I had a lot of items from the truck that are very rusty. I had used a 4:1 mix of water and molasses in the past, so I tried that. After a week, there was still a lot of rust on the parts. This approach works, but takes time, and I didn’t want to wait that long.
I don’t have any ‘before’ pictures for the molasses soak, but the pieces went in rusty, and they came out a little less rusty, as shown here:
I did some searching on the internet, and discovered a video about making your own Evaporust mixture. From whatÂ
The recipe:
- 1 liter of water
- 100 grams citric acid
- 40 grams sodium carbonate (washing soda)
- A generous squeeze of dish soap (2 tablespoons?)
This stuff worked amazingly well, and was very easy to use.
Be very careful mixing the two chemicals into the water. Which ever one you add second, the mixture will froth up a LOT. I had to add it very slowly, stirring and waiting for the bubbling to die down before continuing.
Here it is with the parts just added:
And another image after a couple of hours:
And finally…after about 24 hours:
Here are the parts after a quick rinse with the hose. No scrubbing was done at all, this is just with a rinse:
The tailgate handle was the best cleanup. Before:
After:
