Hey all,

Can anyone recommend a good solution for pickling the aluminium mini gearbox casings? I wouldn't mind having a shot at this if it is relatively easy.

cheers

Mick

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

All Purpose Pickling Solution

Recipe Cuisine: Pickles
Recipe Category: Pickles
Recipe Serves: 1
Recipes Ingredients:

1 ts Salt Per Quart Of Water
1 Bay Leaf
1 Clove Garlic
8 Spice Balls
1 Stalk Of Celery, Sliced
1 Bud Of Dill
1 Carrot, Sliced
1 lb Washed Pickling Cucumbers
1 Hot Chili Pepper
Recipe Instructions:

Combine all ingredients, except cucumbers, in a pan and bring to a boil. Then ning nong the cucumbers with a fork and add to pickling solution. Put in jars and seal. Let stand for 3 weeks before eating.


in your case substitute the gearbox for the cucumbers:wink:

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mmmm....sounds nice, but no jar will contain the casing, and no piece of bread will get around the single aluminium chunk in the middle when I go to eat it...

any more ideas?

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

wire brush it, soak it in diesel for a week, then degrease it.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Yaaag! Manual labour!

Will this brighten the aluminium as well or just clean it? It will be painted eventually with the rest of the engine, but I likes stuff shiny...

I thought about chucking it in the bead blaster and let the glass bead deal with it, but it would be a little pokey in there once the case was put in.

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.

Dunno why, but diesel really shines alloy castings up. I use supercrap degreaser then a water rinse, to get the diesel off.

<edit> diesel cleans the insides too!

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

The gearbox under my 1100 is looking clean and shiny. I use Australian Export degreaser from Supercrap. (On special this week)

Mick don't forget I have access to a rather large sand blaster if you run out of ideas.

Wish you'd told me that BEFORE I did the rebuild

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David L


My greatest fear in life is that when I die my wife will sell my Mini and tools for the price I told her I paid for them!

Not easy to pickle using chemicals . You must not use a caustic bath. The most common bath used is chromic acid based. Its one of the most corosive acids known. So let alone the hazards the chances of you getting any plus the other chemical bits in the concoction is nil.

There are desmutting baths that remove the thin black surface coating you get on Aluminium . The most common is a bath of Nitric acid and Sodium fluoride
I wont go on.
The only practical way is a glass bead blast (this is what I use).
Next time I will try the Docs potion . At least you can do it at home
Crisonic

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Mk1 Cooper S
Mini K Rally car

Aluminum is a fairly reactive metal and so I think you will struggle to find something that will "pickle" the casing and that is safe as said above^^
The easiest way would be to send it to redistrip or else you will probably have to try elbow grease.
If you have an air powered engine degreasing gun then you could try that or spray on degreaser and use a water blaster to try and strip most of the stuff off.Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Alex

I was quoted 20 to 30 bucks to have the case stripped in a purpose chemical bath, and it's pretty reasonable at that price too. But I like the idea of doing virtually all the work myself on this car, so I'll have a try at home with the dieso solution and post the results.

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SooperDooperMiniCooperExpertEngineering

All garage work involves equal measures of enthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degree of irresponsibility.