I can get access to any/all chemicals. What do machine shops use to clean heads/motors? I want to dip my heads in something and clean all the stuff off of them, surface rust and all. Is there anything that can do this easily?

Who here has tried Electrolysis? Anyone?

I might be the first to try it then, pretty easy todo...

might try maratic acid? Seems to disinigrate rust and clean pretty much anything and everything. We used it to clean bricks with rust and dirty smoke and such on them and it did miracales.

Careful with the acid, it will also slowly attack iron/steel, and voilently attack aluminum.

I like to use naphtha to degrease, works quite well. I think some use heated baths of sodium(?) to get all the garbage off. I remember seeing that somewhere. Im sure a parts washer would also work well.

get some oven cleaner& pressure wash them

I used a parts cleaner, worked ok, not great.

I don't know what hot tanking solution is.... look up cold tanking solution, I hear it's pretty pricey though.

acid will pit the surface of areas you don't want screwed up, i'd be careful with that.

I've used electrolysis a fair bit, de-rusts ok, but does nothing to oil/grease except dirty up your bath. I've also been getting less and less success lately, maybe my bath has been contaminated...? (oh yea, use lye)

well, i've used engine degreaser/carb cleaner/brake cleaner with all the same results, my main question was about the rust. I've found my solution now.

Tried it today with fabulous results. Gonna let it work overnight.

care to share?

or is it the electrolysis? care to indulge in many details?

sorry for the bad idea btw did't realy know, just seemed as if it would work well.

muriatic acid would work well, and be cheap, but I wouldn't recommend soaking it, you'd probably want to use it like the rust dissolving liquids that you can buy for autobody. Just use it where you want it, and brush it around or something.

Just don't touch it with bare hands. I think that was the stuff i touched with my hands and it didn't hurt but, got some on my arms and it burned through my skin..... Then again that might have been paint stripper i know for sure it melts all the skin on my arms, have some slight scars to prove it lol.

Moral of the story is read instructions!

Most commercial "hot tank" cleaners are an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide and/or sodium hypochlorite. They are very corrosive to aluminum, and require neutralization after cleaning, then significant rinse and rust preventive application.

where can i get those chemicals?

pool supplies? for my pool i have so many different acid's its not even funny.

hydroxide is a basic solution. think drano.

You may be surprised at how high the pH of dishwasher powder can be. Or oven cleaner.

really? huh, I have heard of people using their dishwasher (or an old one) to clean auto parts..

Dump them in Solivent

Well today i pulled a head out of my electrolysis tank, after 24hours of soaking. Came back and it was still bubbling, but i decided to take it out and check on it. All the rust turned black(iron oxide) and when you touch it it falls off, iron oxide is neutral, doesn't affect the metal at all. The cool thing is the was instead of most people's tank's being red rust colored, mine was black. The tank mixture i used was slightly a degreeser as well. And most of everything was gone amazingly.

Next time i will add a bucket of carb cleaner to my 30 gallon tub and add the baking soda afterwards. or is this a chemacal reaction waiting to happen?

Make a rust dissolving degreesing bath eh? would be quite awesome.

lye is sodium hydroxide, which is what is used in a hot tank correct?

you can use lye in this tank, hmmmm off to the store for my next set of rust killing/degreesing.

I used Lye, as it's basic, and sorta a degreaser... I must have contaminated my bath, or have crappy wiring, but I'm planning on upgrading it for my next round of de-rusting...

I'm using a 120L plastic garbage bucket with rebar hot glued to the sides, and 2 old LCAs in the bottom. The rebar has rebar metal wire to electrically connect them together, then hooked up to my 10A battery charger.... I think I have a whole bottle of lye (250g or so?) in it.... Either not enough lye, or bad electrical contacts, or it's contaminated, as lately it hasn't pulled over 1A, and done much of a good job...

You used baking soda? anything else? I heard you need washing soda, not baking soda, for some reason... yours worked though eh? it degreased as is?

What are you using as your scrap electrode?

my charger is 15 amp 6-volt charger, doesn't matter what volt tho. got it for $30 at harbor freight tools.

I use a old jack stand. it got run over one day my my car, and it got squashed. So i had it sitting around forever and it worked fine. I use the middle thing, and the frame of the jack stand, one on both sides of the tank.

I used baking soda, and badded a little bit of dishwasher stuff. When i say a little bit, i mean, i thought it wasn't gonna do anything.

My tank continuously took 6 amps all day long. gonna find more metal, and thicken the batch up, the more lye/baking soda or washing soda you use the more electrical continuity it will take.

Gonna buy some rebar and flat sheets of metal and line my tank with sheets of metal, so i have lots of surface area to use. I plan on going killer with my bath. Rust will never be a problem of mine again.


even with my water looking so bad i couldn't see the budles coming up, just the buble at the surface, mine took that same 6 amps. Your bath cant really get contaminated, as oil conducts electricity, and so does the rust that normally colors water. might have a continuity problem or your anodes are too correded to give out the electicity...

yea, i've got to find a better way to electrically connect it all...

I think i'm going to get some PVC tube, larger then the rebar, and drill it into swiss cheese, then drop the rebar in that, that way I don't have to worry about the part touching and grounding out. Then have the rebar sticking out of the top of the bath, and use crimp on ring terminals and 16AWG wire or something, and connect them all together. (with screws). I may add some dishwashing soap, and baking soda, why not eh?

Thanks for the tips!

I have a pretty big bath. but besides that. I connect all of my anodes via 14awg wire. At the end of my head's bath, the copper wire was green, but the wire was still in tact, copper corrodes alot slower then iron, so it will last longer then the part.

Also, the more surface area, the better. If you can line your nontainer with sheet metal, you'd be doing it like a king, and just put a smaller container cheese grated inside of your main container and you wont have to worry about gorunding either. That is what i plan on doing.

Plus the myth is 2 charger is better then 1, well not, unless they are hooked up in series, they only do the same job. they wont combine the amps.