One of the many hats I have worn in my life is that of a poolman.... a friend
of mine put himself through college by running his own pool cleaning route...
and I learned his route and the skills... simply so that I could cover his route
when he was on vacation... making a little money for myself while I was at it.
One thing I learned from him is that the "Muriatic Acid" (for pools) that you
buy at the local hardware store is not nearly as strong as the acid sold by
pool-specific-supply houses... Since my friend has now become a lawyer, the
pool cleaning days are far behind us... as well as my source for the acid! In
recent times, I have found, just as he said, that the stuff from Home Depot just
doesn't cut it... though it will suffice.
The message here is... if you are aware of one of those little pool cleaning
supply places that you see out of the corner of your eye on your way to work...
THAT is where you should buy your acid.
Regardless of the source, if you are unfamiliar with working with acid... READ
all warning that come with the stuff and treat it with utmost respect... it's a
great tool in our vintage car restoration arsenal... but it can also do
incredible damage to you, your loved ones, pets, and so on. Be careful!
--Justin
Greg Solow wrote:
> We have use swimming pool "Muriatic Acid" many time for doing this. This is
> 30% hyrochloric acid. It is very strong and if you get is on your skin it
> will burn you badly.
> Using gloves and a face shield, what we do is to seal up the thermostat
> housing and any other openings to the water jackets that are not through the
> head gasket so that with the cylinder head turned gasket side up, the water
> passages can be filled completely with the acid. We leave the head outside
> int the sun where it is kept warm for a couple of hours or so occassionally
> rocking the head back and forth to get the acid to move around a little.
> Then carefully lift on end of the head to dump out the acid. We dilute the
> runoff with lots of water to make it safe. Then rinse out the head with
> LOTS of water and inspect the water passages for debris. Repeat as needed
> until the water ways are clean. We have also used the same process to to
> clean out block water passages. T series MGs are very bad for getting
> plugged up. Only use this acid on cast iron. It will eat aluminum big
> time!
>
> Regards, Greg Solow
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Gt6steve@AOL.COM>
> To: <Vintage-race@autox.team.net>; <FOT@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Saturday, October 23, 1999 1:46 PM
> Subject: Water jackets
>
> > Greetings all, Does anyone have experience or opinions on acid washing
> > cylinder head water jackets to remove accumulated rust. I recently
> sectioned
> > a cracked Triumph head to study the internals and was pretty amazed at the
> > crap inside it. I've thought of fabricating manifolds and pumping some
> > caustic through or simply immersing an entire head in something to try to
> > eliminate these sediments. Any thoughts? TIA, Steve
> >
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