Need advice removing specs of rust and preventing further decay

rorytymon123

I got my girlfriend a second hand leisure bike at the weekend and it has some small amounts of surface rust on the bare metal parts, mainly the handle bars, seat stem and brakes.

I want to get it all shining for her however I'm not too sure about the best way around it. I was thinking maybe using a wire wool to get the rust off (though I'm worried about scratching), and I do not know how to protect the metal from future rusting.

Here are some images to help

DeVlaeminck

I think wd40 and a cloth might work if it's just surface and the wd40 might help protect it . Remember braking surfaces don't work so well if you get any kind of lubricant on them though. You can use a metal polish of course but possibly overkill on an old bike.

Wire wool will probably scratch the I wouldn't worry too much a bike is a tool for the job - keep it clean, don't put it away wet and leave it and it should be fine.

You might want to add a bit of grease to the seat tube where it's inside the frame to stop it seizing in future.

singleton

Soaking them in full fat coke might do it. I do that with bolts that have a bit of rust - such as handlebar clamp bolts - and it works a treat.

Edit - if you can get the parts off the bike of course, it might get costly if you have to fill an entire bath with coke and submerge the whole bike.

imposter2.0

Rust spots mean that the surface finish has been compromised. You can clean up the parts, as above, but it won't prevent the rust from reappearing sooner or later.

masjer

Scrunched up aluminium foil (kitchen foil) soaked with vinegar or Coke is a gentle way to remove rust spots from chrome. Car wax helps to stop is returning.

pilot_pete

Solvol Autosol metal polish will bring it up a treat, but if the chrome is compromised and the rust is actually bleeding through surface defects in the chrome, the only way to permanently fix that is to have the parts shot blasted back to bare metal and re-chromed. It’s not overly expensive, but I would look at sourcing new replacements as that may be just as competitive price wise.

Solvol brings up aluminium to a shine as well.... https://www.wilko.com/autosol-75g-metal-polish-tube/p/0343727?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyKvMv76e8AIVUwCiAx0dVwZjEAQYAyABEgJZmvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

secretsam

Chrome polish is what I used as a kid. Mind you, that was a LONG time ago

pilot_pete

secretsam said:

Chrome polish is what I used as a kid. Mind you, that was a LONG time ago

My dad used to go mad because I had used all his precious Solvol on my pushbike - everything was chrome then from rims, hubs, stem and bars to cranks and pedals!

MattFalle

Solvol or tin foil but yup, once its rusty its rusty.....

manglier

Upgrade time, although good luck finding any parts at the moment.

MattFalle

manglier said:

Upgrade time, although good luck finding any parts at the moment.

why? its a shonker.

second hand non rusty parts, job jobbed.

pinno

secretsam said:

Chrome polish is what I used as a kid. Mind you, that was a LONG time ago

Was that before the war Dad?

DeVlaeminck

MattFalle said:

Solvol or tin foil but yup, once its rusty its rusty.....

If he loves her he'll strip the bike and have the parts rechromed.

First.Aspect

When I wur lad, t'bumpers of t'Hillman Avenger luked like that.

Metal polish of pretty much any kind will get rid of it temporarily. You might stave it off for longer with some car wax polish as well, which should leave a barrier. That's what my Dad told me to do anyhow, although it might have been another one of his Sisyphean tasks to teach me life skills.

But look, it has taken 20+ years to get like that so if you look after it now it shouldn't get massively worse any time soon. Pragmatically, the investment in polish and turtle wax is about as far as you should go, unless you stumble on some extremely cheap (i.e. free) bits to replace them.

pinno

First.Aspect said:

When I wur lad, t'bumpers of t'Hillman Avenger luked like that.

Liar. You were never a lad in Yorkshire.

First.Aspect

pinno said:

First.Aspect said:

When I wur lad, t'bumpers of t'Hillman Avenger luked like that.

Liar. You were never a lad in Yorkshire.

Rumbled. Was supposed to be Lancashire, with the very long "ooooo" sound in looked. Either way I wasn't. Both parents were and they ensured that I had just enough of an accent to be worthy of a good kicking, though.

First.Aspect

And we did have an Avenger. Classic example of an oil crisis car. Can't remember if it was 1100 or 1300 but my god it was slow. I think it is still accelerating to 60 even now.

masjer

You had an Avenger, you were lucky. We could only dream of owning a rusty Avenger.
And you try telling the young people of today that -they won't believe you.

pinno

First.Aspect said:

pinno said:

First.Aspect said:

When I wur lad, t'bumpers of t'Hillman Avenger luked like that.

Liar. You were never a lad in Yorkshire.

Rumbled. Was supposed to be Lancashire, with the very long "ooooo" sound in looked. Either way I wasn't. Both parents were and they ensured that I had just enough of an accent to be worthy of a good kicking, though.

Imagine having a Kenyan accent at school in Scotland?

You had a kicking but I would have dreamed of just a kicking...

...and we had a Cortina estate.

pblakeney

pinno said:

...and we had a Cortina estate.

This was our Cortina. No idea who it was with the Morris.

First.Aspect

pinno said:

First.Aspect said:

pinno said:

First.Aspect said:

When I wur lad, t'bumpers of t'Hillman Avenger luked like that.

Liar. You were never a lad in Yorkshire.

Rumbled. Was supposed to be Lancashire, with the very long "ooooo" sound in looked. Either way I wasn't. Both parents were and they ensured that I had just enough of an accent to be worthy of a good kicking, though.

Imagine having a Kenyan accent at school in Scotland?

You had a kicking but I would have dreamed of just a kicking...

...and we had a Cortina estate.

Yeah, not good. Cortina, I mean.

Still, if you were lucky enough to have crushed velour seats rather than vinyl like the Avenger, at least you would not need to be taken to a burns unit if you got in wearing shorts in the summer.

pinno

That ^. We had a Marina. God it was awful. Before that a Zephyr Zodiac. Before that, a Citroen ID19.
I was small enough to sit on the centre console in the Zephyr.

First.Aspect

pinno said:

That ^. We had a Marina. God it was awful. Before that a Zephyr Zodiac. Before that, a Citroen ID19.
I was small enough to sit on the centre console in the Zephyr.

My bother still has a Zodiac. Can't be a Zephyr Zodiac, it has to be one or the other. The Zodiac had more headlights and a clock inside. Posh, you see.

God he's dull.

My Uncle had a series of Marinas. I can't understand why anyone would have bought the second one. Anyhow, they were remarkable cars, in that they were simultaneously both green and brown.

pilot_pete

My sister’s first car was an orange Marina, which she ‘upgraded’ to a shit brown Maestro....

First.Aspect

pilot_pete said:

My sister’s first car was an orange Marina, which she ‘upgraded’ to a censored brown Maestro....

They were actually quite good cars. Mainly because someone from Japan designed it. They'd have been even better if someone from Japan had built it.

Had a digital speedo and you can get a bike in the back with the seats down. What more do you want?

pinno

First.Aspect said:

They were actually quite good cars.

Might have been but they were fuggin ugly.
In the same league as the Land crab, the Austin Allagro and the Metro.

pilot_pete

pinno said:

First.Aspect said:

They were actually quite good cars.

Might have been but they were fuggin ugly.
In the same league as the Land crab, the Austin Allagro and the Metro.

This!