syoo8

I noticed some corrosion in my fuel rails.

I swished muriatic acid in there, which got it out (I think.)

Then, I swished with Brake-cleaner, blew compressed air, then swished with Carb cleaner, blew compressed air. There were little black flecks that came out when the carb cleaner pours out into a catch jar.

Finally, I swished with ethanol (denatured alcohol) MANY times. Probably 10 times. The black flecks are almost gone, very tiny.

a) Do I keep repeating carb cleaner until clear?
b) Do I buy new fuel rails?
c) Does it not matter?

Ducman82

makes me wonder how the rest of the system looks?

17prospective buyer

Muriatic acid isn't the best choice for corrosion removal sorry to say. In fact it accelerates corrosion of ferrous metals. Phosphoric acid would be better. Personally for a permanent solution i'd take them off, media blast, or have them media blasted, and get them replated in the original yellow zinc. The platers will take care of any remaining corrosion.

syoo8

Matt, thanks for your suggestions.

But... Is it even possible to media blast the inside of a fuel rail?

We're the rails plated on the inside when they came out of the factory?

BC

Check the filter cups in the fuel injectors that were installed.

17prospective buyer

Not possible to get everything on the inside of the rails. But hand them to a plater and their various dips and cleaners will get rid of the rust so that a coating of zinc will adhere them, then a chromate conversion coating over that. It's electrolysis, so it will adhere to any electrically conductive area.

Dave928S

Rust particles in the rails may be just where it ended up, and not necessarily where it formed.

You need to run through your complete fuel system and clean/flush everything or you might just chase your tail in getting the rails right, and see them choke up with rust again.

Drain and clean your tank and look for water, pull the filter off and cut it open, flush each line after that and see what comes out until you've done the lot. Methodical is the way to go.

17prospective buyer

As far as flushing the fuel lines through, could you just attach a temporary pump intake line and run it to a pail full of a fuel system safe solvent to pump it up to the front and collect it there? I'm going to have to flush all my input and return lines out so i am interested in this too. Would varsol be a suitable solvent for flushing?

syoo8

Hi everyone,

Thanks Matt and Dave for your thoughtful replies. I believe the corrosion was due to some pickling solution that leaked into the fuel rails when I tried to electroplate it myself. My rectifier was not powerful enough and it didn't plate, and on top of that, the rubber vacuum caps that I plugged the ends with leaked. A rookie mistake.

It seems that the best way for me to fix this is to take my fuel rails to a plating shop and have them do what they do.

I am changing all of the rubber fuel lines to Greg Brown's, and changed the fuel dampers and regulator. The injectors did not seem to have any residue on them, and after I sent them to WitchHunter they "before" and "after" results didn't seem to be too different. I think the system is ok, I think I just simply screwed up.

17prospective buyer

IMO plating takes too much of an investment in equipment and knowledge to justify doing it yourself, it'll be cheaper in the end to pay a specialist to do it right. The plater i use doesn't cost much, i bring my parts in bead blasted which they like. Unless you do enough of the work to justify the investment costs to get into it. I invested in a fair bit to do all my own sandblasting, but i've paid it off probably twice over with all the stuff i've blasted and how much it would have cost me to farm it out. Not to mention the inconvenience of having to hand the parts over to someone else and hope they do it like you want them to.

BC

Its good to check. Ethanol (all fuel has at least 10% - much much better than MTBE seeping into ground water - don't you think?) is a great scour pad.

GregBBRD

Buy a used set of rails from 928 International. Have them plated.

syoo8

For me, the investment was about $400 to buy a Caswell Copy-Cad kit. I screwed around with it, plating dummy items like pennies and scraps of metal, until I felt comfortable with 'real' parts. I get good-quality results on a consistent basis now.



I don't have a metal plater nearby (I'll have to drive 120 miles to St. Louis to get my rails plated.) But the real beauty in having a home plating kit is that I can plate things one at a time.

For someone like Greg Brown, who reportedly can throw a bunch of nuts, bolts, washers and clamps into a bucket and know exactly where they go, sending them to a commercial plating service makes the most sense. For me, a newbie, I plated things almost one at a time, so that I knew exactly what I was taking apart, and exactly where everything needs to go when it is put back.

karl ruiter

This.

Giovanni

You can dip them overnight in evaporust (can be purchased at harborfreight) but have them plated will be good for another few decades.