Suggestions for Ferrous-Iron Decontamonation Removers

Accumulator said:
SWETM- Yeah, it was oxalic acid that made Ketch leery of the FK product; he believed it to be at a "likely to etch" concentration.

Wonder how the ph-neutral ones turn acidic in the presence of iron?
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The Ironx products accepts an H+, these Iron decontamination products are natively slightly basic, having a pH of 7.5, they are conjugate bases to (relative to original decontamination product) strong acids that result from the H+ donation to the decontamination product, thus creating a solution that is acidic enough to dissolve the iron. Of course I could be extremely wrong, as this gets into some pretty advanced organic chemistry, which I will never explore or take classes for.
 
TheMeanGreen said:
The Ironx products accepts an H+, these Iron decontamination products are natively slightly basic, having a pH of 7.5, they are conjugate bases to (relative to original decontamination product) strong acids that result from the H+ donation to the decontamination product, thus creating a solution that is acidic enough to dissolve the iron. Of course I could be extremely wrong, as this gets into some pretty advanced organic chemistry, which I will never explore or take classes for.
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During this electrochemical reaction the water soluble iron complex gets slightly acidic. And not so acidic so it`s harmfull to the surface materials on a car. Fabric tops is what I know of that you don`t use IronX on. Think it was on Forensic Detailing Chanel on Youtube that he did an in depth video of the bleeding iron removers. The chemical in Carpro IronX is what is used when you perm hair. Ammonium Thioglycolate is the name and can be other name too as ammonium salt. I`m no chemist so just snapp things up that I think is interesting. There are other bleeding chemicals that has the same reaction that IronX has. But as I understand it they are not so effective as the ammonium thioglycolate is. Some can even turn purple/red when you spray it out of the bottle and before it even touches the paint. And also bleeding on the paint without any ferrous iron on it. That`s why I are little sceptical to those with a high bleeding effect almost directly they hit the paint. And gets as a uniform red surface on the paint and not the spots that bleeds. That said it can be a light cover of ferrous iron on the paint that gives you that effect with IronX too. The point is that not every iron remover uses the same chemical to desolve oxidized iron particals. And there are a difference between them in effectiveness. There are also a sweet spot with the right amount of the chemical ATG that also can be a difference with the same chemical in it.

Quated your post TheMeanGreen as to ad to the answer to accumulator.

Accumulator is the first step in the FK ABC the alkaline part of the decon kit? In that case it can also desolve the grease and other contaminants that is on the wheels or paint. But I want to use a petroleum based degreaser or a solvent that effective desolve the tar spots and rubber residue and the oil based grime first after a thorough PW rinse. And also the material that is in the brake pads. I can also after the dwell of the tar remover spray on an alkaline based degreaser right over it. And let that dwell and rinse all of it off. That`s when I not foam with the foamcannon first as I use a TFR prewash foam which is slightly alkaline. This is to uncover the embedded iron particals so it`s not under any tar spots and rubber residue. So the degreasers first then move on to iron removal.
 
I`m surprised no one mentioned McKee`s iron remover. I`ve used Iron-X, Optimum, and a few others. In my experience the McKee`s was a superior product.
 
SWETM- Thanks for expanding on that explanation.

Yeah, the "A" is highly alkaline (forget the actual ph). And yeah, I too always try to get everything that I can off before I deal with any ferrous contamination.

The "A" or Fk1119 always seem to remove tar/etc. for me fine, but I can certainly understand your wanting to use the solvent. Different people dealing with different stuff in different ways :D

Heh heh, my big take-home from these threads is that I`m glad I don`t have to actually *do* any decontamination on a remotely regular basis...who knows, I might *never* do another chemical decontamination again!
 
DaveT435 said:
I`m surprised no one mentioned McKee`s iron remover. I`ve used Iron-X, Optimum, and a few others. In my experience the McKee`s was a superior product.
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Would be intresting to see what chemical they use in their iron remover. And also in their wheel cleaner which seems to be very effective. Do you test to apply it again after the first application to see if you get any more bleeding?

Don`t know what it is that makes we have a lot of embedded iron particals here in Sweden. Think it`s cause of the 4 winter months where it`s a law to use winter tires. And that more than half of the vehicals uses dubbed winter tires. Then most of the cars here is known for the amount of brake dust they produce. Wonders if most of the US brands of vehicals uses low dust brake pads. Will see if I can make my decon wash before the winter sets in and take some pictures of the bleeding action. I do that every spring and fall and it is alot of bleeding on the lower side panels and the back of the car every time. Would not be complaining if I could skip that step cause the smell is nasty LOL.
The tar spots has been less since I started to maintain and have protection on the cars. And the iron partical has also been less. But they still gets there to be needed to take them off regualary.

I`m very impressed how you maintain and how well your protection works accumulator.
 
Pretty good discussion about iron removers over on Detailing World right now. They sell a few different ones over there but interesting none the less.
 
SWETM said:
Would be intresting to see what chemical they use in their iron remover. And also in their wheel cleaner which seems to be very effective.
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I believe the wheel cleaner uses salicylic acid or some salicylate because it`s low odor and more of red/orange rather than purple bleed.
 
