Stainless steel reservoir seeps

[Dr.Jeff]

Great write up, thank you. Man I wish mine looked a tenth as nice as yours.

Please elaborate a little more on that last step - the phos soak - it appears to have made a world of difference. I'm imagining it will turn my crappy work into excellence.

Regarding the inlet flow angle, I attempted to reuse the original neck but modified it a little. Basically I cut it shorter at the bend, so it is less than 90 degrees. Combined with resoldering (brazing) it at a slightly flatter angle, it aims the outlet end more toward the back of the tank. However not as well as your "S" neck does, nice job on making that piece.

 

[Russe11]

...Please elaborate a little more on that last step - the phos soak - it appears to have made a world of difference. I'm imagining it will turn my crappy work into excellence.

Regarding the inlet flow angle, I attempted to reuse the original neck but modified it a little. Basically I cut it shorter at the bend, so it is less than 90 degrees. Combined with resoldering (brazing) it at a slightly flatter angle, it aims the outlet end more toward the back of the tank. However not as well as your "S" neck does, nice job on making that piece.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. The 'pickling' in phosphoric acid will remove residual flux, but won't remove the discoloration in the Stainless Steel. The fifth of the six pictures shows what it looked like after pickling. The difference between the fifth and sixth pictures is all from abrasives.

Considering

the angle of the inlet, I thought about just sticking a rod through the hole and distorting that wall of the tank to give an angle I liked better. That would have been easy and effective, but I decided I just wouldn't like the looks of it. So, I made the S-shaped piece.
​

 

[Russe11]

This might be too different to apply here, but how much of this soldering/brazing information would apply to repairing aluminum radiators?

I don't have much experience that applies to welding Aluminum, but I know of a guy named Kent White who is a source of lots of knowledge on this topic (among other metalworking topics). You can find him here: https://www.tinmantech.com/

 

[Dr.Jeff]

Thanks for all the added info.
Pretty much figured that last photo of your tank wasn't just from the acid dip. But also wasn't sure just what to expect from the process.
Thanks again, great stuff.

 

[Russe11]

Thanks for all the added info.
Pretty much figured that last photo of your tank wasn't just from the acid dip. But also wasn't sure just what to expect from the process.
Thanks again, great stuff.

One more thing regarding the 'pickling' process: Do not use hydrochloric (muriatic) acid. It promotes Stress-Corrosion-Cracking

on Stainless Steel, which can lead to sudden, catastrophic failure.​

 

[Yves]

There is the end of the story
This winter I sent my stainless steel reservoir to Brian, the big difficulty was the chrome plate.

Brian has done and amazing repair even if the reservoir was chrome plated. It was not an easy job to try to keep the chrome plate.
I lift my hat to Brian for that repair.

Thank you Brian