Rusted wheels

Has anybody got a trick for getting rust from inside of tractor wheels. I have use a wire brush in the past that will wear you out. Thanks for any help.

Wire wheel on an angle grinder.

Needle scaler for the real bad stuff then the wire wheel.

i have sand blasted all my wheels i have painted. comes out sweet...pg

Best method is sandblasting then prime and paint they will look new again.

Commercial sandblast yard.Epoxy primer within 4 hours.

Gordo

Must be humid where you are. My sandblasted stuff lasts several months or more -- never seen any rust on anything unless it got hit by water.

It all depends on whether the surface temperature of the metal drops below the dew point of the air. When that happens, the moisture in the air will condense on the part. The same thing happens to a cold beer can.

Generally speaking sheet metal is OK for extended periods of time. It can change its surface temperature radidly to match ambient air temperature. Castings and heavy steel sections can't absorb heat fast enough to avoid condensation when warm moist air displaces long periods of cold air.

It only takes a fraction of a degree either way to be safe or sorry.

So when the weather forcast says 100% relative humidity, watch out. Even in New England, that condition is rare. When it is raining here, the hunidty is likely to be 80-95%. This means that metal parts have a margin of safety in terms of temperature differential. Fog and clouds are always saturated and consequently run at 100% humidity.

Parts that are not cleaned to true white metal will discolor in short order at low humidity. If one looks carefully at the imperfect surface, one can see the individual rust cells that are actually "worm holes" that have not been cleaned out. They will be black.

I guess I need to ask, "why wait"? And you don't have to worry about pigeon cr4p, dogs peein4 on them, and any other foreign materials. IF you are not ready to prime don't blast. Most blasters will epoxy prime for you for not much more than you can do it yourself.
Most of these guys posting here don't know how to clean things up properly. Just trying to save them the pitfalls we avoid because we have the experience.

Gordo

I'm not well organized enough to sandblast, then clean the parts, building and everything else to get ready to paint. It is DRY in western KS, not as dry as where the airplanes are stored in the open in Arizona or ?, but dry enough, I have a heated building, heat off at night, 40 degree temperature swings inside the building, less difference in humidity, but at least noticeable rain and snow, dew point or not. I do NOT get rust. We do have humid days, when the Wichita, KS weather backs up on us, but it has little or no effect. Leave something outside it will be brown the next day. Different parts of the country, different climates. Been doing this for 8 years. I used to use Picklex 20 after taking to bare metal, found out I don't need it, except to neutralize rust in inaccessible places if I wire wheel instead of sandblast. Yes when I wire wheel cast, there is likely some rust in the pits where the wire doesn't reach, but the likelyhood of that rust amounting to something is this climate is next to nothing. Treating cast with Picklex (mainly phosphoric acid) will likely do more harm than good. In MA (Wardner), or even in eastern SD (Where in SD are you, Gordo?), or maybe even Wichita, KS I would have to change my way of doing things. What works for me will not work for everyone.

When I worked for the K State research station at Garden City, KS, one of my duties was to daily record ppt, temp, dew point and wind velocity. I did that for 19 years, so I am still pretty much aware of climatic conditions. 90-100% humidity was fairly common early in the morning, it usually dropped down to 10-20% in the afternoon in the summer, in the winter humidity could be low or high for extended periods of time. Where I have noticed rust is under the valve cover of my 460, when I was working on other parts of the tractor. Likely there on my other tractors. So your comment about dew point is valid, but that is in a confined unventilated area. I have never found moisture on exposed metal that was inside. Not saying that I won't, but it hasn't happened yet. It is also easy to remove any surface rust that may show up. SO, I don't mess with priming with epoxy unless I can paint the same or next day. I don't multi-task very well.