Electrolysis á la Keenh

[528i-1981]

So, this is not an informative post, but rather one expressing amazement and appreciation. I wish I had taken "before" pictures of these AC Condenser brackets. They were crusty with rust, one of the washers had rust-welded itself to the bracket -- they were utterly irredeemable and I was sizing up options to replace them. But I thought I would use the dumb charger + laundry soda bath described by Mike in his Eleanor posts only on a smaller scale (7 gallon tub). I used this before on the coolant pipe that lives under the air accumulator, and that worked great, but that pipe was in mostly good shape with a little surface discoloration. These brackets were basket cases -- or so I thought. A little Master Series urethane and now I'm done.



Thanks Mike I'm a big fan. I'm going to have to try the Joe Boston Copy Cad yellow zinc plating next.

-Eric

[keehn]

LOL Eric, thanks for the compliment and great work on your job! Yeah, electrolytic rust removal is a great way to restore parts and NOT degrade the surface of the rusted material. Other chemical-only solutions instead convert rust into ferric phosphate. While this isn't necessarily "bad" per-se, it would require abrasive preparation of the steel in the event the steel is painted.

I've already discussed on my thread, but for those who don't want to root through my bazillion photos, electrolytic rust removal doesn't convert rust, it literally transfers the ferric oxide, line of sight, from the part to sacrificial anodes. Using some cheap steel rebar ensures the spent water solution can be safely dumped down a drain. However, don't use STAINLESS steel!!! Stainless steel will leech HEXAVALENT CHROMIUM into the water solution, which is DEADLY!

Also, my last name is "Keehn," LOL. Don't feel bad Eric...most everyone misspells it.

OTOH, the VA couldn't spell "Michael" correctly. I was "Micheal" for several months until I asked them to correct.

Mike