Rust removal on bare interior parts with washing soda

Not sure if anyone has posted this before, but it is a neat trick for parts that would be damaged by media blasting.

Before...



After...



Washing Soda...



12 V battery charger...



I use about 1/3 of a cup for 4-5 gallons, and some scrap for the cathode. Suspend the part so it isn't making electrode contact and let it work. Positive DC output goes on the scrap, the negitive goes on the part you want cleaned. I pull it out and brush it every hour or so, then once it looks pretty good I spray with phosphoric acid (concrete etch), rinse with water and blow it dry with compressed air. Spray with some oil and it is almost as good as new.

Do not use stainless.

Do not burn your shop down or plunge your hands in the solution while it is on. I have scaled it up in size, the only limit is a large enough DC supply.

The emergency brake assembly is another of those with the phosphate coating. Ford used that because paint would make the parts tend to stick. Gas pedal is also phosphate along with hood hinges and hood latch and shock tower caps.

I myself use Molasses to derust it requires nothing but water to be added. Posted before and after pics before on forum so won't do again. Do a search if interested. Mix feed grade molasses 9 to 1, nine parts water to one molasses. 5 gallons of feed grade molasses cost about $18.00 that will make you 50 gallons of solution. You put your parts in and just let them set and will come out like new. Will not remove grease or paint and won't hurt rubber. Wash with water and brush you will need to paint or oil quick because they will be raw steel or cast iron and rust quickly. Something really rusty like a exhaust header takes a couple weeks but no labor no electricity. Some people do entire car bodies and they come out like new metal for very little cost and it won't kill your pets or make the kids grow horns. Rusty Magnum 500 wheels come out like new.

On parts that are phosphate they do class bead them first. Cams have phosphate coating on them for break in lube.

Molasses is a good option too, but this is much faster. Parts can be cleaned in hours. Another thing is that it costs about $3.00 to make up 55 gallons of solution depending on what you pay for washing soda. If you pay $.14 KWH for electricity it costs about $.05/hr tops to run a regular 12 amp charger. Waste product is water with sodium carbonate and iron oxide, pretty harmless.

Thanks for posting up....looks like a process that has a time and place to get the job done. Did the process remove the rust on the surfaces facing inward?

I did a post on the molasses method with a couple of before/after pics if you're interested:

http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-molasses-to-remove-rust

Unlike David's experience, I have had molasses loosen paint, so your results may vary.

I've looked at DIY zinc plating but seems like quite a bit of detail work and probably a lot less of a headache to just take a bucket of parts to the plating house. As I recall you had to first clean the parts, plate them, clean them again, then dye them to get the nice gold color.

The washing soda method will loosten paint too. I have had luck doing parts for a short period of time with a minimum amount of paint damage, or if you let it go for 12 hours it will remove paint.

Any surface that is submerged will have the rust removed, it didn't seem to work any different on surfaces facing inward. I use a few different sized bottle brushes to get to difficult places.

in the pale, can u say what is what.. i see 3 metal bars going into liq and one going across pale..

wonder how this would work on alum.. like a carb.

in the pale, can u say what is what.. i see 3 metal bars going into liq and one going across pale..

wonder how this would work on alum.. like a carb.

Click to expand...

In the 5 gallon pail the 3 pieces of square tube that are zip tied to the side of the bucket are tied together with jumpers and taken to the positive wire from my DC power supply. The horizontal metal rod is just what I use to hang the parts from, actually a wooden dowel would be better. With the metal rod you have to be careful to not have it make contact with the vertical anodes since you are connecting the negative wire from the DC source to the parts you are cleaning.

I have only seen this done with steel parts, for aluminum stuff like a carb the only home made thing I have seen was a guy who cleaned carbs in a crock pot full of antifreeze (don't let the wife catch you).

This is a very interesting idea. I have a battery tender/charger with 3 settings, 2/10/30 amp charge settings. Which setting would be best?

On the molasses removing paint. I do see paint that has rust under it come off but if not rusty under it seems to stay on. When I do Magnum 500 wheels the paint blotches on the back stay and also the black in the wheel center.

I sort of wish it would remove the paint. I usually use aircraft stripper to get the paint off I hate standing at a blast cabinet or sand blasting outside always a mess at best.

I am lucky to have a plating guy here that likes antique or muscle cars and does the zinc plating really cheap. Bots and such are barrel plated so no labor but putting in the plastic barrel.

I think that it is great that we all share our little ways of making life easier working on our cars.

I spent yesterday getting some of my equipment ready to paint in the shop trying to spruce things up some. Lowe's can mix their version of rust inhibitor paints in the Ford Corporate Blue so I am going to paint my hydraulic bearing press and brake lathe in Ford Blue. Going to take an original Ford paint ram air cleaner for them to scan and mix the paint is much cheaper than any other brand and the others cannot match color.

in the pale, can u say what is what.. i see 3 metal bars going into liq and one going across pale..

wonder how this would work on alum.. like a carb.

Click to expand...

In the 5 gallon pail the 3 pieces of square tube that are zip tied to the side of the bucket are tied together with jumpers and taken to the positive wire from my DC power supply. The horizontal metal rod is just what I use to hang the parts from, actually a wooden dowel would be better. With the metal rod you have to be careful to not have it make contact with the vertical anodes since you are connecting the negative wire from the DC source to the parts you are cleaning.

I have only seen this done with steel parts, for aluminum stuff like a carb the only home made thing I have seen was a guy who cleaned carbs in a crock pot full of antifreeze (don't let the wife catch you).

Click to expand...

This is an interesting idea and a good post. Thanks. Now, if I just had some rusty parts to try it on!

Question; are the three + posts required to get good circulation throughout the bucket, or would just two work as well?

I really don't know. I always figured the more surface area the better. You could try it with less sacrificial steel, it will may slow down the process. Rebar is good and inexpensive , or any other cheap steel you can get your hands on.

I missed the charger question above, as best as I can tell you cannot fit a part in a 5 gallon bucket with a surface area large enough to draw more than 10 amps at a normal battery charger output voltage of 14-15V. A 6 or 10 amp charger will do the job just fine.

I have a co-worker who stepped it up to a plastic 55 gallon drum in size. In that case he made a large variable D.C. supply. In that case there was enough surface area that a 10 amp charger just couldn't push the current.