I have a question about vinegar dipping/bathing parts to remove rust etc. there was a post not long back that showed a guy who submerged his rear
drive shafts is a tub full of vinegar and left them overnight and they came out the next day looking very clean and shiney. now could you do this with
an engine block or head? if you strip out all the crank and pistons and remove all ancilleries and seals etc could you vinegar dip the block to make
it all nice and shiney again? would the vinegar have any effect on the actual metal and how would you go about making sure there was no trace or
vinegar left that could possibly cause corrosion if left on after the block or head has been removed from the dip?
answers on a postcard.......a thankyou
Noooooo dont do it. I'd be concerned about hydrogen embrittlement from pickling the engine as well as damaging any machined surfaces. Best to let
a proper engine recon company do the job in the proper baths.
I have never seen the point to vinegar paths when electrolysis is so simple and cheap - not that i would do that to an engine either!!!)
can't afford for pro's to do it, hence the D.I.Y post
I stole the pictures from elsewhere but ive tried this and it does work! perfect for calipers and large peice of metal - not sure how effective
it'd be on sheet. Liability waiver bit - you try it and it doesnt work, not my problem! I'd advise you not to submerge chrome parts - just
stick to this steel and iron.
Grab yourself a fused 12V battery charger, a tin of bicarb of soda (about £1 a tub) a scrap 'sacrificial' peice of steel and some water.
Put the bicarb and the steel in a bucket, making sure the peice to be cleaned and the sacrificial steel are not touching and connect the -ve terminal
to the peice you want cleaned and the +ve to the sacrificial steel. (make sure the charger is off) Pour the water over to cover them and stir.
Turn on the charger and watch the bubbles! So long as your using a decent charger, the ammeter will tell you the rate of rust removal!
before and after
dont go killing yourself kids! Dont get the charger wet and dont use a battery - it'll fry. The chargers are current limited so thats why we use
em
Or if you go down the vinegar route if you ad some peper corns you could have a nieche market for an alternative to onions. Dragons den here you go.
Sorry.
Sorry again I could not get the pics across
[Edited on 18/3/09 by expatkiwi]
If you can fully strip the block, it shouldn't cost much to get an engine shop to chuck it in the washer.
The other option it to set to with gunk or some other cleaner. But it will take a while, and you will need a good selection of long bottle/pipe
cleaners and so on for the fiddly bits. Getting the outside clean is easy, it's the oil ways and so on that are the hard bit as you need every
core plug and grub screw out.
i have done electroylsis before , what i want to know is, is it going to ruin the cylinder bore and other machined surfaces?
quote:
"The best thing for me is it doesn't attack clean metal so it wont harm machined surfaces and parts like bearing races! I'll never use sand blasting again!" - Peter, Dudley
it shouldnt touch good steel, just its oxides and hence any pitting which could occur would be partially exposed oxide pockets anyway (which means
your bores fucked)
If your engine block is useable I wouldnt think electrolysis would damage it.
Id get it to a machine shop and into the parts washer tho, electrolysis produces a scale which will be in all your oilways and waterways!!
whatis the procedure used in a engine wash shop?
a very hot chemical bath that works much like a giant dishwasher.