Salvaging a crankshaft

Areo

Unless you have a way of checking the journal for out-of-round and taper, I'd strongly recommend taking it to a machine shop & letting them take care of it. There's a good possiblity you'll have to have that journal re-ground & put in new corresonding undersize bearing inserts.

You can try the crocus cloth idea if this isn't a real critical application. I've had some success cleaning up minor scratches on bearing journals with the stuff. Just make certain you plasti-gage the bearing when you put it back together, as its real easy to end up with an out-of-round journal.

In my opinion, unless its a junk motor to start with, the little bit of $$$ you'll have to spend to have a machine shop regrind the journal is cheap insurance against having problems when you put it back together.

Keith

Unless you have a way of checking the journal for out-of-round and taper, I'd strongly recommend taking it to a machine shop & letting them take care of it. There's a good possiblity you'll have to have that journal re-ground & put in new corresonding undersize bearing inserts.

You can try the crocus cloth idea if this isn't a real critical application. I've had some success cleaning up minor scratches on bearing journals with the stuff. Just make certain you plasti-gage the bearing when you put it back together, as its real easy to end up with an out-of-round journal.

In my opinion, unless its a junk motor to start with, the little bit of $$$ you'll have to spend to have a machine shop regrind the journal is cheap insurance against having problems when you put it back together.

Keith

Areo

This ties in with what jmixigo posted, because traditional hot-tank solutions contain caustic soda.

From Wikepedia:

"Sodium hydroxide does not attack iron or copper, but many other metals such as aluminium, zinc and titanium are attacked rapidly. In 1986 an aluminium road tanker in the UK was mistakenly used to transport 25% sodium hydroxide solution, causing pressurisation of the contents and damage to the tanker. For this same reason aluminium pans should never be cleaned with lye.

2Al(s) + 6NaOH(aq) �� 3H2(g) + 2Na3AlO3(aq)"