Another Build Thread - My '32

[J. Robinson]

I haven't had much "newsworthy" progress to report here, so I've been quiet. I haven't been standing completely still, though. After finishing the wife's pergola I finally got a couple things done. First, I was finally able to identify the 9" Ford rear end as a 1957 model (the first year for the 9"). I still haven't taken the chunk apart, so I haven't determined what may be wrong with it internally. Anyway, it's full of rust and dirt, so I'll be using the one I have in the shed for now - it's a better gear ratio and it doesn't need rebuilding right away.

I took the axles to my local NAPA store and had new bearings pressed on. It took two tries to finally get the right seals (Ford had two different diameter seals up through at least '63 - no explanation why). The whole mess was $153; I could have gotten cheaper bearings, but I'm running a big-block in this car and I may want to take it to the HAMB drags eventually...

I decided that I needed an effective way to remove rust as the housing and backing plates are in less than great shape (what can ya expect for free?) after lying out in the weather for years. I read some time ago about removing and/or neutralizing rust by using electrolysis. A quick search online turned up several articles on the subject and YouTube has a bunch of videos, so...

I got an empty plastic barrel (free) from a swimming pool service company. I bought 5 pieces of 1/2" rebar from Lowe's and welded up a sort of basket to fit in the barrel. The local Winn Dixie had the washing soda I needed. All that was left was to suspend a rusty piece in the solution, hook up the battery charger, and wait. I hung one of the backing plates on a piece of chain (leftover from another project) and suspended it in the solution with a piece of PVC pipe. Negative cable goes to the part (I clamped it on the chain) and positive goes on the basket (I clamped it on one of the protruding rebars). When I turned it on bubbles started rising off the chain and moving toward the rebar. After a while, the submerged part of the shiny new chain was dull gray, but nothing else much had happened. I removed the backing plate and replaced the chain with copper wire. This time, with power on, the bubbles were rising directly from the backing plate. I left it for about 4 hours; when I took it out of the tank all the rust had turned black. I'm not a chemist, but I think I read somewhere that that is either iron phosphate or iron magnate - does anybody know? Anyway, the rust is killed. Now it can be easily wire-brushed off and painted over.