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Rust removal with white vinegar
Oct 19th 2025 (Kriss-André Jacobsen)
Yes, rust can be removed. And one way to do it is using white
vinegar and salt. It's quite simple. Just dillute some cleaning
grade white vinegar with some water, add a whole bunch of table
salt, and soak whatever you want to remove rust from into the
vinegar and salt solution. In this case, I'm removing the rust
from the old top spring seats of my Mazda 323. These might look
bad now, but when I'm done, they'll look brand new again!
Step 1: Cleaning
First, you'll need to remove the loose rust, grime and dirt
from the part. A wire brush or wire wheel on a drill is good
for this purpose.
Step 2: Mix the vinegar solution
Dillute some vinegar consentrate with water. The solution
should be about 8 % vinegar. Then add a lot of salt. In my case
I used probably around 0,5 to 1 dl of salt. The salt is not strictly
necessary, but will speed up the process. And it's already a
slow process even with salt.
Step 3: Put the rusted part in the solution
Gently submerge the part completely into the solution. This
will be it's home for the next couple of days. You'll quickly
see a reaction; bubbles will start to form and it will slowly
dissolve the rust. Every now and then, you'll want to rotate
the part and stir up the solution a bit.
   
After a while, the rust will dissolve. It might be a good
idea to take the part out once a day and rinse it off with water,
to see how the process is coming along. Here are a few pictures
of how it looked after a couple of days. Most of the rust is
already gone.
 
Step 4: Paint it with rust converter
When all the rust is dissolved, it should be taken out of
the vinegar bath and rinsed thourougly with clean water. And
as soon as possible after the rinse, you should treat it to prevent
new rust to form. If it's an unpainted part, you can soak it
in some lightweight oil for a while to prevent flash rusting.
If it's a part you're going to paint, I recommend using rust
converter. It will penetrate into all the pores, and prevent
new rust from forming. It wil also make it ready for painting.
 
Step 5: Whatever you want
The last part is up to you. I ended up painting it with a
black metal paint.
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