WhO's THE BEST, rust remover/ encapsulator Options

[sean_v8_914]

"WhO's THE BEST, rust remover/ encapsulator"

NONE!

THERE IS NO ONE STEP SOLUTION. THERE IS NO SHORT CUT. THERE IS NO ENCAPSULATION THAT IS GOOD

there are proceedures that combine various products that MUST be used in a VERY SPECIFIC sequence. any other atempts to simplify the proper chemical abaitment is just pissing in teh wind

there is a thread here where me and scotty B divulge our techniques. I am not good with our site search engine but im sure others couldd help find that thread. there were several others in this thread who also understand the chemistry of rust

[mrgjones]

I've been kind of eying the por 15 products but I'm not sure about the final, painting of the acrylic shell part. It looks great but I just don't like the idea of not being able to tell if something is happening underneath. As a result of his thread I'm now leaning toward a three step including marine clean, ospho, and some sort of zinc rich coating/ primer. If anyone finds those threads, that would be interesting to read through.

[avidfanjpl]

Silver in Socal

Stay away forever from Naval Jelly.

It has to be blasted off the car. It sucks.

I had a ton to remove on my car. NO FUN.

Cut, weld, or convert. I like the POR stuff, but many have other opinions.

My car never sees rain.

Marine Clean, then Metal Ready, then anything but not naval jelly.

It is poison to a 914 finish.

John

[ewdysar]

"WhO's THE BEST, rust remover/ encapsulator"

NONE!

THERE IS NO ONE STEP SOLUTION. THERE IS NO SHORT CUT. THERE IS NO ENCAPSULATION THAT IS GOOD

there are proceedures that combine various products that MUST be used in a VERY SPECIFIC sequence. any other atempts to simplify the proper chemical abaitment is just pissing in teh wind

there is a thread here where me and scotty B divulge our techniques. I am not good with our site search engine but im sure others couldd help find that thread. there were several others in this thread who also understand the chemistry of rust

Sean,

I found this thread http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?act...=2&t=116018
Is this the one that you were referring to?

Eric

[sean_v8_914]

yup. I bumped it. Perry gives a good write up

[mrgjones]

Just finished reading the other thread. There's a lot of good information there but I gotta say it left me with another question. If the phosphoric acid is converting iron oxide to iron phosphate, what is the advantage of rinsing it out? Unless there's another chemical reaction going on it seems advantageous to have a little residue on the parts (unless it interferes with paint)

[scotty b]

Just finished reading the other thread. There's a lot of good information there but I gotta say it left me with another question. If the phosphoric acid is converting iron oxide to iron phosphate, what is the advantage of rinsing it out? Unless there's another chemical reaction going on it seems advantageous to have a little residue on the parts (unless it interferes with paint)

What is being done with the wash, is there is remaining phosphoric acid, that has not made the conversion. You are washing that off so it doesn't continue to sit on the metal and
A: eat away at the metal over time and
B: cause issues with the paint going on top of it.

Best removal = blasting
Best "converter " = phosphoric acid
Best encapsulator = B.S...... hocus pocus it's all bogus

[Katmanken]

I think the electrolytic process is the way to go. There is a place in Cincinnati on Northland Blvd near the Porsche dealership called American Metal Refinishing that seems to use it and can do a whole car in their tank. I use it at home for everything with no problems. Per the line of sight, yes, but a little creativity never hurt. Can you say coathanger electrode inside a tube? American Metal refinishing can get inside of the cavities if you request it. They removed the paint, inner foam, and all of the the rust from my trunk for $60-$70. The worst that I had to do was slap the rear lip area of the trunk to knock the chunks of blackened and killed rust out of the latch hole. Not sure what process they used as the blackened rust bubbles aren't created with the electrolytic process, but it worked.

Per the hydrogen embrittlement concerns, do your metallurgy. I think you will find that hydrogen embrittlement affects really HSLA ( high strength low alloy) steels or hardened steels, and doesn't do much of anything with non-heat treated steels like the mild steels. For those of you that don't know, mild steels were the automobile steel of choice due to the ductility, low cost and ease of formability before the late 70s. The Japanese pioneered the use of HSLA steels in the mid to late 70's which made the body panels both harder and thinner due to heat treating. HSLA steels are succeptable to hydrogen embrittlement and reduced strength from heating which is why they don't recommend welding late model cars. HSLA steels are also highly prone to rust as witnessed by the notoriety of 70's and 80's Hondas as rustbuckets with shock towers shooting through the hoods, gaping holes under the bumpers, and windshield pillars rusting through for your rollover pleasure. No, I wouldn't throw a nitrided crank in the tank, and ball bearings may fall off the electrolytic list, but I have seen pristine cast iron engine blocks as they come out of the tank.

Yes, it was my amazing rusting-before-your-eyes POS Honda that made this engineer research the mild steel vs HSLA topic.

[Madswede]

Per the hydrogen embrittlement concerns, do your metallurgy. I think you will find that hydrogen embrittlement affects really HSLA ( high strength low alloy) steels or hardened steels, and doesn't do much of anything with non-heat treated steels like the mild steels. For those of you that don't know, mild steels were the automobile steel of choice due to the ductility, low cost and ease of formability before the late 70s. The Japanese pioneered the use of HSLA steels in the mid to late 70's which made the body panels both harder and thinner due to heat treating. HSLA steels are succeptable to hydrogen embrittlement and reduced strength from heating which is why they don't recommend welding late model cars. HSLA steels are also highly prone to rust as witnessed by the notoriety of 70's and 80's Hondas as rustbuckets with shock towers shooting through the hoods, gaping holes under the bumpers, and windshield pillars rusting through for your rollover pleasure. No, I wouldn't throw a nitrided crank in the tank, and ball bearings may fall off the electrolytic list, but I have seen pristine cast iron engine blocks as they come out of the tank.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) You took the words right out of my mouth! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif) I would emphasize that the most common cause of hydrogen embrittlement in steel is where there is high pressure and relatively high temperatures during the manufacturing process, both of which will not exist in an electrolytic solution. A high concentration gradient could drive H2 to diffuse into steel as well, but the reduction reaction isn't fast enough (and hydrogen is the lightest gas there is) that it won't be in very high concentration in the solution such that there would be that concentration gradient as a driving force for significant diffusion.

