Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi Everyone , I am in the process of stripping my 2 door Saloon for Restoration and was wondering what do you do with all the small items and screws and nuts and bolts that you have removed that are a bit rusty but perfectly serviceable but could do with a clean up ?
Appreciate things like Wing Bolts, headlight fixings would be best to replace with new , but what about the other one's to replace all with new would be expensive ?
Do you shot blast ? Pickle them and re Zinc ? Wire wheel on Bench Grinder ?

Or is it a case of the time to do each of these with the above methods you may as well buy new ?

Does anyone do a correct "kit' for the purpose rather than singular purchases from the likes of ESM which then add up to a be a bit ?

If they can be grit blasted then that is what I do. After grit blasting they are either sprayed with a preserving lubricant or painted with aerosol red oxide base coat.
There are stainless bolt/fastening kits available but I would not mix ferrous and stainless together.

Don't forget the zip lock bags to put them in and sharpie to label bag. Nothing worse than a big box of fixing trying to find the right one

I have been chained to the wire wheel attachment on the drill which is clamped in a vice. I have just done a load of the copper / brass push fittings for the bulkhead insulation. All painted, they have come up beautifully. They will never be seen, but I will know they are right!

I used a cordless drill with wire brush attachment to shine up the gearbox cowl brass bolt heads (held each one pinched between my fingers - I was sitting on the floor of the Minor at the time - wasn't going to do them in-place, might have scratched the floor ).

I tend to use eco-friendly rust removal liquids (the kind you leave your items to soak in for hours to weeks). I had been using Jenolites' version but it was very hit and miss, one bottle would work wonderfully, the next would do nothing. I haven't tried it, but we now have some Bilt Hamber gel:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bilt-Hamber-De ... B0CJ55T7BH

to try out, and it's also available in liquid form in the same way as the Jenolite for items that don't require it to stick to the surface.

I usually have a bucket of citric acid solution on the go, just chuck all your steel bowls in then rinse and wire brush after a couple of days. And yes bag them up and label once cleaned.

Thank you all for your replies , I see most of you seem to have gone down the route of the wire wheel ...which is what I was hoping not to have to do
I was looking into the pickling process and will probably go down 'Panky's route , of citric acid, then wash off but I will then put them in a pot of the lanolin chassis stuff to inhibit the rust returning

Out of interest, what is the citric acid method? How do you make the citric acid?

You can buy the citric acid powder from 'e' bay.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154342592606 ... R4rQ3P_VZg
You just mix it with water (I used six desert spoons per litre of water) and submerge the parts in the mixture.
Some time ago I used the citric acid method to clean the corrosion from the inside of a block and it worked very well in that the inside of the block came up corrosion free after soaking for about 4 weeks. I did post about the process and it may be found using the search facility.

Works better if the water is warm initially. Watch if fizz

panky wrote: ↑Sun Nov 23, 2025 9:48 am Works better if the water is warm initially. Watch if fizz

Yes works much faster if the water is warm. Also much better if the parts are free of grease as grease or oil prevents the acid from making contact with the metal.

I must admit I do tend to replace nuts and bolts if they are rather rusty as much to avoid having to fight with them next time as anything else. I never throw anything away though so I have a lot of rusty nuts and bolts in "the collection" .

Some fittings are very difficult to find in the right sizes, especially screws so I reuse those unless they show and look awful. This is because not all sizes of Imperial screws are available these days. If they show, I'll use stainless screws (e.g little screws on the heater facia etc).

Citric acid can be bought in bulk as the crystals. It is very useful for descaling washing machines, kettles, shower heads etc as well as for de-rusting ferrous metals. Once the solution is made up it does go off in a few weeks even if kept in an airtight bottle. This is due to microbial action.

Stephen

The other alternative is molasses or treacle mixed with warm water. It works well but goes off and stinks a bit after a while.