Drano crystals & water work but be careful mixing and handling. Sodium Hydroxide, or Lye for short, can burn you but it works really well to remove crap from a gas tank without hurting the metal.
Drano crystals & water work but be careful mixing and handling. Sodium Hydroxide, or Lye for short, can burn you but it works really well to remove crap from a gas tank without hurting the metal.
If you splash any of that stuff on surfaces you don't want it on, the best thing to wash it off with is beer. It will neutralize the lye. How do I know? I worked in a brewery for 12 years and lye was used in the bottle washer. That was when most of the beer went into bottles, not cans.
Lye would be diluted by fresh water rinsing. Water can be removed with alcohol, It can rust up with bare metal so it should be either put back into service or sealed to prevent corrosion unless it already has corrosion in there. Lye won't take the corrosion out. It's too bad that the terne plate doesn't last very well but that's what Ford used to seal them with.