almost free rust removal using battery charger and washing soda?

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moparfreak77

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Did anyone see Trucks this past w/e? He showed how to do rust removal using a battery charger that puts out a constant 2 amps, and washing soda? (sodium carbonate).
You mix 1 tsp for every pint of water in a tub, hook up the negative lead to the part, hook the postive lead onto a piece of steel that sits in the water. Make sure its in a well ventilated area.
He had a control arm that sat in it for 2 days but said smaller parts wouldnt take as long.
Has anyone tried this?
I have never heard of washing soda but found dishwasher soap contains sodium carbonate. I am hopefully gonna try it this week.

this link helps explain it...
http://www.rickswoodshopcreations.com/Miscellaneous/Rust_Removal.htm
 
i watched a movie on this procedure about 4 yrs ago when a guy did it in a bucket in his shop with a alternater bracket or some crap.. turned out pretty damn good..
 
I talked with a guy that had plans to take a Barracuda shell and dunk it in an above ground swimming pool, using the procedure. Don't know if he ever did it or not.

I found some rust still hangs on, it's not fool proof.
 
Muriatic Acid (fireplace cleaner) that you get at the hardware store will disolve rust too. Just have to make sure you have a well ventilated place to work and rinse it REAL well.
 
I have heard about this method, but its like reverse plating, it removes metal from the part. I am very apprehensive about doing it that way, I chose another way of getting rid of rust.

I bought a gallon of Eastwood's Rust Dissolver and I gave it a try I have had some parts soaking for 24 hours. I have to say I am EXTREMELY impressed. My parts were 38 year old rusty suspension pieces, they look like new now. Here are some pictures.

This product works great for anything that can be soaked in it, I submerged heavily rusted suspension pieces, it removed paint, grease, rust and dirt. The parts came out beautiful. This stuff only works on parts that can be completely submerged. Don't beleive the directions, it takes a few days to remove rust from heavily rusted pieces, not minutes and hours like the directions say. Also, forget the quart, forget the gallon, buy 3-4 gallons and keep it in a 5 gallon bucket, Its just easier than having to turn the pieces every few hours. Also, I rinsed the bolts with water and they flash rusted while drying. I am going to dip them again and this time spray them in WD40.

I recently found out that Evapo-Rust is the same as the Eastwood product, but a whole lot cheaper, it is available in a 5 gallon, which I recently bought for $70 plus $26 shipping. This stuff work great, it has been used by engine shops and the military for derusting without removing any extra metal.

Also, ckeck out the pinion snubber, I left it half dipped overnight, amazing difference.

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Muriatic acid will work as well or better and it's cheaper plus easier to get.
 
Cerwin said:
flyboy.. thats freakin awesome..
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I freakin learned somthing today. That is very awesome :prayer: :prayer:
 
dgc333 said:
Muriatic acid will work as well or better and it's cheaper plus easier to get.
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The only problem is that acid removes metal, this stuff pulls out the rust without cutting any metal. Here are some better pictures of before and after of my parts. check out the first picture, I dipped about an inch to see the difference, check out how thick the rust was. Look at all the stamping marks, metal curls, and the rubber parts, acid would have destroyed the rubber and erased all the fine detail. The stuff also has some detergent qualities too, look at the rubber, it looks almost new, and now you can see the part number on the snubber.

I'm not saying that the other methods don't work, but this stuff is super delicate and absolutely eliminates rust without damaging metal while being safe for anything else attached to it. I have had some lug nuts that I left in it for 2 months and they are fine. That would not have been the case with acid or electrolysis based removers.

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now i have a question, what do you do with said acid after you have used it? do you use it over and over? or do you discard it and start over? if you discard it.. where do you put it? it cant be enviromentally safe i wouldnt imagine.
 
Muriatic acid is a mild concentration of hydrochloric acid. It is sold for cleaning bricks (i.e., fireplace cleaner) and for adjusting the pH in pools but it also attacks iron oxide which why it works for removing rust. Hydrochloric acid is widely used in industry for pickling steel to remove rust.

Phosphoric acid is also used for removing rust. It is also the main ingredient in the metal preps that are sold for promoting paint adhesion. All the "rust removers", such as, Navel Jelly, you can commercially purchase have phosphoric acid as the active ingrediant. You can quite often purchase phoshhoric acid at the hardware store but the concentrations available make it less agressive than the concentrations of muriatic acid that are available.

Mix either with baking soda will nuetralize it making safe to dump down the drain.
 
I just tried the battery charger baking soda thing on one of my parts, its only been in there a couple hours but its bubbling and the rust is moving off the part...I guess I'll leave it in for a couple days and see what happens

Got a question though...Is the electrolysis turning the baking soda water into an acid; something I don't want be dipping my hands into?
 
GSS340 said:
I just tried the battery charger baking soda thing on one of my parts, its only been in there a couple hours but its bubbling and the rust is moving off the part...I guess I'll leave it in for a couple days and see what happens

Got a question though...Is the electrolysis turning the baking soda water into an acid; something I don't want be dipping my hands into?
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It shouldn't, the soda is very alkaline, but don't forget about the part, keep checking on it every few hours. TO be safe wear gloves when sticking your hands in it, if you go too extreme either side of neutral, it could harm you. Just be carefull.
 
