Rust Removal by Electrolysis

[Riveted1]

So I had seen the Trucks where they used electrolysis to remove rust from an exhaust manifold, and I had been thinking about trying this little experiment out. I had a day off today, and since I was sick w/food poisoning the last 4 days (Thanks Del Taco!) and it's 107 degrees, I didn't feel like working on my truck. Perfect day for experimentation!

I looked up how to do this on the web. The Trucks! guys made it look really easy, but all the sites I looked at said to do it a different way. I did it the way they suggested, but now I don't see why it wouldn't work just as well the Trucks! way.

Went to Home Depot and picked up most of the parts. Cost me more than it should have, but for the sake of time I didn't want to go looking for pieces I probably have stashed around my house.

Here's what I got: A plastic tote, 5 pieces of Rebar, spool of wire, 2' of small chain, some "S" hooks and a spring link.

I went to the local pool supply and picked up some Soda Ash, aka sodium carbonate. This is the same thing as the A&H Super Soda they used on Trucks! but cheaper and easier to find.

I also had some plastic wire ties at home that I used, along with a drill, an angle grinder, wire strippers and my trusty DieHard battery charger.

First thing I did was put the tote outside. Lots of ventilation. Then I ground down the ends and the middle of the rebar bars to bare metal to get a good surface to conduct current. Multiple bars are being used b/c the process is basically "line of sight" and portions of a part closer to a bar will de-rust quicker. So I spread em out into each corner. Using my drill and a 1/8" bit, I drilled two holes toward the top of each corner of the tote. After slipping each bar into a corner, I used a small plastic tie to secure the bar to the tote. The 5th bar is going to be used to suspend my part from, so it was lightly tied across the top of the tote. (cont.)

[Riveted1]

Next, I took the small piece of chain and the spring link and suspended a brake drum from the 5th bar. (Didn't end up needing the "S" hooks for the drum) The drum wasn't as rusty as it could have been, b/c I had hit it w/a steel brush days before I decided to do this. But it was still rusty. I then took the electrical wire I bought and connected all four corner bars. I stripped the insulation from the wire where it came into contact w/the bars.

The solution is next. I put 5 gal. of water into the tote w/a half cup of the soda ash. I may have messed up here, b/c I probably should have mixed the solution first and then poured it in. Not really thinking, I just dumped the water and then the soda ash into the tote. Walked inside b/c my dog was scratching at the door, came back, and the ash that had hit the drum had become rock hard! I hope it comes off in the process, if not, I may end up elbow-greasing this thing anyway!

Final step was to hook the negative lead of my battery charger to the 5th bar and chain suspending the brake drum, and the positive lead to the rebar "grid". Put my charger on 2amp charge and bam! Instant bubbles. Within a minute, I saw funky stuff forming around the bases of the rebar grid. Now all I gotta do is wait and see what happens! I will keep you posted on the results.

[Riveted1]

The process is supposed to take several hours, sometimes even days. But below is a pic of the solution after one hour. Looks like it's working! This experiment is kinda fun, makes me feel like I'm in chemistry lab again!

Sorry for the blurry pic. It was clear when I took it, honest! Trying to resize over and over again to get it right for this site ends up messing w/my pics. Someone wanna teach me an easier way to do it?

[rickf]

I've used the electrolosis method a number of times with great success, on truck and motorcycle parts.

For example, I swapped OEM "large" radiator mounts into my 64 C1 that originally had the "small 6" radiator. The mounts came from a donor 64 or 65 C20 that had been sitting in a field. They were pretty rusty. The electrolosis made them look like new. It removed teh rust, crud and paint. It took about 3 days "cooking", but I was using regular baking soda, which is not quite as strong as washing soda.

What worked particularly great is there is no "hiding". If you knwo what the upper mount on a 64 C10 looks like, then you know there are places that you simply can not get at with a wire bruch or any other physical means. Electrolosis cleaned those areas too.

When it was done, after washing, I immediately baked them about 30 minutes at 190 in the oven, let cool slightly and primed them, then painted black at my leisure.

That's teh one thing you have to do, you have to do something to protect the clean metal immediately, because it is VERY clean and will flash rust right away. Paint it, oil it, what ever, just do it right away.

[rickf]

Oops.. I mean electrolysis.

[bad6772]

AWESOME>>>>>>cant wait till its done cooking and thanks for the write up....

[Scott Webster]

Did a few parts last month and found out one thing - PATIENCE! It takes awhile. Manifolds took awhile but small parts weren't bad. You can crank up the amperage to 10 like I did - no harm. I read up on this through tractorbynet.com. A guy on there used this method on a big plow. Really cool.

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Nice cant wait to see the drum out and rust free hopefully.

[jeffspower]

So if 2 amps is good, 10 amps is better, wouldn't 250 amps be the best?

And if 12 volts work, wouldn't more be better?

I'd like to see what a "quick charge" forklift charger would do

[rickf]

No, more amps is not better. It will go faster,yes, but the final result will not be as nice.

One of the truly marvelous things about this method as it actually reclaims some of the iron out of the rust and "puts it back" on your part. This is de-rusting at the molecular level.

One of the by-products is hydrogen. That is what you see bubbling. (So clearly, do this in a decently ventilated area, I do it on the open back porch.)

If you turn up the amperage you generate the gas to quickly, and it essentialy "blows" those free iron atoms away.

You will end up with a more pitted and a little rougher surface on the final result. There won't be any rust in those pits, but any "refill" of the pits is given up.

As Scott Webster said, PATIENCE is key.

I used a cheesy 6 amp car charger, and added enough electrolyte to get about 3 amps current flow. There is not problem caused by leaving it too long, there will be no harm done to good metal. So just hook it up (CORRECTLY!) and let it cook a couple days, check it, maybe a couple days more ...

