Tech Advice

[jgiannone]

I wasn't sure where to put this, but for anyone who does track prep and is a little fanatical, here goes. Rust and corrosion are always a problem. It destroys the metal and makes it hard to see problems or issues. If you want to easily clean rusted parts, use toilet bowl cleaner. Yes, that's correct. Toilet bowl cleaner is roughly 14 percent hydrochloric acid, which eats rust easily, and leaves the base metal untouched. Now, cautionary comments. Hydrochloric acid is nasty stuff, and destroys paint, plastic, harms aluminum, so its only use is on mild steel or stainless steel. That's it. You have to wear gloves, long sleeved shirt, and safety glasses, and go really slow because the stuff is just nasty. And don't breath it. Ask me how I know. Paint it on with a brush, wait a few minutes, slowly work it with Scotchbrite pads, and in minutes, heavily corroded steel parts are clean. Exhaust headers and pipes, suspension bolts, again, anything that's mild steel or stainless steel.  Nothing else. Rinse heavily with water. Its caustic and nasty, but it saves hours of hard rubbing with abrasives. There are several YouTube videos on this, so go there first. Happy offseason cleaning.