Do They Still "Acid Dip" Bodies?...

...to remove weight? I know as late as the early '70's, alot of the Pro Stock teams were still doing it, but didn't hear much about it after that.

 

I had my body acid dipped two years ago. There's a place in downtown Indy that's been doing it for a few decades. I don't think it removed a whole lot of weight, but man was it clean.

 

Not talking about places like, "Redi-Strip", and shops that use chemicals to remove paint and rust, but actual acid that eats away metal to make body's and body parts lighter...I remember the Chrysler guy's used to do their K-members too..

 

I have been trying to source the same type of service and have had no luck.

 

Im thinking that there was a place in Worcester Mass. but im not sure if it is just a redi strip place or if its still in operation . Maybe some of the Mass. Hambs will know . My friend and I had a 68 camaro from down your way that was acid dipped . Frame , doors , and othe things were thin . They acid dipped so they can be at curb weight but put the weight where they want to . Does the name Augie Vetterino sound like to you . NJ boy had a Alcohol draster after the Camaro . I also heard out mid-west they acid dipped but that was in early 90's . good luck

 

did anybody ever really dip whole bodies, or just fenders, doors etc.? the small stuff you could do yourself in a kiddie pool.

 

note to self, don't go swinning in rays pool......

my questions would be;
what kind of acid?
how long to leave parts in acid?
how to dispose of the acid?


but i guess that doesn't help the original question...
i'm no help...

 

There were a few local stock car guys that were rumored to have "acid dipped" bodies to remove weight. Realistically, I doubted it since the tank required to immerse large sections would be huge.

For the drag race crowd, fenders, doors, hoods etc were supposedly dipped at places like bumper re-chromers.

Bob

 

Theres a place near me in Union Grove, WI, called Strip Rite. They acid dip whole cars, they have tanks that look like 30 yard dumpsters. Cheap too, had my front sheetmetal off my truck dipped, about $65 per fender, came out beautiful.

 

how to dispose of the acid?

Don't tell ANYONE what you're doing - huge haz-mat fine.

 

I used to work for Redi-strip in the mid 1980's, we had a tank with muratic acid, and muratic acid is some bad stuff, the bad thing about acid dipping is that it causes "hydrogen imbrittlement", on alot of old cars you usually have to repair cracks on fenders, and such, the acid dipping makes sheetmetal, and other metals brittle thus they are even more prone to cracking, the rust inhibitor is phosphoric acid that is mixed with the water during the final washing process, to remove it all you have to do is wipe it down with a wet rag, then wipe it down with wax and grease remover, then wipe it with laquor thinner if desired, and your good to go. The hole in the roof is not only allows the air bubbles to excape when you submerged the body in the tank it also lets the air back in and prevents the roof from being sucked down (tin canned) when the body is pulled out of the tank.

 

I cant see acid dipping to remove actual metal as a viable alternative... I mean, at what point do you threaten to eat thru the factory spot welds? Maybe it is possible they dipped the bodies to remove a few pounds of steel, but IMHO, I believe the biggest gains in diping would be the removal of 100 lbs of body seam sealer, undercoating, primer, etc.

I could be wrong, but that's the way I see it.

 

"Chemically Milled" was the term for removing metal, not just rust. I had it done to some front end sheet metal stuff during the '70s, place might have been in Ohio, not sure. This was not an exact process, sheet metal came back rough as hell, took an enourmous amount of work and bondo to get back to a smooth surface. Unless you're trying to sneak around some class rules (we were) I wouldn't recommend it.

 

Roundy-round, and drag racers that run in classes that were not allowed to port their cylinder heads use acid the chemically "port" the heads, it still leaves the as cast look.

 

I believe that a lye solution is used in typical machine shop "Hot tanks"? I've used lye to dip smaller parts,it removes grease,paint,putty and light rust.Lye won't affect steel but will disolve aluminum in time.

 

I haven't heard of acid dipping a race car body to reduce weight in a while. But it wouldn't suprise me if someone somewhere was still doing it in some form of racing. Everyone is always looking for an edge. (G)
I don't follow Pro Stock much anymore, but I think they use bodies that are composite. Since they don't have to use a factory "body in white" to start building the cars anymore, there isn't really a need to acid dip them. Same with funnycars and most of the classes that started with metal bodies in the 60's.
Larry T

 

Chem milling still in use today, very much so on aircraft structure and skins!

