Block cleaning

[Chris Haynes]

Originally Posted by Brian in Wheeling

So...what does the original poster, Chris; have to say?
Brian

I can't say anything other than what I posted above. Cleaned, rinsed repeatedly with BS and water, then lots of water. Now my radiator is full of vinegar in an attempt to get all the rust out of it.
The next thing will be getting my beat up old radiator re-cored.

PS I just noticed that the vinegar I bought at Costco is only 5% acid. Its not working very well.

[Tom Wesenberg]

Originally Posted by Chris Haynes

I can't say anything other than what I posted above. Cleaned, rinsed repeatedly with BS and water, then lots of water. Now my radiator is full of vinegar in an attempt to get all the rust out of it.
The next thing will be getting my beat up old radiator re-cored.

PS I just noticed that the vinegar I bought at Costco is only 5% acid. Its not working very well.

I had to run the vinegar for 30 days to get the rust flakes out of my system, and even then I used a sump pump to back flush the block and radiator and got out some more junk. If I ever have to do this again I will use Evaporust.

[Chris Haynes]

Originally Posted by Tom Wesenberg

I had to run the vinegar for 30 days to get the rust flakes out of my system, and even then I used a sump pump to back flush the block and radiator and got out some more junk. If I ever have to do this again I will use Evaporust.

Evapo-rust is 23 bucks a gallon. I'll wait on the vinegar to do ts job.

[Tom Wesenberg]

Originally Posted by Chris Haynes

Evapo-rust is 23 bucks a gallon. I'll wait on the vinegar to do ts job.

That's the drawback.
I wonder how molasses would work? I've used it to derust some other parts, and it did a good job.

[Cool Hand Lurker]

Originally Posted by Tom Wesenberg

That's the drawback.
I wonder how molasses would work? I've used it to derust some other parts, and it did a good job.

Tom, I put a flathead V8 in a 55 gallon plastic barrel that was filled with water and one gallon of agricultural molasses for three weeks. As the scum came to the top it was scooped into a 5 gallon bucket. When the bucket finally dried out completely there was a layer of solid rust residue about 3" thick in the bottom. The block came out looking like new iron.

I have tried electrolysis, phosphoric acid, muriatic acid, Evaporust, vinegar and a couple other solutions. All of them give good results but none were better than the molasses. It works, it is safe and it is the only method I use now.