Ahem…
Just use vinegar. Coca-Cola has a pH of 2.8; vinegar is 2.4. Also you don’t have to wash sugar syrup off your tools.
And no, neither one is going to dissolve your steel tools (?!) in a “few minutes.” Sheesh.
Beautiful bike! I restore vintage bicycles and the best rust removal product I’ve found so far is called Evapo-Rust. The rust will wipe right off and it doesn’t harm paint. No idea how it works so well. The stuff is biodegradable so it can be disposed if with no issues. I’ve also done rust removal with electrolysis but it was too time consuming and didn’t work as well.
I guess the second photos are cleaner than the first ones, though I really didn’t catch it at all until I took a third or fourth look.
Thanks.
This bike looks good but certainly shows its age. I’m trying. For the tools I think coke did a fine job. Reduced the rust by 60-70% with a 10-15 minute soak and 5-10 min of scrubbing. I’m trying to keep as much chrome off the bike as I can as it is really hard to keep clean living in a seaside community. I’ll look for the Evapo-Rust. The pipes on the BMW really need some love.
What works really well is making a small jar of biodiesel from veggie or waste oil. That stuff will eat through most grime you throw at it. A clean engine is one of the side effects of running bio-d.
Diet Coke and a foil scrub work great for cleaning chrome.
You may also like to consider electrolysis.
Did you do a control test with just the sponge and compare the cleaning time/effort/results? You know, for science.
I did try just scrubbing with the clean green sponge before putting a wrench or sponge in the coke, it did take off some but not very much rust.
I also tried Reynold’s Wrap as a scour on the wrenches and it did less than the clean sponge alone. Post Coke the aluminum scoured worse than the green pad and also started to apparently breakdown.
The wrenches are noticeably cleaner and shiny where the rust is removed, removed. The worst areas of rust didn’t come off at all. Some are now just pit marks that need some sort of thin coating over to protect. I’m not saying the Coke is the perfect solution, but it did do very well.
I did a comparison of Evapo-Rust and D-Rust-It (see http://xkeresto.wordpress.com ). Both worked pretty well and are probably even safer than Coke, lol.
Jason, you are on a vision quest doing a /6. My mistakes restoring a /5 made for fun blogging (http://penforhire.wordpress.com ). Go team Airheads!
I came for the tool geekery (I’m bicycles rather than motorbikes, but we all need good tools, right?) but was distracted by the Midleton Very Rare.
It seems wrong that such a fine dram should even be in the same picture as the solvent.
Check out Simichrome. Comes in a yellow and red package.
It’s made in Germany. Germans know how to make nice things. It’s made to polish chrome and the like. I think it was originally made for car care.
After having it suggested to me, I tried it on my S&W 629 Classic in stainless. Wowsa. I’ve spent maybe 2hr tops polishing it while watching TV using just some old cloth diapers. It is so. Shiny. I might take a dremel to it with a polish head to get into few of the nooks and crannies, but it’s like looking into the face of god with how shiny it is compared to what I started with.
Great blog. I am looking forward to spending some time reading it later tonight. Thanks for making it available!
As the mechanical lords giveth, some taketh away. Following is from a once-running (and racing) dual-plugged R100 motor that was subsequently scrapped and her jugs/pistons removed and placed into a then-1975 R75/6. The R100 :
From left, crankshaft bearing, crank timing sprocket, outer ring of the oil pump (with the cover slightly behind and left), the purple bottle contains human lubricant that works really, really well, then connecting rod, camshaft with timing sprocket, crankshaft (a beautiful thing if there ever was one) and finally the crankshaft “collar” that was once centered in the engine block.
All these parts will get a thorough washing and will be displayed for my own smashed/cut fingers, spilled oil, curses of fury and joy, and simple pleasure.
Glad you got the /6 running and I hope you enjoy the ride!
Old US Navy trick (non-ferrous metals only): take that nasty chunk of tarnished brass, a deck drain for example, drop it in a plastic bucket, add HOT water and a couple of packs of unsweetened “Kool-Aid” ® ™ (SM) (LS/MFT), stir, ignore for a few hours, rinse, and reinstall. Hope the Senior Chief didn’t stub a toe in the meantime!
my gramps used to abide by the coke trick.
thanks for sharing your progress!
It’s for mixing.
/runs away very, very quickly
That is a seriously old trick if it comes with a reference to the old time Lucky Strike radio ads… 
