Cleaning Rusty Chrome

I have an old Colombia 3 speed cruiser that I left outside for at least a year. I guess I lost interest in riding it after the rear tire got a tear in it. After getting another 26x1-3/8" tire, I decided to fix it up again (this would be the 4th time I've reconditioned this bike, it's had a hard life). Anyway, I used some wet aluminum foil to clean the chrome fenders that had rusted pretty badly:

There's a lot of pitting on these fenders, and they're in bad shape. I won't be able to bring them back 100% but I still tried out my aluminum foil trick:

After a few minutes of scraping and rinsing off the rust, here was the result:

Not perfect, but a lot better than what I started with. The pitting went through the chrome into the steel underneath, which is why those specs are still visible. If the chrome was only surface rusted then the wet foil would leave it looking perfect. Oh well, cheers.

Seized Schwinn Seatpost

I was restoring an old women's frame Schwinn Varsity and I couldn't remove the seat post. I'm not sure how it rusted in there so badly since the rest of the bike looked like it was never really used, but that post might as well have been epoxied in place. I used penetrating oil, my propane torch, and a pipe wrench, and the post wouldn't budge. I was actually bending the top of the post with the pipe wrench.

Finally I tried spraying the inside of the seat tube with Lime-Away to try to dissolve the rust holding everything together. After a few hours I hit it with a hammer to see if it would move:

It did. Very slightly, but enough to break the rust bond. When I started turning it with my pipe wrench it made the most satisfying cracking sound that I've ever heard.

Progress:

Victory!

 

Grease your seatposts. That is all.