Salt

[PaulAA]

Bugger.

It was dry on Sunday and I provided taxi services for our eldest on a humanitarian mission (all with due precaution, etc).  Temp around zero, but dry roads.  All good until I dropped down the slip road onto an expressway and discovered that salt had been laid over a longish section.  God alone knows why...

So, I have blasted the underside of the TR with dry salt powder and am wondering what the f*** to do...  Wash it off and turn it into a penetrating saline solution or diligently brush at all the visible and accessible bits and pray that the rest falls off in due course.

Any suggestions, however caustic, welcome...

Paul

[RichardB]

I would personally just brush it off dry, then give it a wash when you get around to it.

Is it rust proofed? I used my Spitfire all year round with Dinitrol, at least 2 quite wet salty winters and when I had it paint stripped recently there wasnt any new corrosion whatsoever from my ownership, just some historic pitting and the odd hole I already knew about. I used 4941 on the arches and underbonnet, and brushed on Waxoyl on the bumpers.

https://www.rust.co.uk/product/chlor-x-salt-remover-81

This product is marketed for removing salt. I'd love to know what it's made from, I bet its something common and inexpensive.

 

[Nick Jones]

How irritating. You're lucky it's dry powder.  Round hear they seem to mix it with something sticky (molasses).  I'd probably try to brush off as much as possible including the back sides of the bumpers and give all the chrome a wipe over.

[DeTRacted]

58 minutes ago, RichardBaines said:

This product is marketed for removing salt. I'd love to know what it's made from, I bet its something common and inexpensive.

 

https://www.rust.co.uk/files//pdf/Chlor-X MSDS 2020.pdf

[zetecspit]

I was looking at that yesterday.

Glycolic acid (10-15%) is the main component. But my chemistry is 30 years out of date, and google makes no suggestions about its use for removing sodium chloride (common salt). Seems to be used a lot in skin products, and apparently good for complexing hard water salts making them soluble. But common salt is very soluble anyway?  It all has a sniff of mis-marketing, unless there are other salts that get build up after using phosphoric acid.

sodium xylene sulfonate (1-3%) is the other ingredient, which is possibly the more useful stuff. It is a wetting agent, and helps molecules dissolve more easily. Found in detergents, shampoos etc. 

I can't help wondering if a bucket of hot soapy water, a soft broom and a good hose down after may be at least as good?

[PaulAA]

Thank you, chaps

There is a layer of black something on the chassis and tub bottom. Hard, brittle, but mostly intact.  There are a couple of very early surface blooms of rust on the seal edge where the wings overlap the chassis, which I intended to deal with this winter, so I'll go the brush and vigorous wash route.

Warsaw is divided into semi-autonamous administrative districts and I now have an effigy representing the district that unnecessarily salted their roads, slowly roasting over a black candle, with a dead hedgehog on either side. I shall be inserting various sharpened objects into it each day at midnight until the spring equinox. That'll teach 'em.

[RichardB]

It must be inspired by or a relabel of other commercial products. Just had a look now and you can find quite a few 'salt removers' for masonry on the market with the same or similar ingredients - eg. https://www.pavetuf.co.uk/salt-eraser/

Which has glycolic acid in a lower concentration. Others seem to use acetic acid (vinegar?) instead, and I presume the rest is just distilled water.

[JohnD]

Happened to me, Paul, some yars ago when there was a very late year meeting at Anglesey.     The Vitesse was on the trailer, but even so, I found heavy salt deposits on the front when I go home.

Salt, sodium chloride, is extremely soluble and washing with lots of water should remove the majority.    No harm in brush (vacuuming?) as much as possible off first.     If you can then HOT water even better.      That's what I did - it didn't prevent any corrosion, and later I wire brushed the front of the chassis rails and painted with zinc-rich primer before over coating, asn there was a bloom of rust there.     That solved it, but I suspect that the race car's finish is nothing like your car's!

[Escadrille Ecosse]

2 hours ago, PaulAA said:

Thank you, chaps

There is a layer of black something on the chassis and tub bottom. Hard, brittle, but mostly intact.  There are a couple of very early surface blooms of rust on the seal edge where the wings overlap the chassis, which I intended to deal with this winter, so I'll go the brush and vigorous wash route.

Warsaw is divided into semi-autonamous administrative districts and I now have an effigy representing the district that unnecessarily salted their roads, slowly roasting over a black candle, with a dead hedgehog on either side. I shall be inserting various sharpened objects into it each day at midnight until the spring equinox. That'll teach 'em.

@PaulAAyou don't mess about!

[Nick Jones]

6 hours ago, PaulAA said:

I now have an effigy representing the district that unnecessarily salted their roads, slowly roasting over a black candle, with a dead hedgehog on either side. I shall be inserting various sharpened objects into it each day at midnight until the spring equinox. That'll teach 'em.

 

4 hours ago, Escadrille Ecosse said:

PaulAAyou don't mess about!

Indeed. Is this a proven thing? I can think of any number of deserving candidates!

[JohnD]

What you got against hedgehogs, Paul??   Lovely little things!

[Escadrille Ecosse]

4 minutes ago, JohnD said:

What you got against hedgehogs, Paul??   Lovely little things!

[PaulAA]

2 hours ago, Nick Jones said:

 

Indeed. Is this a proven thing? I can think of any number of deserving candidates!

I'm still at the experimental stage.  I've chosen hedgehogs for the current campaign because of their association with roads (I may need to revisit this choice).  Clearly the decaying tapeworms either side of the effigy of Mr Fromage were too subtle for the relevant gods to appreciate, although I may come back to this combination for other destructive populist parasites closer to home.

I will update on progress.  In the meantime, the hedgehogs are starting to smell.  Or is that the Fromage..?

 

[JohnD]

I understand the tragic association of hedgehogs and roads, but not how that might appeal to the Dark Lords.   Perhaps another symbolic emblem?   Baron Samedi wears a top hat, with the crown pulled out.  Would a Traffic Warden's cap, similarly disfigured, be more sinister?

John

[PaulAA]

It is indeed about the symbolism, John.  There are no traffic wardens as such here and I wanted to ensure that the gods understand that responsibility lies with a body corporate rather than an individual, such as the operative spreading the salt. Yes, sorry hedgehogs - you have been caught in the crossfire.

But I see your point.  And I have a different plan involving Baron Samedi...