Also, the "line of sight" thing is true in a way. For whatever reason this occurs (I suspect its more of a rate of reaction due to the electrical field between the anode and cathode as opposed to not working at all), from my own research it seems a large enough tank and spacing between the anode and cathode solves this problem to a large extent.

Anyway, I still think electrolysis would be a promising method for that special case where the car/parts in question have lotsa rust all over but not enough to ruin the structural integrity of the part (in other words cut it out and replace it).

[ArtechnikA]

OK as long as we're driving down this path - what about electroless (chemical) nickel?

Sure, it would be expensive (like anything to do with early Porsches and rust is cheap...). Are there facilities big enough to do a whole tub ? Or is this just for small parts ?

[zymurgist]

I've read good things about electrolysis on old motorcycle forums. Planning to treat the inside of the Yamaha's gas tank this way.

[Katmanken]

When I went to get my trunk done at American Metal Cleaners (new name?), they were hauling a Ford model T out of the tank. Their process stripped everything off that thing, and you could see where the rusted out metal patches needed to go. They were very elusive as to the process, but they showed me a 4 ft by 6 ft wire basket that held a bunch of treated parts. I noticed , in addition to the support cable, a big assed braided electrical wire attached to the basket, and field lines burned into the stainless of the basket. That told me that acid wasn't involved. My bare assed trunk, doors and other parts sat for 6 or more months in high humidity, without rusting. About 10 years ago, they said a whole car was about $1k for treatment. Probably more now due to time, and the enviro-police.

Per naval jelly, it contains the same chemical as ospho in a jelly binder to hold it in place. In places like the side of a fender, the ospho will run off like water, and the naval jelly will stay put. Just make sure you read the naval jelley container directions. They reccomend washing the residue off before it dries. If you want ospho to stay in place on the side of a car, try a saturated cotton ball. It's better than nothing, but not much.

I've done electroless nickel plating on a lot of production parts, and it is one of the stages of a chrome part. It's also a bitch to get paint to stick to it.

Ken

[mrgjones]

I've done electroless nickel plating on a lot of production parts, and it is one of the stages of a chrome part. It's also a bitch to get paint to stick to it.

Ken

Since we're going all out here, why bother to paint when we can reverse the leads and just electroplate the whole thing? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Of course you're completely right about mild steels being less susceptible to the effects of hydrogen embrittlement. You can even use it on the hardened steels as long as it's treated in an industrial oven at a proper temp and time after the process. I've used a homemade setup on lots of small parts and it works great!
I've never seen a shop around my neck of the woods that does this professionally, but it seems like a great way to go. I don't think I'd trust things like motor mounts, suspension components, etc. unless they were heat treated afterwards but I'm sure a specialty shop would be able to handle all of that and give speciific info about how to care for the product.

[Madswede]

As a chemical engineer kinda looking to branch out into other things, I am seriously considering, as a result of this thread, developing my own metal oxidation removal process/shop. There are a lot of options that the cost/benefit ratio may support such that I'm thinking this is a Good Thing to get into.

Wait. Why the hell did I just tell everyone else that idea??

[dlestep]

...too late now, buddy...I purchased the property, chemicals and infrastructure over the phone while I was reading your email...na na, na na, na---na....

[dlestep]

...too late now, buddy...I purchased the property, chemicals and infrastructure over the phone while I was reading your email...na na, na na, na---na....

...just kidding have at it !!!!

[Katmanken]

One other thing with the electrolysis process is that it doesn't affect rubber since the solution merely needs to be conductive not corrosive. Old tires or rubber bushings should be unaffected.

Heck, since the rust removal process requires a negative electrical connection to the rusty part, the torsion bars in the front might well be suspended in the rubber bushings and electrically isolated from the current flowing through the body. That means the torsion bars would not be subjected to the electrical process, and probably wouldn't suffer hydrogen embrittlement. Without conducting, they would merely be wet while in the tank.

Taking that out a little farther, I'm betting that adding rubber insulators or clipping conducting wires from the front fender to the front "A" arms may vary the results on the front arms. The isolation/conduction tricks could be carried to other body parts to produce a desired result. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif)

[mrgjones]

This has got me thinking how I can build a giant tank in the backyard. For the little setup I've got I made a grid out of rebar. I think I'm gonna need a lot more rebar.

[Katmanken]

On the first try, I rusted a positive electrode steel strip through in about 6 hours. Stainless holds up much better. Being an Engineer, I saved stainess rods and tubes that were being thrown away. Have a 5 gallon plastic bucket, a plastic under the bed tray, and a cheap plastic kiddy wading pool for tanks. I use lye as a conductor, as it helps eat the paint. The teener parts can spend a lot more time in the tank due to the zinc based paint they used.

The darned druggies caused a ban on lye, but some soap sites still sell it. Theoretically, baking soda will work as a conductor. Finally found a box of "washing powder" and will try it next.

Ken

[rohar]

There's a couple of sponges, a 2" steel strap and a rock in my hell hole right now. I've checked it a couple of times and the strap is starting to look like shiat so good things are happening.

My hell hole isn't to the point of "cut it out and replace it". Will post pics of the results.