Just curious, I'm welding collector flanges on my Pacesetters. They are installed on the car. A guy told me once that welding on newer cars will hurt the computer. Was this true?

 

Yes it can. Depends a lot on what and how your welding. I don't think there is that much risk it your welding on the exhaust pipes.

 

Make sure the Battery is disconnected!!!!!!!!

 

So maybe a 120v wire feed would be OK to use. I really don't want to take the headers back off.

 

Keep the ground lead close to where your working.

 

My local exhaust guy had an issue frying someone's computer; he now disconnects both terminals of the battery before he does any welding near the front of the car.

 

ALLWAYS PULL THE GROUND WIRE OFF THE BATTERY, it dont take much to fry a computer, MSD box's are really sensitive to it as well, if you have a MSD box pull the ground wire on the box off the car

 

Yea, now I'm really nervous. Maybe a band clamp is the way to go.

 

Disconnect BOTH terminals from the battery. I have welded on my car with only the negative terminal removed and my PCM now does "strange" things. I was later told by an electrical engineer that current in the form of static electricity could pass through some components and cause damange. The way it was explained to me is that if the negative terminal was left on and the positive terminal off static electricity could flow to the battery. Honestly I don't know how true or significant it is, but taking the second terminal off is cheap insurance.

 

As a welder,myself, you should always put the welding ground as close to the source of the weld as possible. Always de-energize the application. I weld on sophisticated equipment everyday that is loaded with electronics, plc's, VFD's, etc. I don't have troubles at all but you must be cautious. If in doubt, pull the pcm, it only takes 5 minutes to pull it.

 

He is right. The arc that is sparked by a welding rig sets up a good electromagnetic field. Disconnect both leads and, as mentioned before, keep the ground close to where you are working.

Some precision electronics can be damaged by welding in the general area of the arc. Mind you, nothing in automotive electronics would be affected, but some of our systems (military) have to be physically removed from the area even if they are powered down. I only mention it since it illustrates the extreme.

Allen

 

Thanks for the input and tech. advice guys. I'll pull the terminals off, and put the ground on the collector ring itself. Hopefully I will not have to burn them in too much. Thanks again.