Get ready to hit the "this thread is useless without pics," but now that the weather has warmed-up here, I got a batch of molasses rust-remover started. I bought the 5-gallon bucket of molasses from the feed-store, and prepared a 1:7 mixture in another 5-gallon bucket with a tightly-fitting lid (not sure if I should completely seal it shut). I placed several smaller pieces that had a medium-level of rust in the bucket, fasteners, brackets, hinge components. In three days the rust was over half-gone. It's been a week now, and I'm heading out now to hose the parts off and perhaps brush them muck off the pieces and let it soak another week in needed. I need to get some larger containers to de-rust some larger pieces. After removing for the final time, the parts must be given a final wash, and perhaps heated to quickly remove all moisture before it flashes over with rust again. Then coat with a preservative until painted or coated with Rust Prevention Magic. Pieces that still had remnants of paint still on them still have the paint intact. Same with grease - I didn't completely clean some of the parts first. But overall I'm very happy. The molasses does the work so you don't have to!
Like Paul suggests below (thanks for the cooking-oil tip), I bought a lot of zip-lock style bags from the dollar store to keep these components, along with the manilla envelopes I store other items in, and write on them what they are. I need to get off my butt and organize all the digital photos I've been taking along the way.
