Aluminum Dry Bulk Trailers

IndyExterior

New member
I have a customer that wanted some very used aluminum dry bulk trailers cleaned off. Old with cement and fly ash stains surrounding the fill holes. Very reasonable guy with low expectations. We did one test and threw everything we had at it. Including the standard aluminum brightener with Phosphoric Acid, Sulfuric Acid, Ammonium Bifluoride, and even muriatic acid alone and never really came close to what I would call acceptable. We don't use HF products and I don't care to.

The customer thought they were greatly improved and had us do several more. I thought it was a waste of his money and told him so but he was happy and I took the work. In the process to improve this I asked him if he had a trailer I could experiment with. So he virtually gave me one to try anything I want when I want. So I'm asking anyone with any ideas to post them and I'll give it a try and post the results. Hopefully a benefit to any fleet washers out there.

I've searched in and out of this forum and found nothing on fly ash cleaning which is a by product of burning coal. Some of you seemed well versed in chemistry. Any ideas?
 
The eaning of these things is a long process. You are not going to get instant results.
That being said, there is a company out of Dallas that specializes in chemicals for concrete trucks. It is called Ankem. I know they have a rep out of Chicago, or at least used to, and he would be the one to call. If that does not work, let me know and I will hook you up with the rep in Arizona. Their website is www.ankem.com
 
Thanks for the info. Already contacted them. I knew someone had this figured out. They are currently testing chems for fly ash too. I'll post some results later.
 
I used to wash dump trucks that hauled the fly ash from the power plants to the pits for dumping. It is very aggressive to the aluminum in the matter of a week it would pit his rims (polished of course) pretty bad.

If the product stayed dry it was not a problem but once it got wet it became extremely aggressive to the surface. Unfortunately HF was all that I found that would work in cleaning deep enough for re-polish. The Phosphoric would work but it needed to be strong and didn't clean quite as deep.
 
This is where you need a water blaster 10.000 psi with a rotating nozzle, would make short work of this. No chemicals to buy or be concerned with cleaning up just water.
 
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