BTW, I did this as a project back in middle school, using aluminium, steel, and brass rods... whatever your container is going to be, it needs to either COATED metal, or glass. I think I'm going to try and find a 100gal aquarium or the like for my new 'toy', that way I can 'de-rust' parts of decent size.

 

it doesn't need to be glass
any thing non conductive and non corraodable will work
i used a Rubbermaid tub

 

i dunked my old water pump today just to see what its really capable of, you can kinda see the extent of the rust in this picture

and i got rid of the basket and am now using a steel hook about 1 foot long and 3/4 inch thick

if this goes better than the manifold ill do ti for all my pulleys, brackets, my exhaust manifold again, but this time around i will take pictures

 

I use a fiberglass tub, but any plastic is fine.
Don't use a basket. The anode should have 'line of sight' to the rusty piece. Just use copper wire to the anode and the rusted piece.
I used Arm and Hammer Super washing soda.

BTW, the process is not 'electrolysis', it is electrolytic, more like reverse plating.

 

actually it is electrolysis,
electrolytic is the process of electrolysis,or pertaining to or derived from electrolysis

and lysis is latin for separation
electro separation, it separates the Fe2O3 from Fe

 

water pump looks great,
my bottom pulley is in now
then ill do the manifold again, but ill put em straight into gasoline or something so they dont instantly rust.

 

That is very cool! I'll definately try it out on my small parts. Thanks for the information.

 

oh ya, i figured this out today, fill the water close to the top of the container, so there is no hydrogen pocket that can ignite form a battery charger spark, and ye si know hydrogen is lighter than air and it wont stay in the tub, but better safe than sorry

 

Would this be safe for a set of cylinder heads or would it ruin the mating surface?

 

tell ya what, i got a jeep cylinder head that got rusted in my piece of crap parts washer,
i left the lid of it open so condensation wouldn't land on the head, but it closed got hot and water got all over it and sat, so ill try to dunk that and see what happens

my guess is that it will not ruin the mating surface because it doesnt take away form the base material only separates the rust from the iron.