revneck

My car sat a while and has never been painted. 1979, original red paint. A few weeks ago I washed and waxed the car as it had not been done in five years. The hood and fender tops were faded/blotchy..I COULD NOT remove the wax swirls from the entire hood. So since then it has been WORSE blotchy/faded looking. I tried everything. So today I took a small piece of cloth and cleaned a small test area with WD-40. All I can say is the hood looks 500 times better and the swirls and blotchy patches are GONE. I hope the WD does not ultimately have a bad reaction or damage the paint. So far so good, I will have to add this hood to the many/numerous things I have cleaned with WD! Fingers crossed. lol

ddawson

WD40 is mainly kerosene. So you just removed all the wax.

letterman7

What? No, I don't think so. Read the MSDS on the stuff....

But yes, the wax was removed and a lubricant was rubbed into the paint. It won't damage the paint, but won't last long, either. I'd re-wash the car with a mild detergent to pull the WD back off, then hit the entire car with a mild compound meant for clearcoats, finish up with a good polish and wax. The clearcoat safe compounds aren't quite as abrasive as the old style red rouge compounds.

68/70Vette

I'd like to think I have the definitive answer on the WD-40 question.

Pro: I've used WD-40 for decades to protect the chrome of my chrome bumper C3's. Spray it on the chrome, the chrome trim, emblems, etc. After a couple of months or so, it collects airborne dust which has salt in it here, so clean it off with Windex and respray with fresh WD-40. Works excellent for preventing chrome corrosion. It is completely harmless to paint.

Con: A BIG con. Old paint develops micro-cracks..you can't see them. The WD-40 seeps into the micro-cracks and then into the fiberglass substrate. I used to overspray my exterior body chrome parts oblivious to the WD-40 being sprayed on the paint. When it came time to repaint my 68, all the paint was stripped off down to the fiberglass...the stripped down fiberglass had a greyish appearance. There were black areas here and there typically at places where chrome trime pieces used to be. Where I sprayed WD-40 on my 69 factory sidemount chrome covers, the doors bottom edges had black areas from WD-40 overspray. These areas were saturated where WD-40 had seeped into the fiberglass. Due to oil contamination, these areas of the fiberglass could not be painted...the paint wouldn't stick. All the WD-40 saturated parts of the 68 body had to be ground out or cut out and replaced. This just dramatically and unexpectedly increased the cost of my paint job. Bottom Line: WD-40 is harmless to paint, per se, but very damaging if it can seep into the underlying fiberglass.

My understanding: WD-40 is not kerosene. It's principal component is a highly refined fish oil..refined to the extent it doesn't smell fishy.

Chinaski

DUB

I will write this.....walk into my paint/body shop with a can of WD-40 and spray it and I can tell you that would be the MOST EXPENSIVE mistake you ever made....and that is putting it nicely.

It may not hurt paint ( I would never put it on paint so I do not care if it does or doesn't). BUT...it can make an environment where paint is being applied or body work performed....RUINED.

Just because some people use it....DOES NOT make it RIGHT...and this goes along with some guys I know who wipe their cars down with automatic transmission fluid to make them shine. So go use it and then get your car painted and wonder why the paint fall off or possibly will not even stick.

DUB

letterman7

Right from the WD40 site:
While the ingredients in WD-40® Multi-Use Product are secret, we can tell you what it does NOT contain. WD-40® Multi-Use Product does not contain silicone, kerosene, water, graphite, or chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Myth: WD-40® contains fish oil. Fact: Consumers have told us for years that they've caught some of the biggest fish ever after protecting their fish hooks and lures with WD-40®. We believe this legend came from folks assuming the product must contain fish oil since it appears to attract fish. Sorry Charlie®, it just ain’t so.

Actually a pretty fun site to dig around on.

Back to the subject at hand... yea, any type of oil contamination on fiberglass is pretty much a kiss of death. Been playing with fiberglass cars (not just Corvettes) for years and the only thing I've been able to do to save a contaminated part is saturate it with lacquer thinner, hose it off, saturate it with straight Simple Green, hose it off, then follow up with denatured alcohol. Seems to work most of the time... the times it doesn't though...

revneck

Good stuff guys! Now that the hood is down to just the paint, can someone suggest a good wax/polish to go with from here? I used Turtle Wax a few weeks ago, and that is what swirrlled and would not remove...It looked like clouds is the best way I can describe it

Chinaski

There is a difference between wax and polish.

