Shop safety lesson

[four_shot]

a little welding tip. wear guantlets and protective clothing. i had a drop of hot brazing rod drop in between my watch band and my wrist while brazing an exhaust on a subaru. That took forever to heal and left a nasty scar.

[argonsagas]

Yeah, battery acid is far worse.

Agreed.


Many years ago I learned you should NEVER pull off a cable the battery when then engine is running, just because the idiot light it ON and telling you the system is not charging the battery..

After all, if you see a spark when the cable comes off it is charging, so
you can tell if it is the idiot light or the system...right?

The idea works, but if the fault is the opposite of what is indicated, and the system is overcharging the battery then there will be a fair amount of hydrogen gas escaping from the battery...and the spark will ignite it.

Luck plays a large part after that.

If you are very unlucky the ignition can cause the battery to explode.


If you are only mildly unlucky, the explosion will be smaller and will only blow a fine spray of acid out the vent holes in the caps.

Unfortunately, your body position when doing this means that, even if you have extremely fast reflexes, some of the spray will hit your face....and your eyes.


It helps if you are within one minute of a hospital when it happens.

On the plus side....(presuming you got only a little bit of the acid) after your eyes are flushed, examined, and medicated, you have a week to ten days behind bandages, and you get to experience what it feels like to be blind.

Of course, if you are not that dumb, you can still get the same result by disconnecting a battery charger clip from the battery terminal, instead of disconnecting the live lead at the wall outlet.

[80GS1000]

Almost learned the hard way tonight that wearing safety goggles is a good idea while removing pistons from their connecting rods. One of the wristpin circlips on my GSXR engine I'm rebuilding decided that instead of playing nice while being removed from its groove in the piston like the other ones, it wanted to spring free. Right into my right eye. Good times.

Luckily I instinctively blinked in time to prevent any damage, but suffice it to say that goggles were on for removing the rest of the circlips.

[sschering]

Ohh man.. my first carb rebuild when I was 17 (Rochester Dualjet 2GV) .. Sprayed carb cleaner down a port and it came out another port right into my eye.. God that hurt..

Ya know what else hurts? Cleaning parts in a solvent tank and getting back splashed in the crotch.. Get your shorts changed fast because in about 10 minutes you'll think your junk is on fire! It won't go out for an hour or two either..