[69halfton]

looks great, i cant wait to see how it turns out!

try playing around with the settings on your camera, there is probably a setting in there to fix image size/ file size.

just maybe.

[Riveted1]

Originally Posted by 69halfton

looks great, i cant wait to see how it turns out!

try playing around with the settings on your camera, there is probably a setting in there to fix image size/ file size.

just maybe.

Yeah there is. I guess I could have shot these that way. But other ones where I need em larger to see some detail (for my own files) but want to post on here, I need to be able to resize on photobucket or similar site. My normal pics usually come out just a bit larger than 100kb, and when I resize em, they get all goofy. I probably just need to research a bit more about what I am doing LOL.

Pulled the drum out a bit to look at it. Nice and black, but still has some rust. Gonna let it cook overnight and check it tomorrow. Seems like it's working faster than I thought!

[Riveted1]

Ok so when I got up today, the process was still going. It will stop will all the rust is gone. But, being that this isn't going to be a show truck and it is a brake drum after all, I went ahead an yanked it out. In the first pic, you can see what looks like rust, but it is just the sediment left on the surface. A quick once over with a wire brush and a little water, and it's lookin pretty nice. I quickly dried the drum with a rag and ran into my garage to throw some black hi temp paint on it. You gotta do this really fast, or like was said earlier, it flash rusts. I was already beginning to see a little bit of flash rusting by the time I ran to my garage!
So here is the final product. I'd say if you are restoring some old hard-to-find factory parts or if you have more time than money (like most of us), then this is the way to go! Just remember (once again, like was said above) PATIENCE is key. This is not a quick process!

[jayharrell]

very cool write up. Glad to see it realy works. i was looking at the vid that posted yesterday about this from trucks. I've got an extra charger that i have a use for now.

and to think the wife wanted me to throw it away, crazy woman. LOL

[Riveted1]

I should have taken a picture of all the rust left in the bottom of the tote. It was probably 1/2 an inch thick on the bottom and all of the rods were caked w/it. So it definitely removed a lot of rust/scale from that drum.

[jayharrell]

Well Harbor Frieght has a batt charger on sale this weekend that looks like it would work great for just this type of thing.

Print the coupon and have fun.

Jay

[72BlckButy]

Great thread, this will come in handy!

[70C10Toejam]

I used this method on my sway bar brackets as a test, came out pretty good. Thought about using like a 9 volt, 300mAH phone charger and see how it works instead of my 15A/trickle charger that I used.

Originally Posted by jeffspower

I'd like to see what a "quick charge" forklift charger would do

Knowing what one of those can do to some of the craptastic forklift batteries that exist...that would be a riot to see. But get the one that can do 500 Amps!

[timbojb]

Originally Posted by Riveted1

I quickly dried the drum with a rag and ran into my garage to throw some black hi temp paint on it. You gotta do this really fast, or like was said earlier, it flash rusts. I was already beginning to see a little bit of flash rusting by the time I ran to my garage!

I wonder if there is anything you can do to prevent the flash rusting... Since sodium carbonate has a very high ph maybe you could nuetralize it with phosphoric acid... then you'll have more time to get paint on it; assuming it works

[special-K]

This is a great and helpful thread.Nice results,I might add.You can coat with an inhibitor once dry to avoid flash.
On a side note:This process will remove hair from the parts,too.No more unsightly hair growing where you don`t want them. (maybe I should be ignored...)

[ed2552]

Originally Posted by special-K

(maybe I should be ignored...)

That's what my algebra class (& teacher) say about me!

[ERASER5]

I am trying this setup, but something is not quite right. What am I missing?

This is my setup:

-Plastic container --2 qrt or so
-metal (SS) screen wire lining the bottom and up over one end for the grid
- Coat hanger bent to hold parts (U-bolts for now) under water
- water
- baking soda- about 1lb- mixed well
- 6amp/12volt charger
-with pos on the grid and neg on the parts I get nothing. No amps on the charger.
- With neg on the grid and pos on the parts, the bolts and hanger bubble like mad pulling all 6 amps. No bubbles from the bottom at all.

I am getting some cleaning action, but I believe I am removing metal from my parts instead on de-rusting like Rivited stated. HELP!

[GREASEMONKEY72]

thats pretty awesome

[El Jay]

Originally Posted by ERASER5

I am trying this setup, but something is not quite right. What am I missing?

This is my setup:

-Plastic container --2 qrt or so
-metal (SS) screen wire lining the bottom and up over one end for the grid
- Coat hanger bent to hold parts (U-bolts for now) under water
- water
- baking soda- about 1lb- mixed well
- 6amp/12volt charger
-with pos on the grid and neg on the parts I get nothing. No amps on the charger.
- With neg on the grid and pos on the parts, the bolts and hanger bubble like mad pulling all 6 amps. No bubbles from the bottom at all.

I am getting some cleaning action, but I believe I am removing metal from my parts instead on de-rusting like Rivited stated. HELP!

I think you have the recipe wrong.

The original recipe here called for soda ash (anhydrous sodium carbonate).
I have also seen the same procedure using "cleaning soda" (Sal Soda; hydrated sodium carbonate)
I have not seen it using baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)

To put into technical terms; them extra carbonate salt thingies, attached to the sodium widgets could be messin' with your chemical reaction.

[ERASER5]

rickf used bakingsoda . See post #4. This why I used baking soda. I know that bakingsoda is less powerful than soda ash, but it should still work. My ratios may just be off.

I been running my setup for about 4 hour now (runnig the reversed polarity). Lots of rust has been blown off, but new rust is forming on the formerly clean surfaces. Still the parts are cleaner than before.