[chromo]

I have some parts I want to coat this week if I get the time. I been tied up since Friday with other stuff. Got 2 systems Friday.

Just to be sure, add any advice you want.

Some parts are new steel that was plasma cut for me. Should I just sand or blast off the gray coating and rust spots, clean with Dawn dish soap, do water break test and spray them and bake. Prebake for out gassing or not?

I have some parts I want to pull from some really nasty greasy engines. Should I do a lye/water bath to degrease, rinse well, blast, acetone or dawn wash, rinse, water break test, preheat to out gas, spray and bake?

Both type parts are steel stuff.

I figured the lye/water to degrease since this stuff has a thick coating of old engine oil grease, I drove the truck today and it lost 2 quarts oil in about 30 miles, but no smoke, so you can guess what the previous owner has built up on this engine before dumping the truck.
So I figure I will drop the parts in a barrel and let soak. And of course all steel or cast iron parts, no aluminum.
What else would be good for this that is not too costly? I'll use the lye now (unless a reason I should not) since I have no more money to buy stuff and it's cheap. I want a 55gal barrel near half full that I can sit the parts in and let soak off the grease, add an air supply tube at bottom to bubble agitate.
Now it's just external parts, later I will want to do the heads and also a engine block in a few weeks or so.

Lye/water will eat aluminum I know. Really what happens is the water breaks down to H2 and O, the hydrogen flows free while the oxygen oxides the aluminum. I make Hydrogen gas this way myself for various things using lye/water mix and drop in scrap aluminum carefully. I get an aluminum oxide sludge in the bottom of the tank, no aluminum left!

What is a good all purpose cleaner safe for steel and aluminum and cheap for 20-30gal?

Anything else I may be forgetting?

For a lye/water degrease I may use well water, for a wash/rinse/breaktest I will use distilled water. I was going to distill a barrel of water but not had time so will buy some.

For a blast media I only have 90grit aluminum oxide, only other things I could get was glass beads or walnut shell and I could only buy one due to low cash.

I stripped a washer shell tonight to make a blast cabinet, I have a couple holes still to patch tomorrow but should work well. I plan to strip a dryer shell to make a spray booth tomorrow if I have time. I have 3 things I will try for small ovens. The new steel parts are only 1/8" flat plate steel 10" dia.
The greasy auto parts will be the size of 2 valve covers or less.

Although I was going to build a custom oven from scratch for larger parts, I found a LARGE stainless steel cabinet today, used restaraunt stuff, and will be picking that up soon as I get the extra $100 and make it an oven later.