I posted this on the T4forum but I thought it was worth posting here too. The process is known as chelation and it really does work!
Cleaning up rusty parts is a dirty messy job and one I'd rather avoid if possible. So I decided I'd have a go at molasses rust removal. I've seen the Youtube videos so I thought I'd give it a go.
There was an old rainwater barrel at the bottom of the garden. I cleaned it out and put three jugs of farm feed supplement molasses from the local Country Store in it. The barrel was then filled to within about four inches of the top. This gave a ratio of one part molasses to seven parts water
Give it a good stir
I managed to fit in both rear calipers (complete), both rear splash pans, all my exhaust brackets, the brake proportioning valve, the spare wheel carrier, the handbrake rods and the battery clamp, all hung over the sides of the barrel on wires. I didn't really expect anything to happen. All the youtube vids I'd watched were from australia so I reckoned you must need a bit of warmth to make things happen. Anyway you're supposed to give it six to eight weeks to work. I took everything out once a week and gave it a scrub and a hose down and even after one week I could see progress!! when you've got everything out of the barrel you need to give the mixture a good stirring. I got lazy and left things for about three weeks at one point. This resulted in hard mould growing on the top of the mix. Its not a big problem, you just scoop it off and bin it
As I wasn't expecting anything to happen I didn't bother dismantling the calipers
After eight weeks. Because rust is brown and the molasses mix is brown when you take parts out it looks as though nothing has happened
After a hose down. The molasses won't eat through dirt and grease so a good wire brushing helps things along
Nice clean threads. You can see where the rust is clinging to the nooks and crannies. I've ordered seal kits for all my calipers so I'll leave them in the mix until they arrive
Battery clamp after washing. I put the battery clamp in a good while after everything else but for some reason it has cleaned up the quickest
The rust is from water that hid under the plastic cable guides when I was drying it (the molasses has no effect on plastic). I reckon there's about five minutes of rust cleanup on this then it'll be ready for primer
The molasses gives off a treacle toffee smell which I don't mind, A bin bag over the top of the barrel keeps it at bay and nobody has noticed the smell other than me. Though I'm not sure what will happen when the temperature starts to rise
The rear brake splash pans came out nice and clean. They were pretty rusty and now they've got tiny little holes in them. Never mind I'll just cut the worst of the rust off. So far I don't seem to be having a problem with flash rusting (rapid surface rusting of the parts after they've been washed off in water) so fingers crossedI:
The chassis brackets for the load tie down rings before
Cleaning up rusty parts is a dirty messy job and one I'd rather avoid if possible. So I decided I'd have a go at molasses rust removal. I've seen the Youtube videos so I thought I'd give it a go.
There was an old rainwater barrel at the bottom of the garden. I cleaned it out and put three jugs of farm feed supplement molasses from the local Country Store in it. The barrel was then filled to within about four inches of the top. This gave a ratio of one part molasses to seven parts water
Give it a good stir
I managed to fit in both rear calipers (complete), both rear splash pans, all my exhaust brackets, the brake proportioning valve, the spare wheel carrier, the handbrake rods and the battery clamp, all hung over the sides of the barrel on wires. I didn't really expect anything to happen. All the youtube vids I'd watched were from australia so I reckoned you must need a bit of warmth to make things happen. Anyway you're supposed to give it six to eight weeks to work. I took everything out once a week and gave it a scrub and a hose down and even after one week I could see progress!! when you've got everything out of the barrel you need to give the mixture a good stirring. I got lazy and left things for about three weeks at one point. This resulted in hard mould growing on the top of the mix. Its not a big problem, you just scoop it off and bin it
As I wasn't expecting anything to happen I didn't bother dismantling the calipers
After eight weeks. Because rust is brown and the molasses mix is brown when you take parts out it looks as though nothing has happened
After a hose down. The molasses won't eat through dirt and grease so a good wire brushing helps things along
Nice clean threads. You can see where the rust is clinging to the nooks and crannies. I've ordered seal kits for all my calipers so I'll leave them in the mix until they arrive
Battery clamp after washing. I put the battery clamp in a good while after everything else but for some reason it has cleaned up the quickest
The rust is from water that hid under the plastic cable guides when I was drying it (the molasses has no effect on plastic). I reckon there's about five minutes of rust cleanup on this then it'll be ready for primer
The molasses gives off a treacle toffee smell which I don't mind, A bin bag over the top of the barrel keeps it at bay and nobody has noticed the smell other than me. Though I'm not sure what will happen when the temperature starts to rise
The rear brake splash pans came out nice and clean. They were pretty rusty and now they've got tiny little holes in them. Never mind I'll just cut the worst of the rust off. So far I don't seem to be having a problem with flash rusting (rapid surface rusting of the parts after they've been washed off in water) so fingers crossedI:
The chassis brackets for the load tie down rings before
Or good for cleaning up those grotty spares in the corner of the shed.
