OK CHEMISTS (RON!) WATER SPOTS

on a dark colored car. Have lots of minerals in my water and I believe that this is what leaves the white visible spots on a dark paint job after washing Can I use any type of filter? Where can I get one for my hose? I believe that most houshold filters do not remove minerals-true? ( because they are useful and necessary for our bodies). Use shammy or squegee after washing? 10 years of college just to prepare you to answer this question, Ron. cb
 
Chip,

There are a number of inline hose filtration systems available from marine supplies
dealers. They do a great job of removing the
funk from your washwater. While they are not
exactly cheap, they do work. Why not try a
chamois first, as they are a whole lot cheaper?

Bill
 
When I owned my black Cobra, the only way I could deal with the water spots was to wash in the shade, chamois immediately, and polish the car with Zaino after I was done. Common zeolite-based household water softeners simply remove calcium and replace it with sodium, whereas you want to see total dissolved solids removal. That will require some sort of reverse osmosis setup which will be expensive. I presume the marine units that Bill refers to are RO.
 

Ron Earp

Admin
Chip,

That is always a problem when you have minerals in your water at relatively high concentrations. Most common are calcium, manganese, and magnesium but of course iron will be present as well as a few others.

As already posted, the best you can do is get a filtration system for your water supply that could be rather costly. There are lots of types and I'm not an expert.

Or, get some good materials for buffing. You may want to get a water hardness test kit and find out if you need to be softening it. Basically this is an ion exchange process where you trade sodium for other ions which you don't want.

Alternatively you could purchase deionized water for washing your car, typically less than $1 per gallon at stores and use this for the final rinse. However, this doesn't always do the trick.

That is about the best I can do at the moment. I do remember a product that was offered at one time to pre-treat your water in the bucket before use, I'll see if I can find it. However, I doubt it would be that effective as I'd imagine it would try to drop the minerals (calcium, iron, etc.) out of solution as a precipitate into the bottom of the bucket. Might be worth something though.

R

[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Ron Earp ]
 
I've been reading this board from close to the beginning, but never registered because I couldn't contribute anything useful - well finally I can offer something small...
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I live in a hard water area and get a _lot_ of waterspots unless I dry the car immediately - but instead of a chamois I use a silicon rubber blade... much less effort. Here are a couple of links:

US: http://www.autobarn.net/ac20002.html
UK: http://www.speeding.co.uk/acatalog/www_speeding_co_uk_Hydra_Flexi_Blade_173.html

Doesn't scratch and works suprisingly well.

note: I haven't used either of those shops, they're just the first I found with a quick search...

ciao

Ian

ps - Great board btw! I have no immediate plans to build a GT40 (although I'd love to), but I'm thinking hard about a Pilgrim 3000 (Austin Healy replica) as a first kit car (since building a GT40 with no prior experience might be an expensive mistake).
 
Have you tried polishing your car with Mer?

Great polish! You can add it to a bucket of water and wash your car in the normal manner. You can then leave it to dry and simply polish off, or as I prefer to do, you can use Mer as a finishing wax too. Mearly put Mer on when the car is still wet (or dry) and in sunshine or shade (it doesn't matter!). You can do the whole car at once, then buff off afterwards. It leaves no streaks or swirly patterns afterwards.

If your car then gets wet, all you have to do is dry the car with a chamois and he-presto the just buffed finish is back!

This must be cheaper then fixing a filter system to your water!

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G

Guest

Guest
Hershal, again, simply brilliant. I do hope we can all get together some time in the future! There are a bunch of you guys I would love to talk with!
 
AS always, thank you gentlemen. Will get a squegee, no spot tabs, have a chamois and will work fast. cb
 
I used to have that problem when I lived in Indiana. The water was pretty hard with lots of minerals in it. I solved the problem by using an old fertilizer sprayer that fit onto the end of the hose. I unscrewed the container and put in a no spot dishwasher tablet. Then I rinsed the car. it works great. Just like the TV commercial, no more spots.
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Hersh
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Lynn,
It's bound to happen sooner or later. The interest in these cars grow everyday. I am mostly empressed by the amount of knowledge on this board and the way we all conduct ourselves. So far the respect for the opposing view point has been good. This to me speaks volumes as to the kind of people we have on this board. I for one look forward to the day we all can meet each other and put a face to those names .
It will happen...GT40 gatherings real and replica..Yahooo.
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I think them Britts already know what it's like. They got wise early. I'll sure be glad when we get to where they are...and we will !
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Hersh
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I respect the "scientific approach" of the people on this site. There is way too much non-science in this world. cb
 

Jim Rosenthal

Supporter
There is a nother product you might try that is cheap and won't hurt the finish. Kodak makes a product called Photo-Flo 200 which is available in photography shops that cater to folks who do their own black-and-white developing and printing. It is a wetting agent which specifically was made to reduce spotting on negative film- because spots on film become much larger and much more annoying when you enlarge and print the images. It doesn't take much. I think a capful or two in your rinse water would do the job. In any event, it won't hurt anything.
 

David Morton

Lifetime Supporter
Another relatively simple solution : if you have a garden blower set the nozzle/outlet to maximum and blow your car dry. I use it on my explorer(black) and the wife's S80(dark green).[probably because I'm lazy] There's also a carwash near Heathrow Airport(London) that all the chaufers use that has demineralised water durng the final rinse which works extremely well. In a previous life I used to park in a multi-storey car park for up to 10 days and this car park was newly built. The rain washed down (presmably lime or calcium) out of the structure and the company (BA) had to pick up the bill for car resprays. However,
I researched a few chemicals available on the market and a descaler called Viakal just removed any deposit instantly without any paintwork damage. It is, however, corrosive and needs to be wahed off completely afterwards.
Dave m
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