How to Remove Rust with Electrolysis

[Blazer]

Hi All,

In the last few weeks of working on my new toy, I have found many parts that have had large amounts of rust. Rather than wire brush, sand, or media blast the rust away, try Electrolysis! It removes only the rusty metal, and saves alot of Elbow Grease! I tried this for the first time yesterday and it worked great. Hopefully this will save some of you some time and effort in restoring your Trikes.

My muffler had a large amount of rust. No holes in it (yet), but it just flat out looked bad. This was the part I decided to test the electrolysis on (that and I"m cheap, didn't want to buy a new one, yet)

Items needed:

1. Plastic Bucket or Tub large enough to fit your rusty part into. Do NOT use a Metal Container!
2. Battery charger - mine was 12v 2A or 12v 6a
3. Steel or Iron Electrode (any metal you have about)
4. Enough water to submerse your part into
5. Baking Soda, Washing Soda, or Household Lye (I used arm and hammer Baking Soda) Use approximately 1-2 heaping tablespoons per gallon of water.

Process:

Start by filling up your plastic tub with water until your rusty part is completely submersed. Then add your Baking Soda, and stir until dissolved. While the battery charger is unplugged, attach the negative lead to the part. It is ok if the negative lead is submersed under water.

Insert your steel/iron electrode into the solution. Make sure that your positive electrode does not touch your part. Leave enough of the electrode exposed and out of the solution so you may attach your positive lead. Attaching the battery chargers positive lead to the electrode while submersed will cause it to rapidly deteriorate and gain rust. If you want it to last, make sure its not in the water! While the battery charger is unplugged, you may now attach the positive terminal to your electrode.

TIP 1- When choosing an electrode, keep in mind that electrolysis is "line of sight". The side of the rusty part that faces away from the electrode will not have the rust removed. I chose to bend a steel pipe around my part, so both sides would be cleaned simultaneously. Use your imagination here.

TIP 2 - Please don't place your battery charger right next to the container, set it away from it, and preferably off the floor in case of an accidental spill. Use a surge protector.

TIP 3 - Have a well ventilated area, Hydrogen bubbles are formed during this process.

Now confirm your part and electrode don't touch, and that the electrode is "positive". You may now plug in your battery charger. You will know it is working when you see tiny bubbles starting to rise from the solution. Soon, the water will turn a rusty color! Mine was 12v 2a, I had to rotate my muffler to get complete coverage and each side ran about 4 hours. It came out very clean looking. I poured out the liquid, and then put it in my oven for 45 minutes to cook off any remaining water inside.

Check out my photos, and try this yourself the next time you need some heavy duty rust removal!!!

Looks Terrible!:
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s10/Bullet0405/RustyMuffler1.jpg

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s10/Bullet0405/RustyMuffler2.jpg

My Setup:

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s10/Bullet0405/Setup1.jpg

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s10/Bullet0405/Setup2.jpg

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s10/Bullet0405/Setup3.jpg

Muffler after first 4 hours:

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s10/Bullet0405/HalfDone.jpg

Finished Results:

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s10/Bullet0405/RustFree2.jpg


http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s10/Bullet0405/RustFree1.jpg

[toocheaptosmoke]

Good job. You can also clean the inside of tanks with a similar method. :beer

[stefan34]

wow man that result is amazing !

deffenitily going to try this

[TeamGeek6]

Connect the terminals backwards and itll plate things with rust!

Give it that "redneck" look.

J/K. Good job.

PS "TIP 1- When choosing an electrode, keep in mind that electrolysis is "line of sight"."

No, electricity is not line of site, itll go around corners. Light is line of site (mostly). The current will try to take the most direct path.

[thefox]

Hey we have he same battery charger! :lol:

[Blazer]

TeamGeek6, you are correct. Somehow the proper words escaped me last night. I forgot to mention, after pulling the part out and drying it, wipe it down with some oil to help protect it from new rust formation. I had a can of WD-40 hanging about, so I hosed it down and wiped off the excess.

[edog]

Cool.the results aren't good enough.I will stick to sand blasting

very good thread by the way.

[McDerry]

Cool.the results aren't good enough.I will stick to sand blasting

very good thread by the way.

:wondering Expecting it to strip the paint too or something :wondering

Good Idea, got a tank to strip aswell that that would work well for.

[Dirtcrasher]

Thats crazy!! Awesome post!!

[the great gazoo]

Ya, that's pretty kewl! Nice work.

[RedRider_AK]

I saw this being done just today on Xtreme 4x4, definetely a quicker way to do it than sanding! :lol:

Way to go man!

[Havoxx]

Cool.the results aren't good enough.I will stick to sand blasting

very good thread by the way.

Heh, sandblasting a muffler isn't the best idea, you can ruin the baffles if you screw up :D.

Never thought you could do that though, but I hate playing with electricity :D, so I'll stick to my bead-machine and parts washer :D.

[evand]

sweet thread man, never knew about this,wish i would have know about it when i was sanding all the rusty parts on the Z lol

[Chevy200s]

very good thread, well worded and easy for first timers to understand. A bunch of my friends use this for restoring tractors and old hit and miss engines. Thats something to think about when people say sand blasting is better, we're talking on a trike which is a relatively small machine, when your doing big fly wheels and other huge cast iron parts its a different story.

as far as comparing it to sand blasting they really are best for different things. While electrolosis is good for removing rust, it doesnt do anything about the pits and other metal damage that may have happened do to rust. I think the best way to do it is put all your rusty parts in electrolosis for a while to get all the surface rust off, then quick blast them to smooth out the metal, its less sand and time. anyways though, good thread, thanks for the info and the exhaust came out great!