a hole in the damn thing return line!!!

Anyways they were $85 back in 2001

Good luck man!

 

Shouldn't there be a way to splice them back together ?

-Shannon

 

I did till the new ones came in. I am just one of those who will replace it because I do not trust it. I still have the patched one in the garage for spares