You should research it. Google is your friend.

I would suggest washing your car with Dawn Dish Detergent ASAP after your WD40 escapade. And then Clay it. Alot.

Polish is for removing water spots and scratches. Wax is to protect.

Here is my '73 about 3 or 4 years ago after claying it and using off the shelf Autozone Meguiars products, I think Meguiars Ultimate Wax...Can't Remember?

Chinaski

FYI, that's called Oxidation.

gungatim

it's not a secret, the ingredients are widely known and anyone can download the MSDS and look up the CAS#. the only thing secret is the "exact" percentage of the two light aliphatic hydrocarbons (basically naptha, non-aromatic light oil..)

WD40 is so thin and evaporates so quickly you'll never know it was there...which is why it's an almost useless product.

if you want to get rid of your swirl marks, there is a very thin swirl remover body shops use, we used black magic brand but any brand will do.

an easier way is get a can of silicone spray, and use that instead...its what used car lots do to make faded paint look like new...at least for a little while...

C3_ERROR

I have nothing to add as others have already given the suggestions I would (dawn, clay, polish, wax) so I'll give a fun fact.

WD40 stands for water displacement #40. It was originally invented to keep rockets from rusting while sitting in silos. #40 stands for the 40th attempt. I love the history channel.

dochorsepower

"an easier way is get a can of silicone spray, and use that instead...its what used car lots do to make faded paint look like new...at least for a little while..."

SILICONE? Anything silicone is the worst thing you can get near paint. It is anti-matter that can never be painted over.

letterman7

Geez... take the car to a local detail shop and let them have at it. Tell them what you've done already so they can take the proper steps. When you get it back it'll look like a new car...

DUB

And that OIL is the 'kiss of death' to a painter. And regardless if the rest of the WD-40 evaporates...the oil does not...and when floating around in a shop when sprayed and landing on fine dust...and then a gust of wind blows into the shop and disturbs that dust...and the dust lands on a panel ready for paint. This is when WD-40 (or ANY oil based spray product) keeps showing up and causing problems.

SILICONE EVEN WORSE!!!! ANOTHER 'Kiss of death'. And it does not surprise me that some used car lots use it. "AS IS NO WARRANTY" comes to mind.

DUB

Procrastination Racing

Silicone is the kiss of death. Defeating it is beyond most mortals. Usually the recommended practice is cut out and replace.



silicone brake fluid bubbles


You do not want to know how many hours and what I did to remove this. And this was after countless hours to get it this good, as the entire fender was covered in it. Let's put it this way, if you do this to a car and take it to a shop, they will just cut the panel out and replace. To do what I did, and put those hours in, you could buy a new car.

And you won't see it for a few years.

Scottd

I was shooting the chit with a body guy as he was wedging an adhesive backed emblem off a fender. I decided to share with him one of my best, all time secrets....I was like "Hey man, you wanna get that adhesive off quickly ,spray it with a little silicone" Ive got this nice smug look on my face after teaching a master body guy a trick...He in NO CERTAIN terms told me his opinion of my trick, that in a body shop, somebody would get beaten over such a practice.

I still use the trick today...but Im a little more sparing when I use it near an old car.

randy ransome

Everyone needs to listen to Dub..he knows what he's talking about.

fm69vette

Hello,
Go to the General Discussion forum and within that forum is Car Care Discussion. One of the heavy participates is Auto Geek, for which I think I have contributed about half of my annual salary, but my car looks great! Very reliable and knowledgeable individuals in that forum.
Good Luck!
Kelly

Procrastination Racing

You bet!

He gave me a lot of helpful information when I was painting mine, and fighting that silicone in the fender. I did ignore his advice to cut it out, but it was worth it to me for all of the very long hard work to not cut it out. I fully understand why he would say that, though. time is money, and if I was paying for all the time I spent, I could have bought another car.

Plus I got lucky. There is no guarantee of ever getting that stuff out of the fiberglass.