Took my fuel sender out of my '81 GTSi to take look at it and replace the rubber o-ring. It had some, but not much rust on it and much of the 'Peacock (OEM Zinc?) Plating' wasn't 'ALL THERE' any more. Sooooo .... I dropped it in a vat of Evapo-Rust for a couple of days. It came out looking like it went in, sans the rust, 99% all GONE, just as advertised. But .... When I wiped the areas that still retained the 'Peacocking,' it turned into a dark gray stiff sludge. Took some effort to get that OFF. Here is what it looks like now. Image Unavailable, Please Login Bare metal. Any suggestions on what to do with/to it to prevent it from rusting again in the future, something beyond 'keeping the gas tanks full?' Thanx.
If there's residual zinc coating and you want to removes, muriatic acid will strip it off to bare metal in a hurry I would think that having it zinc plated again would be the way to go. There're plenty of Youtube vids regarding DIY zinc plating. I've done it in my garage. It's pretty simple. That said, once down to bare steel a phosphate conversion coating would provide some corrosion resistance. You might also look into Cerakote. They have both heat cure and air cure versions of their product and sell color samples that would be more than enough to coat the fuel sender. You would need to sand/bead blast the sections to be coated. Even one of those cheap handheld blast guns that you can use outside (over here, they sell them in Harbor Freight) would work fine. The area to be coated just needs some tooth for the Cerakote to adhere properly. Cerakote is fairly easy to apply with a gun though requires a 0.8mm tip as it's very thin (larger tips result in runs). Once applied correctly, it has an absolutely tenacious bond to the surface applied and is impervious to gasoline and alcohol - though Cerakote only publishes results of 24 hour testing. If you consider going the Cerakote route, I'd be more than happy to coat a small piece of steel and immerse it in gasoline (10% methanol) for 1-2 weeks as a test. Or you can call Cerakote and ask if they've run longer tests.
Really? A 'Peacock' finish, OEM like? Not a 'silver' finish? All I care about looking OEM is the 'saucer,' where it plugs into the wiring harness. If there is something better for the rest of it, I'm All Ears (and Eyes).
