Salt water usually does a pretty good job of messing up alloy. Maybe boiling the parts there-in to speed up the process?
Vinegar will probably etch into it too. Or caustic drain cleaner rubbed on with a rag and watched carefully?
Bantam Racer? Classic. My first bike was a 150cc D3 Bantam with sprung heel. Snapped I don't know how many front axles jumping it over dirt mounds in the bush down the the back of home. Great little machine. And some of them were tuned up to do phenomenal speeds (Not mine though!),
Got pics?