Axle Housing Restoration

I started work on the axle housing this morning. I placed it in the utility room sink for cleaning. The Super Clean degreaser with a brush cleaned almost all the grease deposits off the housing. I let it dry a little in the sink and carried it to the backyard to let it dry completely.

Once dry, I used a wire wheel, a sanding disc, and sand paper to clean the axle housing. There was a light layer of surface rust over most of the housing. The wire wheel worked well at first but then I switched to the sanding disc to take the surface rust off. There are several little scraps into the metal from jacks which I want to fill.

I fould the number 10 written in white permanent crayon inside the housing. On the bottom of the housing, I found the number 12 written with a white marker. There was also a bright orange paint on one side were the axle tube meets the housing. I'm not sure what these mean but I took pictures of them and traced the numbers so they can be duplicated later if needed.

I'm not sure how I'm going to clean inside the spring perches. There is a litte dirt and rust inside. The only tool which reaches the dirt is the dremel and it does not do much good. I decided to stop for the day and relax. I coated the axle housing with Rust Encapsulator except for the spring perches. I'll take it into the garage once it dries and work on it a little more during the week this week.