AJS & Matchless Owners Club

By far the best rust releaser is a 50:50 mix of Acetone and ATF, both readily available on Amazon/ eBay.
Put them in in a lever type oil can and apply as necessary. Just make sure that you shake vigorously before use as the two components do not stay mixed but merely form an emulsion.
The theory is that the ATF is a wicking agent and the Acetone eats away the rust by chemical reaction
It works out at about £1 per litre, much cheaper than commercial snake oil

leswaller wrote:By far the best rust releaser is a 50:50 mix of Acetone and ATF, both readily available on Amazon/ eBay.
Put them in in a lever type oil can and apply as necessary. Just make sure that you shake vigorously before use as the two components do not stay mixed but merely form an emulsion.
The theory is that the ATF is a wicking agent and the Acetone eats away the rust by chemical reaction
It works out at about £1 per litre, much cheaper than commercial snake oil

The cheapest I can see Acetone on Ebay is about £8.00 per litre. Does anyone know a cheaper source please? Cheers. Bruce.

Sorry got my calculations wrong Bruce, Acetone on Amazon is £6.50 per litre and ATF is £3.50. So the cost of a 2 litres of mix would be £10, i.e. £5 per litre.
I divided by 10 instead of 2 - sorry
But still a lot cheaper than commercial preparations

as an aside the French supermarkets sell acetone 500 mil or so an euro or two, should anyone be that way. kind regards

For acetone try any local company who works in fibre glass, this is how I got hold of some, beware they will not put it a metal container
Mick I'm sure you have released all ten bottom barrel nut's , also there's a printable trident t 160 workshop available on the net,
Look in manualslib. Com you can grab the pages you might need, that is if you have'nt a manual.
,

In the long distant past ,if we had two different metals corroding together we soaked it in malt vinegar OR cocoa cola
both worked well
Tony

Can you fix something up that will lift the unit by the head/barrel to allow gravity to join in. Not to high though. Hth. Regards Neil .

Mick.
Did you get the Trident barrels off in the end? If so, what was causing them to stick?
Thanks.
Harry

Hi Harry

No, not yet I'm afraid

The engine is now stripped down as far as possible, all of the crank case securing bolts are loose but still no joy. The crank cases are dowelled into the barrels and to themselves and are resisting my attempts to split the joints. Each day I heat the barrel studs and quench with ATF/acetone mix - whack the joints with a club hammer via short lengths of 2 x 1 - I live in hope, (contemplating cutting out the cylinder base gasket which is quite a thick material and should be possible with care).

Regards Mick

Mick
Can you find some way of soaking the whole assembly in ATF/Acetone? Quenching it wont work, as the acetone has to eat the gunge and the ATF has to wick it's way down the joints. Ideally you need to leave the assembly submerged for about a week. It will ultimately work, I have just released a piston from a cylinder that had been seized for over 40 years using this method, although it took a couple of months to work.