[oldred]

A lot of this equipment was outside and the areas in question were the battery boxes. Again the acid is Ingrained in the corroded metal and no amount of rinsing with water is going to remove or neutralize it because at this point it will not be as simple as rinsing acid off of the surface, you may be able to deal with some of it on the surface but that will be of little help because of what will remain. On metal as thin as body sheetmetal this contaminated metal will be nearly the thickness of the panel when you consider that both sides will almost certainly be exposed. Once again we tried everything in the arsenal from high pressure washing and baking soda/acid neutralizing solutions to special rust paints and nothing stopped the damage, slowed it some but did not stop it. There is no way simply rinsing with water is going to do a darn thing for stopping battery acid damage once the corrosion has started and I think most anyone who has had to deal with this will probably agree, the acid is to far ingrained to be washed off at this point. Washing with water and trying to neutralize the acid after the damage has started is going to be an exercise in futility and will certainly lead to problems down the road, fresh contamination could be rinsed and neutralized but corroded acid damaged metal? No way!

[red65mustang]

Scoty,
the acid destroyed the oxygen and moisture barrier provided by the paint to slow and prevent rust growth in the presense of a electrical charge (provided by the batt neg energy flow)
for rust to "grow", all three (charge/moisture/O2) have to be present, you can't eliminate the electrical charge (just static electricity in the air is enough)....

so all you can do is build back a moisture and O2 barrier with epoxy/seam sealer/spray undercoating/etc/etc to slow the rust growth inside the seams...

every morning there is condensation moisture on the metal, do what you can to insure it drys absolutely as quickly as possible,,,especially any place it might collect....

(can't hurt/might help/costs nothing?)
I have a windex bottle with about 2 tablespoons of baking soda disolved in (bottled) water, so I can force/flood the solution in every possible direction on the tight areas....

cut down a cheap plastic batt box to just a tray under the batt...

be sure there is lots and lots of air flow over the batt, to disappate the acid "fumes" given off during a re-charge cycle....

bored? to much time on your hands?
laundry detergent has a slight base PH, (and cuts grease pretty good) wash the whole engine compartment to neutralize any condensed "fumes"....

LOL, bottem line:
"mother nature" always wins (eventually)...
steel is a unstable compound and mother nature wants it back in the original stable Fe form period!!!!

[ScotY]

Thanks, guys. It's good to hear opinions from both perspectives. No harm in trying to stop the damage from getting worse, I suppose. I'll have to go poke around and see how bad it really is and then go from there.