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Posted by John Seidts [96.234.133.128] on Wednesday, December 19, 2012 at 09:15:48 :
In Reply to: transmission storage ideas posted by John S [108.3.84.254] on Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 19:34:58 :
Somebody beat me to recommending LPS, which is a good storage preservative and is the closest thing you can come to like cosmoline. But it's not the only to store this stuff.
One of the things I have taken interest in is how items are packed from WWII and how they have fared over the years. I am pretty amazed about how well some of these items have survived- aluminum, brass, steel- after 70-some years of packaging. This packaging was driven by Department of Commerce regulation, because that branch of government had responsibility for ensuring the War Department shipped things appropriately during the war (a lot of this is handled by DOT today).
I have in my collection the 1942 Department of Commerce regulations for packaging items for shipment overseas. This was what drove all shipping and packing you see from WWII. These regulations were intended to pack items to be corrosion proof for 30-120 days while SUBMERGED under water! History aside, what most of the regulations specify is that you MUST use dessicant of some sort if you are putting any item in an enclosed bag for any period of time. The bag acts like a sauna and rust will start on anything, including surfaces covered with oil or grease.
The best way to preserve this stuff, in covered storage, is to have it coated liberally with a heavier oil or grease and allow air to circulate around it. The air will pick up ambient moisture and keep it away from the metal surfaces. Also, make sure air circulates in and out of the building- anybody who has walked into a sea container that's been closed for a year or so knows how much moisture gets inside of them. A building locked up tight with no air flow is a moisture trap.
One other way that a good friend stored vintage motorcycle parts was to pack them in 55 gallon drums and fill them will oil. His father did that as well and I could not believe how shiny used 1920's Harley parts looked after 40 years in a drum of oil. His father was cheap and used waste oil, but those parts shined after they were cleaned up.