The rust removal on my truck parts continues. In the picture at right you can see proof of the process. Sticking out of the molasses bath is one of my lower control arms. The top, brown section is the portion of the part that was not immersed and received no effect. Below the brown section is a black banded area... this is where the solution has begun to attack the rust and is turning it into a black material that is easily washed off. The lower section shows how clean the metal is where the molasses had a chance to treat it. The parts come out of the bath a nice clean metal color, but very quickly turn orange as surface rusting begins immediately. The color change is evident in the smaller photo below. I'm so happy with what the molasses bath has done for my suspension parts I've now decided to try it on my other rusty truck parts. First up is going to be my salvaged fleetside truckbed sides. They are pretty nasty-looking now with much work needed on them even besides the rust issue. I have patch panels that I will be welding on, but first I thought I would see if I can clean them up of their rust-cancer first. |
To soak a part this size (both at once) I needed to find a fairly large container. I couldn't find anything big enough so I decided to build one. Home Depot had the 2x3 lumber and 1/4" plywood I needed and I was able to put together the frame quickly. It's about 7 feet long, 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep. I've made a double layer liner from two vinyl tarps. |
Three 5 gallon buckets of Molasses was ordered online and now combined in a 10 to 1 ratio mixture, I now have a 150 gallon rust removal tub in the garage! On Saturday, January 31, 2015 I submerged my two short box bedsides in it along with a few other miscellaneous rusty parts. In a few weeks, we'll see how they look. |
Since I have already purchased new end caps (Top Banana) for both bedsides, I needed to remove the old rusty originals before soaking the rest of the panels in the soup. I used my angle grinder with a cutting wheel to saw off the old pieces. They appeared to have been spot welded on to the sides when new. I will need to figure out how to attach the new pieces when I get to that point. The photo below shows the amount of rust on this panel. It actually appears to have been repaired once before with some new metal welded into the structure. I removed that too. I will need to re-create some of the pieces when I get around to adding the new end caps. First, let's see what the molasses can do for me.