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Salt Away

Take something with corrosion build up and toss it in a jar. Fill the jar up with enough saltaway to cover the object. A week later it will look the same. Not saying it might not help a little, but I am not a believer. Tried the same thing with straight vinegar with the same result. If anything spray the exterior of your motor with it in spots that might get some splashed salt water.
 
I have used it about a year and noticed the following specific to my Honda:
-the product does not work to its maximum with a cooler engine (i.e. flush through port, or through muffs after trailering home)
-I did a vinegar flush last year through the tstats and recirculated with the LU off. For some reason, the "film" saltaway leaves is more noticeable since the vinegar flush. I confirmed this by looking through the tstat, poppet valve, and when I replaced my internal zincs.

I know that saltaway mixes on it's own with the attachment, but I prefer to do the motor flush with the stronger concentration. I then rinse down the boat, trailer and fishing reels, and if any slight tint is visible, I drop the topwater or jigging lures for the day in there.

Just my experiences. I do think your own water supply plays a role as well. If you consistently get a ring in your toilet or need to descale your Keurig often, you'd be surprised what your motor may look like without other products used.
 
I took a couple of anodes that had salt caked on them for my little experiment. Try it yourself. Even soaked a water jacket cover that had salt build up. Neither saltway or vinegar did much if anything at all.
 
Salt away is not strong enough on it's own to just remove or strip salt (I know, the name is deceiving). Salt water accelerates corrosion compared to fresh water, and allows for more dissociated ions to do their thing if sitting in solution (one reason we have zincs). Salt water also tends to be slightly basic with a pH around 8. Tap water is also slightly basic. Therefore, we need something to neutralize the system, and saltaway does that with a pH between 2 and 3 I believe. Could you flush with vinegar all the time? Yes, but eventually sitting vinegar will form an acetate and damage aluminum---the scary part is the vinegar will do this below the salt if left to sit.

Full disclosure, I have no ties to the product!!!
 
Water dissolves lots of salt.-------So a fresh water flush will remove salt.------This product is on the shelf because people buy it.
 
Very interesting formula. It would be helpful if we could read articles or threads of the formula being used as a flush agent for marine outboards, and the results acquired from it's use.
thanks for the link
 
Not sure you should try nitric acid as a flush agent. As the post recognized, nitric acid will severely etch steel. However, it is my understanding that nitric acid is easily diluted with water, and that may be a pathway to it's use for descaling the internal parts of an outboard. There just doesn't seem to be much information out there on the WWW for that purpose.
 
Dilute 3:1 and run motor in a drum for a good length of time when water in drum starts getting warm after a while switch off wait for it to cool down and start again.
 
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Tegweni said:
Dilute 3:1 and run motor in a drum for a good length of time when water in drum starts getting warm after a while switch off wait for it to cool down and start again.
Click to expand...

I have Files and done experiments with my Durbans Desalting Formula for years before i used it on my motors ,then some years ago i posted my formula on i boats .com and gave it to the public for free. trust me it works and nothing beats it you will see it under my username Durban on i boats .com:)
 
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Salt in a motor can be washed out with fresh water.----The white material often seen in motors is NOT salt.-----It is aluminum oxide.-----Not sure if any common solvent will take that away.
 
Nitic Acid is used to deoxidise aluminum Boeing aircraft builders use it too before they do the spray painting it is an excellent salt build up remover too.
 
I may be a bit off base here, but my understanding is that nitric acid does not react to aluminum, BUT it does react with aluminum oxide (i.e. the white stuff.) The result is aluminum nitrate in water.

Is there a chemist in the house?
 
It depends on the concentration. At high concentrations of nitric acid the aluminum surface is instantly converted to aluminum oxide which does no longer reacts with nitric acid. Aluminum parts are often treated with conc nitric acid to passivate the surface making it more resistant to corrosion.

At less than about 10% nitric acid, water soluble aluminum nitrate is produced and the aluminum surface is corroded instead of being protected.

Don't use nitric acid to descale engines. Most industrial descalers use sulfamic acid, which does the job but is much milder. Descalers remove calcium carbonate, which forms on metal surfaces as sea water dries down. The sodium chloride can be easily removed with fresh water, but calcium carbonate forms an acid solution is required to solubilize it.

Salt Away contains a mild acid, a detergent to help wet the surface, and an anti-corrosion compound that protects surfaces during storage. Vinegar with a drop of Dawn will do about the same thing but won't provide protection.
 
