Rust removal by Electrolysis

[KevJTD]

Seen this method done on-line, sure we have members on here that have done the same thing too?
Never got around to trying it myself.

So with plenty of candidates now for painless rust removal of delicate parts from the Imp and integrale and a Bank Holiday Monday free from major commitments I thought I'd have a go myself.

First task was to gather all the components...some variations on what the 'net describes to use but I couldn't see why it wouldn't work...

Instead of thick bars I found some old angle sections that I screwed to the inside of a plastic bucket, a non-metal container is vital as will become clear later...

You may have noticed that the metal bars leading down into the bucket are all attached to each other, I used heavy duty battery type cables but not sure if they needed to be so heavy duty.

The bucket is then filled with plain water but the advice is to use washing soda crystals, washing powder seemed about the same to Rob and me so a scoop of Daz was stirred into the mix.

The piece you want to remove the rust from then needs to be hung into the mixture but not touch the metal bars that are screwed to the sides.

You then attach the positive lead from your battery charger to the metal brackets and the negative to the piece via a metal hanger all suspended in the solution without touching the other metal parts, a plastic or wooden cross-bar is perfect

First thing we tried was a bracket of some sort off the Imp, quite rusted but could have been cleaned with a wire wheel or brush.

Difficult to see but once the process starts you see the bubbles rising from the work piece, best to do it in a ventilated place as the bubbles are apparently Hydrogen?

After about half an hour we couldn't wait any longer to see if it was doing anything....on first pulling the piece out we were really disappointed to see it looked not that much better than when it went in, until I remembered you had to wash the remnants off. A quick rinse with a wire brush and the results were great to see.

Would it work on this bracket?

Lovely job

[KevJTD]

Did a few more parts, ash tray was well rusted but came up great

Water pump pulley

Everything is then cleaned down, dried off and given a coat of primer to prevent rust forming again, which it can do on bare steel surprisingly quickly

You do end up with pretty scummy deposits on the top surface though, it starts off congregating around the metal poles where the positive lead is attached too, but it gets that much so it's just all over the top surface

Plan now is to get a much bigger container, decent sized water tank like is in the loft will do, then we can do some of the bigger pieces.

Front grille of the Imp is very rusted and being slatted would take an age to clean up. Far too delicate to be blasted too so being dipped in this manner should bring it up great.

There are also a few pieces like the rad fan cowling that are heavily rusted and again would be hard to safely clean up. Another piece is like a wire mesh item. Looking forward to trying it all out.

[Veesix75]

If you need some heavier duty steel for the full Monty version, I've got some roll cage tubing you can have if you want it, enough to cut up and place around a bigger tank.

[KevJTD]

I've got some 3/4" solid steel bar I was gonna use mate, so should be alright thanks.

[Spacenut]

Very impressive. I'm looking at the garden pond in a whole new light

[PETROLHEAD]

If you look up IBC on ebay, or keep your eyes out around farmers yards, you could cut them in half and get two great sized tubs i reckon.

only about 15/20 quid i've seen them for.


great job so far mate. well done

[jobeed]

Anyone have a swimming pool!

[KevJTD]

whilst looking it all up online I came across a fella that needed to clean up a trailer so built up a makeshift pool around it with plywood and waterproof sheeting, 1600 gallons of water and 56 hours of cooking later he'd got a de-rusted trailer

seems there's no limits to the things that can be done.

had a look in The Range today for a tub big enough to get the front grille from the Imp in, reasonable price for a big enough tub.

hope to try it out very soon

we have our fingers crossed for good results as it really will be a pain to do it manually

[KevJTD]

took this rear suspension bracket off the integrale yesterday, was welded to the chassis which had also rotted through so it all got chopped out.

when I did the other side it took me an age to clean off the thick rust on the inner faces..

got some washing soda crystals so tried those instead of the mrs washing powder, doesn't smell as nice in the shed though, the fresh laundry smell isn't there!

all the rust gone!

left pits where the rust has been blown out, just as though it'd been shot blasted, without the effort!

[KevJTD]

been looking for a way to clean the rust of robs imp front grille, quite a long panel to get submerged.
as you can see, pretty rusted and quite delicate to make using a sander or grinder tricky at best. not sure if it would stand up to being blasted either, fairly flimsy

jim kindly found us an old water barrel than is deep enough, a few strips and bands were made up out of various pieces of scrap, including a section of fulvia door bottom!

unfortunately I think I've weakened the mixture down too much, put a whole litre bottle of soda crystals in but there is a lot of water in there!

didn't stop it frothing up though

a few hours in and it's almost cleaned out all the rust...

there are now a few holes to weld or fill in, we'll probably hang on and see if one can be picked up for a few quid at national imp day next month before we spend much time and effort sorting it, bound to find one for a fiver in fine fettle if I spend a few hours welding and grinding this one!

[PETROLHEAD]

Works a treat that does eh!