Here it is almost November, & I haven't posted since July!
Fortunately, it's because I've been driving the Bus, & not working on it that much.
That's a GOOD thing; we've had all sorts of adventures this summer.
But, I get ahead of myself; what was I doing in July?
Electrolytic rust removal, of course. Isn't that what everyone does in July?
As you may have noticed, Put-putt has a whomped bumper, which I straightened substantially
while I was doing the muffler job. Still, it looks whomped.
In the garage, I had a dinged & rusty, but less whomped, bumper that I got from a VW buddy.
So, I set about re-habbing that bumper, so I could swap it for the whomped one.
Rust was a major issue, as you can see from this "before & after" pic of the bumper brackets:
On the left, a bracket with the lose scale & paint brushed off.
On the right, a bracket after about 36 hrs in an electrolytic bath.
What I used was a battery charger with the negative clamp attached to clean metal on the bracket, and the positive clamp attached to a piece of steel stock, which was a sacrificial anode.
I filled the bucket with water, & added about an ounce as I recall (proportions aren't critical)
of baking soda, & set the charger on it's 10 amp tapered charge setting.
What happened was like magic: the piece of stock rusted, while the bracket got better!
The passage of current through the electrolyte formed by a mild base & water set up an ionic exchange that converted the loose "red" rust on the bracket into firmly attached "black" rust that can be finished after a bit of scrubbing & sanding.
Two things are very important here: the NEGATIVE clamp must be attached to the article to be de-rusted, and the POSITIVE clamp to the sacrificial anode. Also, the clamp attached to the sacrificial anode must be out of the water. or it will be eroded.
Well-adhered paint & un-rusted steel are unaffected.
Here's some pics of the much larger setup that I used for the bumper :
Almost as soon as you hook up the current, you can see the rusty ooze flowing through the solution. It gradually gets dark with rust, & looks really disgusting.For this setup, doing one half of the bumper at a time, I used one heaping scoop of Oxy-Clean to about 30 gallons of water. I kept each end in the solution about 72 hours, & changed the solution between bumper halves.
The electrolytic stage was preceded by hours of pounding , straightening, chemical paint stripping,wire brushing, & sanding, but that was boring, hot, & nasty, & I don't have pictures of it (aren't you relieved).
Suffice it to say that I removed as much rust & paint as possible (several coats) & hammered the bumper as straight as my primitive tools (ball-peen hammer) & limited patience would allow.
Now, here's some pics of the bumper in primer:
And next, a bracket with a couple of coats of paint:
Pics of the painted bumper, with brackets,
will probably have to wait until I install it, but, trust me, it looks resplendent in the garage, awaiting installation.
I was sure I had some pictures of it, but the evil gnomes who haunt my garage must have made off with them.
But, WHY haven't I installed that bumper yet?
BECAUSE, we've been CAMPING!
Next: Our baby's first campout, & first CAR SHOW!