Is the stuff you used the Eastwoods Rust Dissolver? I just looked at that stuff online...$44 a gallon goodness. Whatever you used is crazy sweet. I would have never imagined the metal would look that virgin under the rust.
 
You can also use molasses (1-part) and (2 parts) water, works well if you`re not in a hurry, no EPA issues, I`ve also used (used brake fluid) for engine parts...
 
Actually I am now using EVAPO-RUST Instead, its the same stuff, but a whole lot cheaper when buying in a 5 gallon jug, It cost me $91 shipped to my door. ($65 + $26 S&H). I bought 2 gallons of the Eastwood stuff, but found out that Evapo-Rust is the same stuff and cheaper. I have bught 7 gallons so far, the stuff is bio-degradable and sewerable, I have had my hands in it many times, no problems, and it really does work. I keep looking for stuff to clean because its so much fun to pull out a perfectly clean part. (I know, I'm easily amused) Right now I have a set of Big-block heads soaking in a 5 gallon bucket. The only thing that was a bit of a lie was length of time, It takes about a week for heavily scaled and rusted pieces. The spring perches you saw tokk 4 days to derust, the snubber took about 2 days.

www.theruststore.com

www.orisonmarketing.com
 
I personally won't be trying the electrolysis method on any more of my parts...I put one of my spring hangers in the mix for little over a day (hanger was pretty rusty but the mounting studs were nice). Seemed to be working fairly good but at some point it self destructed. My hanger is now ruined. I am not sure what went wrong but the metal seems to be degrading and the threaded studs that were really nice...the threads were eaten away and it almost looks like pieces of metal shattered or exploded off. I am sure I did something wrong and unless your 100% sure of the process I would avoid it. Just my two cents...but at least it gives me a reason to buy new hangers :)
 
GSS340 said:
I personally won't be trying the electrolysis method on any more of my parts...I put one of my spring hangers in the mix for little over a day (hanger was pretty rusty but the mounting studs were nice). Seemed to be working fairly good but at some point it self destructed. My hanger is now ruined. I am not sure what went wrong but the metal seems to be degrading and the threaded studs that were really nice...the threads were eaten away and it almost looks like pieces of metal shattered or exploded off. I am sure I did something wrong and unless your 100% sure of the process I would avoid it. Just my two cents...but at least it gives me a reason to buy new hangers :)
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PM me, I have a spare hanger you can have for the shipping price.
 
Okay...it seems I found out what the problem was. As we say in the Army it was "operators head space and timing" I did everything right except pay attention to detail and connect the electrodes properly! DO NOT connect the positive lead to the actual part being cleaned but instead to the other piece of metal. The negative lead connects to the actual part.

That was my problem, I self destructed my own part.
 
dgc333 said:
Muriatic acid is a mild concentration of hydrochloric acid. It is sold for cleaning bricks (i.e., fireplace cleaner) and for adjusting the pH in pools but it also attacks iron oxide which why it works for removing rust. Hydrochloric acid is widely used in industry for pickling steel to remove rust.

Phosphoric acid is also used for removing rust. It is also the main ingredient in the metal preps that are sold for promoting paint adhesion. All the "rust removers", such as, Navel Jelly, you can commercially purchase have phosphoric acid as the active ingrediant. You can quite often purchase phoshhoric acid at the hardware store but the concentrations available make it less agressive than the concentrations of muriatic acid that are available.

Mix either with baking soda will nuetralize it making safe to dump down the drain.
Click to expand...


went to the local fleet farm today and was picking up new bolts and was also looking for rust remover as i am changing leaf springs and want to clean parts up. picked up 2 gallons of the muriatic acid for only 2.39 a gallon and thought i would give it a try with some old bolts. rips the rust right off and so far i havnt seen any damage to the metal at all. i'll experiment with rubber bushings etc... and see what it does. i left the parts in there for a good 6 hours but they were pretty much done within an hour. i'll post some pics tomorrow
 
Funny that this topic should come up again. My buddy and I were working on his car and we had a brainwave...

A few years ago I talked with a guy that wanted to derust the shell of his Barracuda with this method. He was going to dunk it into an above ground pool. Not a bad idea eh? But what do you do with all the crud and sludge?

Well we were talking about this and figured out you could rent a big metal dumpster, drive your car right into it, fill it with water and soda, connect your electrodes (you need a welder or something at this point) and the whole dumpster would be your anode or whatever you call it! I think it's brilliant! The rubber tires will keep the car isolated from the metal anode, it's all perfect!

When you're done just drain the water (it's harmless dirty water, remember) and call the dumpster company to come and pick up their dumpster! All the crud and rusty sludge will be their problem! hahaha..
 
I tried the Molassis method, it works, barely. I tried de-rusting some spring hangers, i left them in for two weeks, it took a little rust off, but I would guestimate only about 1/3 of it. I decided I could not wait anymore, so I dunked it in Evaporust, it only took 3 hours to finish it off. I next tried it on an old rusty, chrome wheel cap, it worked a lot better on chromed or lightly rusted parts. Oh, by the way, did I mention that the molassis stuff smelly like a hundred dirty whores in my garage! :vom:
 
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