Auto Repair Safety

[jst4f]

???   The only safety issue that comes to mind with car batteries is the remote potential of explosion during charging or jump starting another car.  The following notice changed that notion for me and I thought it might benefit all the do-it-yourselves on this site.

 

Title: Employee Burned while Changing Personal Vehicle Headlamp

Date: January 9, 2001

 

Lessons Learned Statement:

Changes in routine practices and failure to properly identify hazards caused by those changes can lead to personal injury at home as well as at work.

 

Discussion of Activities:

SUMMARY: While changing a headlight in a personal van, an employee's wristwatch shorted the positive battery post to ground. The high fault current caused a third degree burn on his wrist.

 

DETAILS: An employee purchased a replacement for a headlight in his van from the reference catalog in a store. Before beginning the repair job at home, he removed his watch and ring, as was his routine for working around the house. After removing the burned out headlight, he realized the replacement was not the correct one. He retrieved his wallet, checkbook, keys, watch, and ring for the trip back to the store.

After exchanging the headlight for the correct one, he returned home to finish the job. Because the repair wasn't expected to take long, he deviated from his routine safety precaution of removing his watch and ring. He did not assess the hazards that might be associated with this minor change in his routine practice. When he reached inside the engine compartment to re-connect the electrical plug on the headlamp, one side of his watch contacted the positive terminal of the battery and the other side grounded against the chassis. The high current through the watchband heated the metal watchband very quickly. The employee quickly pulled his arm from the engine compartment and removed the watch but he still received 3rd degree burns to approximately 2 cm2 of his wrist.

 

Analysis:

A seemingly minor repair became a painful experience when a normal safety precaution was overlooked for expediency.

Even though automobile batteries generate only 12 volts across the terminals, they can release a tremendous amount of energy in a very short amount of time when the terminals are shorted together. A typical automobile battery contains enough energy to raise the car 1000 feet into the air. Jewelry and other conductive apparel should be removed whenever working near batteries and engine starter circuits in cars, boats, and recreational vehicles.

Recommended actions:

When changing your normal routine, it is important to thoroughly reassess hazards associated with a job, especially any that might be introduced by the changes.

[CMNTMXR81]

LOL!  Not to laugh at him but moreso at me, I've had stuff like this happen to me!  

 

The reason the electricity has so much power to lift a vehicle 1000ft in the air is due to the Amperage (or force) needed to turn over the engine!

[LarryE]

thats why it's best to use dry cell batteries

[CMNTMXR81]

Are Optima's a dry cell?  I've been thinking about doing a battery relocate on my Camaro for better weight distribution on launch.

[LarryE]

yup optima's are dry cell  the yellow tops are the best batteries made.. and the red tops are perfect for stereo and addons

[CMNTMXR81]

Arrg..I don't necessarily need a Red one, but since the car is red, ahhh decisions decisions!

[sierra1]

A guy I worked with had the battery go dead in his car, and he brought it inside the garage we worked at, and hooked up the battery charger to it, and out it on one notch above "trickle".  About 5 minutes later, he looks down and the water is slightly bubbling, so he goes to turn around and go back to whatever it was he was doing, and BOOM! There was a big fireball and it slightly burned him when the battery blew up.  We had a hose that was on inside and we washed him down, and he was ok, except for some of his hair, and he had a burn on his neck.

 

 

A year or so before that, a friend and I took his 69 Mustang to the autoshop class we were both taking, and we were going to replace all the ball joints and bushings, etc.  When he pulled it into the bay to work on it, he shut the engine off, and the radiator sprung a pretty decent leak.  There was a radiator shop only a block away, so we took it out, and my friend just walked it over to get fixed while we did the other stuff.  The teacher was helping us and after we replaced everything, all we had to do was stick the radiator in and align it.  My friend picks up the radiator, and brings it back, and we put it back in.  We took the battery out because it was in the way, so I plop it in the tray and my friend hooks up the neg cable tightens it up with a small box end wrench, and then sticks the positive cable on, and starts tightening it with the same wrench.  I was pouring new anti freeze into the radiator, and was watching him do it, and then it happened.

 

He's snugging up the positive clamp, and somehow wedges the wrench between the inside quarter panel and the positve post, it turns cherry red almost instantly, it's a new battery and a big one!  He's trying to knock it off, and it's not moving.  He starts trying to hit it with anothe wrench and snapped off the clamp bolt and it's over, or so we think.  The paints all cooked around where the wrench was jammed up aginst the body, and it fell off a few days after this.  We get in my car, and go buy a new cable clamp, and we come back, everyone is looking at the car, and the wrench, it's pretty well done.  I start filling up the radiator again, and he cuts the old clamp off, sticks the new one on, and sticks it on the battery post.  

 

I'm not sure how he did it, but it wasn't his day.  Somehow he tangled up his metal watchband and shorted the positve post to ground. He yells, and his wrist is smoking!  I took the big screwdriver and pryed the clamp off the battery, and his wrist is sizzling and still smoking.  I dumped a bunch of water on his wrist, and the watch falls off. He had a burn all around his wrist, and we had to take him to the ER to get it treated. It took a looooonng time to heal up.  

 

About two years later, it was my turn to get "smoked".  I was having issues with my 77 Power Wagon's starter, and  it would start ok if I shorted the terminals on the post on the firewall, but not by turning the key.  I decided the screwdriver method was too "crude", so I hooked up a switch to crank the car when I needed it, and mounted it near the terminals.  I'm working on my truck one night, and I was going to hit the switch. I was wearing a really nice ring I found laying in the middle of the street near my house about a year before that.  Well, you can guess what I did.  I somehow shorted out the terminal to ground, and my finger started smoking and sizzling.  Luckily for me, it was a little bit loose and when I yanked my hand away the ring came off and fell down.  I soaked my finger in water almost all night, and it finally healed up without any real scars.

 

I haven't ever forgotten to take all that stuff off when messing with batteries or electrical stuff.