In one of my experiments i left parts in a diluted mix with water that were full of salt build up you needed a chisel or with force a scraper to get it off a helluva job i left these parts in the drum for over one year i need to find out if it will eat into the aluminum and especially needed to also know how it would affect the gasket faces because if it showed the slightest signs of any damage to the gasket faces on the parts i would not be here posting this.or even bothered to go through all this trouble over the years reading about peoples comments when my proof is and was in the pudding and iam am happy with my results .
 
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My recommendation to not use nitric acid to descale an engine is based on safety. Concentrated nitric acid is very dangerous unless you have the proper protection and know what you're doing. While it won't hurt aluminum, it could very easily badly injure someone. Milder treatments are just as effective and can be used without disassembling the engine.
 
On the safety side of it I very much agree with you its for this very reason i mentioned in capital letters in the forum i initially posted on iboats.com to any one using it to get the safety data sheet and read it and wear the appropriate safety gear this was the 1st thing pointed out to me by the supplier i have been using it for years and it does a fantastic job I however do not see any problems using it diluted i have done it many times over and it still does a good job, i was not happy using salt away it did not do the job and wasted my money to be honest . i Have heaps more photos to upload and show you what Durbans Formula can do for some reason the site will not let me upload photos .Another thing that got me was the price of salt away very very expensive for +/- 25 dlrs i buy 1ltr 70% in strength nitric acid and dilute it to make Durbans Formula i can make hundreds of ltrs of Durbans Formula for 25dlrs because water is free.do your maths
 
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Do you dilute the nitric acid to less than 10%? If so, that could cause a problem.

The point is that any acid will dissolve calcium/magnesium carbonate scale deposits from an aluminum surface. Strong acids like nitric or sulfuric acids will do it a lot faster than weaker acids. But strong acids are hazardous to use and some can damage aluminum surfaces. Higher concentrations of nitric acid will re-passivate the surface unlike some of the other strong acids.

There seems to be some confusion here about what flushes like SaltAway are supposed to do. They flush salts and dirt from the cooling system and leave a protective coating. They don't remove hard dried down scale once in forms. That's why engines should be flushed as soon as possible after leaving saltwater. As scale builds up over time, it excludes oxygen from the aluminum surfaces. In the absence of oxygen, the chloride ion from saltwater will remove the protective aluminum oxide layer from the aluminum surface and promote corrosion. The process is similar to crevice corrosion and results in pitting. Once corrosion occurs, it cannot be "removed". You can dissolve away the aluminum hydroxide powder, but the pits remain. The best that you can do then is to re-passivate the surface.
 
Those that have seen corrosion on motors will know what sea water does to motors ive seen motors from 10 to 15 years old with holes in the block caused by corrosion and when you strip it down you cannot see the holes on some places because the salt covers it Durbans Formula exposes the block to clean aluminum and re passivates it using de-ionized water then i apply my heat resistant marpei formula and cote the whole area this is my only protection against sea cancer. to bring the formula back to square one you just use bi-carb.
 
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My question is why is there not a World Wide franchise in a controlled environment specializing in the marine industry with people trained to desalt and flush motors and anything marine related were sea cancer has set in and slowly eating away your investment. For the simple reason Durbans Formula works my proof is in the pudding .
 
If you use vinegar, wash it off. Vinegar is corrosive to metal. A long time ago before the internet I sprayed my engine with vinegar in a spray bottle after my I/O engine took a wave of salt water with the cover open.

Bad idea. It corroded the bolts and the cheaper Metal parts. Not Really bad, but noticeable.

salt away seems to help get at any salt build up. But as others have said. It won’t remove the oxidized corrosion.

for exterior boat parts, a good soapy bath and a brush seems just as good, If not better.
 
Does anyone know why when I used salt away with rabbit ears on my 4.3 l mpi it immediately caused the engine to misfire and die . Only after running fresh water and time did the engine return to normal. This happened 2x some k am sure the salt away was the cause . Any ideas why?
 
Impossible for salt away to do that. Must be insufficient water supply causing engine overheat and gaurdian. Check your attachments make sure your engine is getting water. BTW this is not a sterndrive site, assuming you're talking either Mercruiser or Volvo ?
 
The only way this would cause running issues is if saltaway got sucked into an air intake and entered the fuel system-carb or FI. Or you got something wet in the ignition system- like say a wet spark plug that allowed an electrical spark.
 
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