Removing aluminum from crankshaft

LarrySTN

Member
Sometime back I read of a chemical to remove aluminum from crankshafts, maybe from F-I-T. Any help will be appreaciated, thanks.
 

Then, wrap each journal with Crocus Cloth (with oil), wrap a cotton clothesline closely around and over the crocus cloth and Spin the crocus cloth..

This will remove the last of the aluminum and Polish the Journal..

Ron..
 
You are looking for FIT's caustic paste or you could also use store bought oven cleaner which is a similar composition but more expensive while being much more handy. Lye or sodium hydroxide solutions will eat aluminum, but leave steel alone. For decades this was the solution used to 'boil out' an engine block. Heat helps a lot with the speed, they really did boil them.

Muriatic acid, is the same thing as hydrochloric acid and will eat steel crankshafts along with aluminum and your KFC dinner (it's in your stomach at a much diluted level) - I wouldn't use that one, so bad advice? It will eat rust before steel and back when, it was used to 'clean' cooling systems of excess rust, but no more than a half hour exposure was allowed before being drained, flushed, and neutralized.
 
If you have access to a lathe it helps... but just get a small fine file in good shape and file the heavier stuff off. The crank is hard enough that unless you really go at it with an edge of the file you won't mark it. Then finish it off with some 600 grit. Flush the oil feeds out thoroughly...! I use diesel and air several times.

Take a look at the diameters of your journals and measure in a few spots. Especially look around the oil holes. Sometimes the oil hole area will be bigger diameter because the oil feed hole cut away a groove in the bearing. Grab a die grinder and blend or chamfer the hole. If you do have a slightly larger diameter at the area where the hole is then you need to rip a thin strip of like 80 grit and knock the high down. Follow with a thin piece of 220 then 600. You don't want a high spot on your journal. If anything it'd be better if it were undercut a breath.
 

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