Rust removal using electrolysis / battery charger

[JC220]

Hi All,

This is something I have seen on you tube etc before and thought it looked very effective and low cost for cleaning rust from old car parts. I already have a suitable plastic container, plenty of spare steel to act as sacrificial pieces and a 12v battery charger with ammeter gauge. I think this will also be a little more gentle on parts than sandblasting. I am very curious just how much rust this method could effectively remove and how long it takes.

I have seen some good sites to describe this process likethis one

Have any members experience with their own setups and do you have any tips or hints to share?

I will be setting this up tonight if I can get washing soda in local shops and do a test piece first. Then ill clean up 2x rusty C124 rear hubs and I will share that on here and hopefully the results of how it the parts clean up!

[video=youtube_share;qi8qIxK4IlA]https://youtu.be/qi8qIxK4IlA[/video]

 

[alabbasi]

Not since chemistry class. I would think chemicals like CLR would work as well and be a lot less complicated

 

[JC220]

My rust removal is powered up and underway! My charger might be a tad higher than the videos siggest at 6amp so maybe I'll get a second more suitable charger but this one will do for now.

Quite easy to set up and so far it's only cost me £1 for a 1kg pack of the washing soda This is my first kick at the cat using this type of rust removal so ill see what I learn from this first hub

 

[Rouven036]

I did the same while reconditioning a W100 M100 water pump. It takes a few days depending on the corrosion level but works very well...

 

[JC220]

Wow this is very cool stuff! About 8 hours in and this is how the tank looked:



The heavy rust scale was very easy to clean off:

[video=youtube;FNaRuNP4ABc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNaRuNP4ABc[/video]

I put it in a sink full of hot soapy water and a paint brush easily cleaned off the now very loose rust scale.



Some very small areas still remained so I flipped it around and it will stay in the tank until I get back from work in another 9 hours or so which should have it finished and ready for immediate painting with Black chassis enamel.

There are some changes I will make - using larger tin sheetmetal for the sacrificial steel and maybe a second tank so I can do 2x large parts at once and have the second stage rust removal in a clean tank.

 

[JC220]

So after work this is how the tub looked:



There was a pretty large amount of rust and black sludge on the anodes and on the base of the tub.



The hub is now free of all rust scale and to me looks just fine at this stage! I could have left it in longer but really it’s good for me and far exceeds what I expected after only 22 hours or so. I took some photos to compare it now with it’s matching hub pre treatment:





I cleaned it some more with brake cleaner and a clean rag then let it dry for an hour on top of my home heating boiler followed by a coating of Aquasteel rust converter & primer just to seal the surface as soon as possible and fully treat any small traces of rust left over. It will be given 2x final coats of specialist underbody black enamel paint.

The tub is all cleaned and re-set up with the second hub in it now