What steps do I need to take before I weld on my car?
 

I need to weld a washer where the batter mounts and I was wondering what, if anything, I need to do before I start welding on the car?

Thanks

You'll need to completely disconnect the battery, which it sounds like you'll be doing anyway. Even then, I'm not sure there's no risk of frying the ECU. Anything that might induce a current, could theoretically cause a problem.

Last time I had welding done on my car (it was the exhaust on my SVX) they used some crazy surge protector thing attached over the battery to ensure nothing got zapped. Was probably something like this:

http://www.ntxtools.com/network-tool.../OTC-3386.html

Disconnecting as many wiring components as you can stand can't hurt. Unplug the ECU to protect that.

Out of curiosity, what is it you need to weld? Can you use some sort of mechanical fasteners to get the job done?

There is a small metal base under the battery with a hole on each side for the battery bracket arms to hook in. One of them somehow ripped through so there isn't a real secure way to tie down the battery right now. I was going to weld a washer in its place. I'm open to other ideas that would also fix the issue without making it more ghetto.

Drill a hole through into the fender area, and use one of these with a pair of big fender washers:

http://imagethumbnails.milo.com/003/...32_trimmed.jpg

The tie down arm just hooks into the eye bolt. This is how I have my battery installed in my trunk... it should work under the hood just as well too.

Welding a washer on there would be pretty simple too though... just as long as you don't burn through the sheet metal and can get a good weld down. I know with my (lack of) welding skill, I'd opt for a bolt-on solution, just because there's a ton of torque on those tie downs. Anything I welded would probably pull through eventually too. I can only seem to weld bigger pieces of metal together. :lol:

^That's not a bad idea. I'll probably do that when I get time. For time reasons I ended up just forcing it to work.

How to fabricate on your vehicle:

That is awesome!