SWETM said:
I`m very impressed how you maintain and how well your protection works accumulator.
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Well, the "impressive maintenance" is kinda mandatory since we need them to last...but thanks, I do appreciate that.

And I bet nobody is more impressed, *surprised too*, at how well I`m doing with the approaches I`m using. I used to have *so* many rust-blooms and so much other contamination, but not any more. Lucky me :D
 
After doing a little research on products with thioglycolate and checking a few SDS I found that Gyeon claims to have 50% thioglycolate. Most of the others are in the 20-25% range. Learn something new everyday.
 
The Finish Kare system is known as the 1119/883 system. The 1119 was developed over 30 years ago for Chrysler and Ford`s predelivery large operations(both shut down in the late 90`s. These facilities handled up to 700 vehicles per day at each.The 1119 has a large percentage of keosene in it, IE the odor, it was to remove soot, etc that vehicles had on them from being stored at rail heads,etc. The facilities had three stage clarifiers for the run off, as it is very polluting. The 883 is a blend of acids,mainly sulfuric,which is the one that desolved the ferrous particles, however had to be used in controlled work area`s as sun and heat makes it over reactive,and if not controlled would wrinkle paint, attack and discolor trim. The final of the system was the 1118SC neutral shampoo, which brought the pH of the surfaces back to neutral pH. The Valugard ABC system does not use hydrocarbon solvents in the A. The B is a finely controlled blend of acids and not a aggressive as the 883, and when used per directions does not harm paint or trim. The C is similar to the FK 118SC, named Detail Wash. Needed to bring the chemistry of the paint film back to a neutral pH.
 
JustJesus said:
Thanks Ron Ketcham!
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Yes indeed. Note the diffs between Ketch`s info and my less-than-accurate version posted earlier :o

So it was *sulfuric* acid in the 883 (thanks for the pn#)...guess all I remembered correctly was "don`t use it".

That 1119 sure did do the job on the occasions that I used it though...and even though I was scared off of the 883 I sure wish "B" were more aggressive.
 
I have plenty of ABC left over from a few years ago sitting in my garage. I’m assuming there’s no/ a real long shelf life and I can use it again tomorrow if I needed to with no ill effects.
 
SWETM said:
Would be intresting to see what chemical they use in their iron remover. And also in their wheel cleaner which seems to be very effective. Do you test to apply it again after the first application to see if you get any more bleeding?

Don`t know what it is that makes we have a lot of embedded iron particals here in Sweden. Think it`s cause of the 4 winter months where it`s a law to use winter tires. And that more than half of the vehicals uses dubbed winter tires. Then most of the cars here is known for the amount of brake dust they produce. Wonders if most of the US brands of vehicals uses low dust brake pads. Will see if I can make my decon wash before the winter sets in and take some pictures of the bleeding action. I do that every spring and fall and it is alot of bleeding on the lower side panels and the back of the car every time. Would not be complaining if I could skip that step cause the smell is nasty LOL.
The tar spots has been less since I started to maintain and have protection on the cars. And the iron partical has also been less. But they still gets there to be needed to take them off regualary.

I`m very impressed how you maintain and how well your protection works accumulator.
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I`ve used second applications with the wheel cleaner. Didn`t really pay attention to any more bleeding, I don`t remember getting any though. That was on 6 year old neglected wheels. They were the only ones that required more than one application. I will try a second use the next time I get a car in that has a lot if iron.

I think most of the U.S. manufactured models do have low dusting brake pads compared to the European models. High Performance U.S. Vehicles brake pads dust a lot more. In most states here studded winter tires are prohibited, I`m sure the studs add a considerable amount of iron particles that end up in vehicles.
 
Make it more aggressive and then you have paint and trim damage issues possible.
When we first started working on the formulation for the B, had a couple that were smoking fast, however, the paint`s resin system was damaged, not noticable to the naked eye or right away, but when the panels were put in the xeon gas chamber, became very clear that those "fast" formulations were not the way to go.
 
Ron Ketcham said:
Make it more aggressive and then you have paint and trim damage issues possible... those "fast" formulations were not the way to go.
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Yeah, sigh...no free lunch. With any luck I`ll never need such stuff again and I do sincerely doubt that I`ll ever need anything more aggressive. Can always just get mechanical about it during the dwell time anyhow.
 
Thanks to my fellow Autopians for this discussion and suggestions on iron removers.
Not so sure on the chemistry lessons and information, as my chemical understanding is very elementary.
Like I asked , I just want something that works well on iron removal, as I see this a lot on newer vehicles that I sometimes detail for friends or family, and obviously it is most noticeable on light-colored vehicles.
Someone asked where does it come from? I told them either in shipping by rail car from the wheels and tracks OR from the iron disc brake sloughing/abraiding off onto the paint. When asked why it is so prevalent on rear trunk lids, back ends, and rear hatch doors I would think that air flows over and around vehicles cause this and iron particles ends up there.
I also assume that if someone is an aggressive braking driver OR does a lot of stop-n-go driving that iron particles, and hence rust specks, would be more prevalent on such driven vehicles and require more frequent iron decontamination.
Any thoughts?? I am assuming that iron decontamination is an ongoing vehicle exterior cleaning process; IE, it is not a once-and-done thing.
 
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