Rust removal

I must be the last person who has discovered this, but just in case there is one last soul out there that hasn't, I wanted to pass this along.

I had some parts that I was going to media blast, but a few items are assemblies that can't easily be taken apart, like hood latches, parking brake assembly, seat sliders, etc. The media blast wouldn't work well since it can't reach all the nooks and crannies. I was watching the Kevin Tetz YouTube channel and he used Evapo-Rust to clean up some seat tracks.

So, I bought 2 gallons of Evapo-Rust and dumped it in a plastic bin, just large enough for the largest item I want to soak. I was pretty skeptical, but I'm now 100% convinced this stuff works. Below are some pictures of the parts I soaked over the weekend.

I wish I had a before/after of the latch and parking brake assemblies. They looked just like the seat slider (rusty) in the pictures. Now, they look almost new.
One seat slider is soaking now. The depth of the solution isn't quite deep enough, so I have to soak one side, flip over, and soak again. I've been letting each item soak for 24hrs. It is a very slow process, so you can't be in a rush. The best part is this was all effortless. All I did was dunk the parts. I didn't wire brush or scrub.

After soaking, I rinsed them with water, and then sprayed them with Eastwood "After Blast", which is a bare metal etch that leaves a zinc phosphate coating to keep it from rusting. Next step is to prime and paint.

Also, the stuff is reusable. You can pour it back into the original jugs and use again.

Hood Latch:
Note how it didn't remove the rubber coating over the handle area.



Parking Brake:


Seat Slider (before soaking):


Seat slider - In process. One side soaked

You can also de-rust using an electrolysis setup. One of mine is just a 5 gal bucket. Water, washing soda, wire, some iron and an old battery charger.


I Put 4 pieces of rebar around it on the inside, Connected together with copper wire. Fill with water, stir in some washing soda, submerge the piece to be cleaned in the middle of the bucket. I used a board and another piece of copper wire. Hook up a battery charger Positive lead to the wire connecting the rebar. Connect the negative lead to the wire hanging the piece to be cleaned.
The chemical reaction of the washing soda water and the electricity pull the rust off the negative charged item to the positive charged rebar.

The lower amperage you use seems to work better to me, though it takes longer. If your charger wants to “cycle” add a battery in series to stop the “pulsing”

The washing soda, available about anywhere for around 2 bucks a box



A plane I did, before, and after when I unscrewed everything by hand.



And after