I just ran en experiment and put a rusted-to-death patch panel in a Tupperware bowl filled with vinegar. In two days of @50 degree weather, and a little coaxing from a pressure washer, I've got a perfectly clean and shiny piece of metal.
Yea, yea, I know it's supposed to eat good metal but I didn't see any evidence of that on my test piece. Maybe if I left it out in the sun for a week or two things would be different but from my experiment I think concern over vinegar eating metal is much ado over nothing, especially when talking about the thick steel found on AD truck parts.
I'm going out to Home Depot for some 1x8's and visqueen to make a quickie pool and derust my doors inside and out, then slosh around some baking soda solution inside after a good rinsing, POR-15 the insides after they dry and I'll have a pair of beautiful bare-metal doors for a couple bucks worth of commonly available stuff that works while I sleep.
Just call me The Vinegar Advocate
... and it's
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