Better living with modern chemicals (rust removal)

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Moparmat2000

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We all know that sandblasting is a good way to go for a lot of projects, however it can peen over open pores in the metal with corrosion still in them, or you may not be wanting to make that mess that sandblasting causes. The solution is as close as the home improvement sections of Walmart and the paint section of Lowes or Home depot.

You will need naval jelly, a small steel wire brush, a 1" cheap paint brush, paper towels, a 1 gallon plastic bucket and powdered tri Sodium phosphate.

This is a slow process, but works. I tend to knock off the surface corrosion with a roloc disc on an air angle grinder. What's remaining I brush on the naval jelly. Let it sit for about 30 minutes to an hour and work on other projects. Then use the wire brush to scrub it. You will notice some of the pitting is down to clean metal, and theres black coming to the top of the naval jelly before you scrub it. Now wipe it off and apply more. Continue on until your down to clean pitted steel.

Your final wipe will be with a dry paper towel, then use 4 table spoons of trisodium phosphate mixed in solution in that 1 gallon bucket of water. Dip a paper towel in the water TSP mix and use it to scrub and rinse the clean metal. If you need to scrub it clean, use another dipped paper towel. This keeps your rinse mix from getting contaminated. I recommend doing the rinse with a wet paper towel 2-3 times to be sure you have thoroughly removed the naval jelly residue. Once your happy with it, use a dry paper towel to thoroughly dry it off. I have found some pit small spots that are stubborn deep I just used a pointed pick to pop the corrosion out then put the jelly on it, and let it remove the rest.

The TSP / water mixture does two things. 1 it neutralizes the acid. 2 it prevents flash rust from starting on the bare metal from the rinse water. If indoors in a dry environment it can be left for weeks and it wont flash rust, however ideally you would want to primer it as soon as possible with an epoxy primer or in my case with a weld thru primer..

Below are pix of flanges and a good used inner fender for my sons 69 barracuda I need to weld on. My intent is to eventually sandblast the engine compartment and epoxy primer it, but for now I need to get this panel clamped and welded on. The previous inner fender had a battery mishap, and corrosive acids were in the overlap flanges. It was minor in depth, but there. No sense doing this type of job and leaving it there. I essentially used acid to remove acid.

Pix below show how clean the metal ended up. Yes theres pitting in the metal, but its clean pitted metal with no rust left. Sandblasting will get it clean, but not this clean. I coated everything after this with a weld thru primer, and will clamp and weld it together over the next few days.

Hope this helps
Matt
 

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Moparmat2000

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The upper control arm/shock tower after derusting. I coated it with kirker duraprime epoxy primer. I dont think there will be any more rust issues in there after this.
 

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RichLo

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Thats great to know!

Is there any danger welding it though? Like chlorinated brake cleaner is extremely harmful when heated to welding temps.
 

Moparmat2000

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Another rust removal trick using $2.75 of white vinegar from Walmart. Pour it in a bowl straight without diluting it. Submerge the steel part and leave it in the vinegar for awhile. Like a day or 2. I put these cowl standpipes in a plastic bowl of vinegar at 6pm last night. Removed them at noon, hit them with a wire brush, and rinsed them off. They are right back in the bucket of vinegar to soak till tomorrow. By then they should be just clean pitted steel. A final rinse with trisodium phosphate and water, and they will be ready for epoxy primer. If you look closely you can see some of the metal is already clean pitted steel. This method only works if you submerge the parts.
 

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Moparmat2000

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454cid , Trisodium Phosphate is dirt cheap. Makes a great acid neutralizer / flash rust preventative. When these are all cleaned up I'm gonna dip em and scrub em in the TSP/water solution then let them dry in the sun. There wont be any flash rust. I will ziploc bag em until the next time I spray epoxy primer.
 

454cid

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454cid , Trisodium Phosphate is dirt cheap. Makes a great acid neutralizer / flash rust preventative. When these are all cleaned up I'm gonna dip em and scrub em in the TSP/water solution then let them dry in the sun. There wont be any flash rust. I will ziploc bag em until the next time I spray epoxy primer.

TSP is kinda hard to find around here, but I do have some. Most places only carry the TSP substitute.
 

Moparmat2000

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3 day soak in the vinegar followed by wire brush scrubbing and TSP/water rinse, and air dry in the sun. Unbelievable!!!
 

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