The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Washing that black stuff from trees off my truck?

hiyas folks.

so, I have my old '65 chevy truck... old everything... but the truck sits around, under or near several trees. Pine trees, big holly trees, oak trees mainly... and it gets this black powder dust junk on it and it is a pain to get off.

Also, I have a few grease/grime hand/fingerprint spots I got on there and I need to get off.

Any suggestions? tried my auto washing soap... dish washing soap...

I'm not much into washing my truck very often but it got pretty dang dirty... so something had to be done, heh.

Any tips, tricks or product recommendations appreciated.

thank you,

-W

ZEP degreaser will do the trick.Used it on my camper setting under trees.Just spray on,let it set for 10 min,scrub off with brush,hose off.Great stuff,don't use on alum

W, if you have an old paint job on it, what you can do is take a Scotchbrite pad, car soap, warm water, and a rag and that'll scrub that crap right off. Your truck will be nice and clean afterwards. Then, if your truck has a nice patina to it, take some 0000 steel wool to your now-clean truck. Makes it look nice without spending billions on a detail.

Even makes primer spots and weak paint areas look good!

in my area its called pollen but its green. this time of year you can have any color and in a short time it will have a lime look. the black stuff may be dust mixed with pine sap. which can be hard to get off. if there are localized globs of it bug and tar remover does well.

Bug & Tar remover works well.

I used a Scotch Brite pad to remove overspray. Make sure if you use one though, get the non scratch blue pad. The green or red will remove your paint as well as the crud.

Prior to painting I used to wash the dingy white paint using Tide and 2-3 cups of bleach in the wash water. Would use a scrub sponge (scotchbrite) and rinse well. Real bright white when finished. Don't imagine this would work all that great on pine tar etc but would cut the grease, oil, and stains pretty well.

In the 1950's a painter I worked with told me to pour a cup of kerosene into water with some soap to clean off a really dirty, stained truck I was working on. I have done this many times since with success. The first wash job on my 54 6100 was as I have described and 20 years of grime disappeared.

hey Woog,,The stuff on my old international is green, I would just leave it as is ,,,,, protects the paint that way.

.....dont park the truck under the trees......

Good old hot water & TriSodium Phosphate, TSP, cleans anything off of anything else. Brian

ooh - I have some tsp 'substitute' - forgot I had it - mebbe I should try that.

scotch brite pads, bleach, tide... kerosene... wow. good stuff.


as for the many suggestions I've had here and elsewhere to cut down the trees or don't park under the trees... neither is an option... I like trees and there is nowhere else to park.

Thanks for the replies!

-W

Good ole BRAKE FLUID will to the trick.

Years ago I was into buying computer equipment from sealed bid goverment auction thru the GSA.. lots of excess stuff from the 2000 census, mostly.. altho there were some cool gadgets that came out of NOAA.

Anywhoo.. the goverment is fond of writing on things with a big fat permenent magic marker.. which can really knock a few dollars off the resale value of this stuff on eBay, so I was using just about everything I could try.. from choke and carb cleaner, to simple green and mean green.. the stuff ended up comming off, but it took some work.

As luck would have it, I was picking up a buddies car from the garage and I saw a guy whiping road paint off the side of a customers car. Now, road paint is some heavy duty paint.. and this guy was taking it off with little to no effort.

Despite the sign that read "No customers in the garage area" I just had to know what he had in that big white bottle.. it was plain old brake fluid.

I went back to my office (after a pit stop at Auto Zone) and gave it a try, and it worked great.

Since then, i've used it to take all sorts of crud and marks off of lots other stuff.. even tree sap dripped on a nice new car.

If you own a Stovebolt, my guess is you've already got some brake fluid around the house.. try it on a small spot and see what you think!

Doesn't brake fluid eat paint?

You know, I would have thought it might.. but I guess the secret is to wash the truck with conventional methods after the tough stuff is off.

On the same token, a direct scrub with brake fluid on a plastic computer monitor cleans marker right off, with no discoloration.. but plastic is alot different than a fresh new paint job, so i'd use caution when using it on anything real nice.. maybe try a small spot and make sure it's not going to eat or otherwise jack up your paint job.

All of you are crazy.
If you have nice paint or you are trying to keep what may be left I would not use a brush or bleach or any of that stuff.

Go buy some clay magic. It will take it off. Macguires also makes a clay product that should work and wont ruin your paint.
It is a lot of work though so I dont reccomend it if you don't want to spend the time to do it.

If all else fails just reach for the go-jo,all stovebolters have some siting around.