 

The chemical stripping place I worked with in Florida a few years ago used a solution of sodium hydroxide to strip the cars. It ate paint and aluminum. Left rubber and plastic alone. After the metal was gunk-free, they put it in another tank and ran a low-voltage electric current through it to chemically break the bond between the rust and the steel. Like chroming, only in reverse. Guys have started doing this on small parts in plastic buckets in their garage with a baking soda solution, a battery charger and a sacrificial anode (a chunk of metal that the rust from your parts migrates to).
The really cool think about the sodium hydroxide method was that it would leave the finest details on your parts, like the part number stamped into a fan blade or the back of a brake backing plate. It also didn't affect ink. I saw a late '40s F1 cab that was perfect bare metal, but had some ink'd FoMoCo batch marks stenciled on the back of the cab, where the bed would cover. They just painted right over it, since it was only ink.
The Sodium Hydroxide is non-caustic, so it won't thin the metal or eat through it. With rusted areas, after the electrolysis, the metal will be as thin as the lace on Granny's wedding dress.
I've heard from some guys they don't like it because it never gets out of the seams, etc. and will cause trouble in the future.

As for acid dipping, they DID do the whole car back in the '60s and '70s. My former boss had a Duster that they put into the vat nose-first, and left the quarters out; lightened the car in the nose, kept weight on the rear tires. I've seen two E-bodies that were completely dipped; one was a former Rod Shop Dodge Challenger, the other was a Hemi 'Cuda that was raced in the stock class. Looked like a stocker, but the whole dash was fiberglass (complete with vinyl texture), and the quarter panel oil canned like a new car when you'd push one finger on it.

Don't know where you'd have real acid dipping done today, but I know some racers in the Factory Apperaing/Stock Tire class that home-dip parts with parts-store battery acid. Took half the weight out of bumper brackets, battery trays, etc.

-Brad

 

True or not??

cc


"Fox Sports reporter Lee Spencer is reporting that the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota, which was selected for random testing after Martinsville, was found to have not met the minimum thickness requirements for the body panels. Spencer anticipates that NASCAR will be levying “record-breaking” fines."

http://stockcarscience.com/blog/index.php/2008/10/22/p104

 

I would try this acid.........
Lysergic acid diethylamide

Just dont tell everyone, wanna lick?
Doc.

 

Only if you brought enough for EVERYONE.

 

We used to do a lot of chem milling here at work, which uses a "photo resist" masking so you can CM what you want to and leave the rest untouched. Pretty neat process actually, mostly done on aluminum panels for grip patterns or bulk surface area reduction.

Bob

 

Yes it's true, they used a thinner guage sheet metal on the sides of the car than the rules allowed, nascar allready has levyed fines (both in $$$, points, and suspensions)

 

Got a guy here Santa Rosa california I swear he said it does remove rust but also good metal if you leave it in the tank to long? Like parts will disapear into nothing over time? Not sure? His shop is Called Nor-cal metal stripping I have used him the past-good dude. You could call him and ask him about it as you are so far away it probably work out for him to do it but he might help with someone closer to you. Later Dave

 

Within the last few weeks,there was one of those "how they make it" shows on TV ....showed how they fab/assemble the new Lear 45 bizjet...after they use a giant slip roll to form half the main fuselage ,they then cut all the windows & openings,then they mask off certain areas and the lower it into a "chemical milling" solution.....after that process they have eliminated up to 150 lbs from the aluminum skin

 

If memory serves me correct, NASCAR put a ban on acid dipping cars back when they sorta looked like real cars. You were allowed to remove rust for painting though. One of the Good Ol Boys, can't remember which one, stripped his car to bare metal, sprayed it with salt water, and let it sit outside in the off season. He then ground off all the rust and lightened it a bunch legally.

 

Two articles of note I remember reading, one was by Dick Landy, who did all the acid dipping on the oridginal factory AWB Dodges and Plymouths. he said after they did the first body during normal business hours that they decided to do all the rest after dark, because it made such an awfull green cloud over the plant.
Then when Schely Brothers built their chopped beetle, their tank was too samll for the whole body so they dipped first the front half, then the other. Trouble was they overlapped just a tad in the middle, so while timijng the second section, the body ate itself in half and sank to the botom, lost forever. Cool Stuff!
As mentioned previously, acid milling is very common in aerospace, Rockwell, Boeing, and now Spirit Aerospace in Tulsa has a huge facility for chem milling, as its properly called.

 

yes, it takes some trial and error and constant monitoring to get it right.

i've done the reverse electrolysis method before, IIRC also with some hydrochloric acid thrown in too and it would really eat away metal. i would not do it to anything that required any kind of strength.

 

i think jimmy hoffa used it

 

i recall an article in an old mopar muscle mag about a car that was acid dipped to remove weight for racing. ill have to look through the archives