[Green Hornet]

Originally Posted by Drag Star Le Mans

So you must be in Canada or just hiding your location? Nothing a trip to local machine shop and a hot tank clean up can't handle. They have always been cheap for me? Just a thought.

Hiding.......'splain?

Hot tank does not remove rust.....which is what I want to do.....'splain?

I like cheap......but not suitable for this application..

[Schurkey]

Originally Posted by 1968GTO421

When I was in AACA years ago, one of the guys used electrolysis, putting the part in a large tub with leads from a battery. One lead went to a clamp on the part and another to the metal tub (if I remember correctly).

He wouldn't put a lead on the metal tub, or the tub would corrode and leak. And the leads have to stay dry, so connect the leads to welding rod or whatever, bolted or welded to the part you want to save, and the sacrificial metal.

Electrolysis removes rust. Any de-greasing is entirely incidental, it'd be like dunking the part in mildly-soapy water for a day or two. Ideally, the part is completely degreased/cleaned before being de-rusted by electrolysis.

He'd put a lead on a sacrificial piece of steel, with the sacrificial metal close to the piece to be de-rusted as possible but NOT TOUCHING. Ideally, a piece of sacrificial sheet-metal, hammered/pounded/formed to sorta-conform to the shape of the piece to be de-rusted.

The cleaning works best when the sacrificial metal is close. So the back-side of the part won't be de-rusted. The farther away the sacrificial steel, the less-well the cleaning action.

I played around with electrolysis for awhile, even bought a 24-volt battery charger to speed things up compared to a 12-volt charger. The suggested electrolyte was water plus WASHING Soda. (Not "baking soda".) Washing soda was harder to find--had to go to several stores before I found some next to all the laundry detergent.

I don't remember which way the battery charger leads are connected. Get it wrong, and you'll have a de-rusted sacrificial metal, and the part you wanted to clean is even worse.

I'm thinking this works on iron/steel but NOT aluminum. When it works, it works really well. But getting the sacrificial metal close enough to the area of the part to be de-rusted is tricky.

A DC welding power supply at higher voltage still would be better than a battery charger.