I know your shouldn’t weld on truck rims with tires mounted, as they’ll explode! can you weld on an airbag mounting bracket, without removing the air bag? Or will it react like a tire? Just wanting to be safe. And this airbag looks like a pita to remove. thx
well, it didn’t go boom!
If you are working by the hour it needs to be removed. I would at least let it down.
The only thing I worry about when welding around airbags is popping them with hot spatter. I deflate them and maybe even wrap a wet towel around it. The nylon air lines are usually what gets holes!
The rim is an integral piece of the pressure vessel. The Z-spring is pretty far removed from the bellows and bag of an air spring. The explosion risk comes from pyresis. That's when the tire starts combusting on the inside with no way to extinguish or vent excess pressure. That's the scary part.
The proper method for any welding to take place---make sure you have a couple of batteries on the charger near by, wear clothes that have lots of loose threads hanging off, debris such as old shipping boxes full of packing material, lots of aerosol cans setting around, grease rags piled up. and make sure and wear long hair.
Truck Shop, you forgot diesel and gas in open containers within reach! thx
I just figured that was a given.
Have a spare Bick lighter or 2 in your pocket and be sure to blow the dirt off your oily coveralls with oxygen from the torch.
This is on a truck tire. You don't see or hear anything until it's too late. On larger off-road tires, the delay is much longer and more devastating. I don't like to get preachy, but this is not a gamble I would want to take.
Good video . All jokes aside tires are dangerous. The operator working for me was airing up his hand cart tire at home and it blew up with one hell of bang and gave him a bit of gash on the wrist. As ive said before Tires are for Tiremen .
There is an MSHA fatalgram (case study) of a tire explosion on an off-road rigid haul truck. The front left wheel had been welded on 5-6 hours prior to shift change. Operator gets machine from garage area. Performed his walk-around inspection, climbed in the cab to fill out his inspection report. He was killed instantly when the tire exploded crushing the cab against the spill guard. There is no deadline or goal worth a man's life. Cheap SOBs used to weld the cracks between Budd lug holes, duh... that's where the wheel centers and tightens, you're just kicking the can down the road and carrying a dangerous situation with it. I wish this information was easier to find and more widely spread. It's just not worth it.