Overdue update!

[Craig W]

Howdo friends. An apology is owed for my absence since joining the forum! My biggest issue is my restricted availablity of time, combined with accessing the forum Via my phone. The screen is less than forgiving compared with using the laptop at home. That said, all is well, business is steady & my project has certainly commenced. Whilst like many others we await the current global shipping madness to sort itself out, I've purchased a flathead Engine here in the UK to build ready for my MK.I* arrival at some point in the New year? As it turned out it was a golden find. Not only was it in remarkable condition, but on checking the engine number beneath the thick paint, we discovered to our amazement it was indeed out of a Carrier & manufactured around November '43. C81A
I've made an electrolysis cleaning tank at work & to date I've had some amazing results. After only x2 cycles the block now looks like new & absolutely no corrosion remains (especially within the water jackets) Progress is ongoing but I'm delighted with the early results. Please forgive my relative silence from time to time. I'll attempt to upload more photos as I go. Regards to you all.

[Tony Smith]

Great news with the Electrolysis Tank. Other members on here before have used electrolysis on various parts large and small with different chemical recipes, generally with good success.

I think this is the first time we've seen electrolysis for a complete engine block (rather than the more typical passive acid or caustic bath), and it looks like it has worked very well indeed. Could you post more info and pics on what you did and the process you used?

[Craig W]

Hi Tony. Thanks for your comment. I'd be happy to provide the methods & products used that gave these results. I'll also add a selection of photos, but I'll endeavour to do this via the laptop as I really struggle via the phone option. All being well I'll sort it out tomorrow after work.

[maple_leaf_eh]

I will never forgive myself, but can't stop laughing about it.

Bob Bergeron on the carrier forum took some of my advice and made a giant soaking tank for his seized carrier tracks. He used a child's wading pool and lined it with plastic. The coiled up tracks went in with the help of front end loader. All was going well until the molasses leaked out on the floor of his shop - in winter. He had about 4" of frozen slick molasses to chip, scrape and scoop off the floor! And, the tracks were mostly rustfree. He must have forgiven me because I delivered some tool boxes and we went for a flight in his airplane.

[Ron Pier]

Nice work Craig. We all like to see these pictorial restorations. My own engine/gearbox work was done before I had a PC or mobile phone and all I have is a scan of a photo which has come out blue instead of Ford Grey.

Regards Ron

[Craig W]

Making an electrolysis cleaning tank. Arm & Hammer Washing Soda was the detergent option as commonly recommended in several YouTube videos. We found a cleaning cycle of upto x20 hours is all that was needed, although I did carry out a longer cycle on the follow up 2nd dip. Around 20A power draw was observed during the initial clean but it dropped significantly across the duration of each cycle. I'm convinced that adding a uniform layout of anodes which covered all areas of the drum definitely paid off. The engine block was supported on wooden blocks in the base of the drum. Core plugs were removed to allow an improved circulatory flow & we occasionally used compressed air through a blow gun aimed directly through the water jackets. Results surpassed expectations.

[Tony Smith]

Thanks, excellent.

What strength of Washing Soda? ie Grams to Litres?

And what was your power supply?

[Craig W]

Hi Tony. I apologise for the lack of accompanying photos in this thread. Try as I might, it appears that the majority of images I attempt to attach simply won't upload? I think they exceed the megapixel data limit. Are you on Facebook by chance? If so I'll happily send you the selection of images (pictures paint a thousand words)
In essence, a full drum of water submersing the entire block, I added half a box of the washing powder, no doubt far more than required, but so what, it's very cheap & it's a detergent so it can only be beneficial? I had my heavy duty charger set on 12v low charge, but on initial start it drew a high 20-25amp. This slowly dropped as the hours passed, presumably as the corrosion was removed from the block & attracted to the anode bars the resistance reduced accordingly. By the time I was ready to lift the block & begin jet washing/rinsing, I was unable to increase the power settings which by the end of the cycle had dropped down to about 2amps.
As mentioned before, after x2 cleaning cycles the block looks like new. I'll be doing the crank next which has plenty of surface corrosion to address.
As I said, if you're on FB I'll happily add you & forward the pics.

[Tony Smith]

No Facebook for me, sorry. Don't worry, you're doing a good job of the descriptions, thanks for sharing.

As for posting pictures, wouldn't stress too much as you'll eventually get the idea. It probably is the image file size or image width, as most people take pics on their phones these days which have massive pixel sizes and storage. If you can't use an editing program to resize the pics, see if you change the settings on your phone to reduce the image size.

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...9&postcount=10

[Ron Pier]

I guess Craig won't mind me posting some pictures. Ron

[Craig W]

Nice one Ron. Please upload any additional pics that you feel may be of interest. The crankshaft is in the tank today! I'll forward the pictures to you tomorrow. Expecting a good result. By the way, hope your Van is behaving itself?

[Tony Smith]

Going back a few years now, but this was a previous thread on various chemical and electro means of cleaning parts:

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=147

[Ron Pier]

Craig's crank clean up. Ron

[Andrew Rowe]

Just got a small question out there. Trying to read up on this process which looks quite spectacular for these engine cleaning results. Does Hydrogen embrittlement ever needs to be considered using this process? Or is it that the items are never in the "Bath" that long to cause any degree of this micro atom action? Are there Chemical experts still out there?, Cheers Andrew.

[Craig W]

Hi Andrew. To my knowledge I've never previously heard of such problems associated with this type of component cleaning. Hydrogen production does occur as a result of the electrolysis process but on this scale I don't believe it's significant. As you also pointed out, cleaning cycles generally don't exceed 20hrs. Certain materials don't react favourably with electrolysis! Aluminium for example.
Regards the items I've cleaned so far, I'm delighted with the results.
However, I must point out I'm not a chemical engineer, so I'd certainly be interested to learn if there's any potential downsides? Every day's a school day!

[Niels V]

Hydrogen embrittlement is definitely some thing to be considered, when using electrolysis, as it can cause rapid crack formation and failure of a component.
That being said, it is predominantly the case for high strength steels, low grades are not so susceptible to embrittlement.
I would not use electrolysis for something like the U bolts that holds an axel to the springs, leaf springs or tow hook etc.
The effects of hydrogen embrittlement can be mitigated by heat treating the steel after the electrolysis to drive the hydrogen out.

[Andrew Rowe]

So how do you define a crankshaft as being?,( high grade steel? ) and how much time in the bath will cause this? Does this embrittlement process start straight away , or if something like a crank is submerged for a day, it won't effect it at all? Cheers Andrew.

[Niels V]

Sadly I can not give you definite answer to those answers to that, eg. not sure if its cast or forged.
actually this the wiki article not to bad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement and its also worth maybe checking out the references.

[Andrew Rowe]

And he only wanted to clean the parts...........!

[Niels V]

Yes there are always pro and cons to any treatment process.
For something like engine parts I personally would lean towards, water polishing or dry ice blasting, as these would leave a minimum of residue.

I am not sure about how the production process or materials of the Flathead crankshaft, something like case hardened journals could be susceptible hydrogen embrittlement.

Sadly I cannot ask my professor in surface treatment and material science any more.

[Lynn Eades]

The process of re chroming or indeed chrome plating can cause hydrogen embrittlement. Any process that increases hydrogen at the surface of a metal weakens the metal and can lead to premature failure. The process of increasing nitrogen at the surface toughen the metal (nitriding) I think hydrogen embrittlement can happen to a range of "ordinary" steels which would include a cast steel crank.