A little while ago I was looking for a good ground for welding up an exhaust repair. Then I remembered a story from a welding instructor I used to work with. This guy was an excellent welder and a great instructor. He had a maintenance pit in his shop and one morning he told us this story. He was about to make a weld under a Mopar with a torsion bar and without thinking through what he was doing, he put his ground on the torsion bar. When he struck his first arc, the ground arced, causing the torsion bar to break instantly! The car dropped a few inches and struck him in the head.
And while I'm on this subject, I should mention arc spatter (its spatter, not splatter). Arc spatter (those little beads that stick to surrounding metal) will weld itself instantly to whatever it lands on, and then cool instantly. This can cause crack propogation from these sites. It's not a big deal on sheet metal or low carbon steel but keep it off torsion bars and the like! If you do have weld spatter on something critical, it does not go deep so if you take a file and remove it with a few extra strokes of the base metal you should be OK.
I am a certified by the American Welding Society as a weld inspector in case your wondering of my credentials. Here is a picture of what I'm saying NOT TO DO. This ground was put on this torsion bar for photo purposes only and the cable was NOT connected to a welding machine. Hope this keeps you safe!
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