Road paint in the wheel wells... I need your opinions..

DaGonz

DaGonz

Autopia fire/rescue.
One of the firefighters I work with asked me to look at his wife's Chrysler 300C.



Sometime in the last week she ran over some white road paint. It is mostly in the wheel wells, with a few spots of it on the body . It is also as hard as the proverbial rock. The car is a dark blue metallic.



I am looking for suggestions as to removing the road paint.



Thanks in advance!
 
Wheel wells, get some undercoat in an areosol and spray over it.

On the paint?

That's another issue and hard to remove.

A good safety solvent, allowed to dwell and kept wet for at least 15 minutes to a half an hour is the first step.

Then, with a "plastic razor blade", carefully work it under the edges of the road paint and "attempt" to remove.

It is a tough one to remove, so nothing is always going to work.

Grumpy
 
I'd try blasting it off the wheel well liners with a powerwasher. Also try ala carte picking them off with either a plastic razor blade or your fingernail. Keep in mind that most of these liners are pretty cheap and a company called LKQ Corp now sells them individually (used/salvage). There's a location near you. Here's their link: LKQ



edit: I just checked the OEM price and each liner is $46.20 and appears to be pretty easy to swap out.
 
had a car the other day with it ALL over the wheel wells, the side skirts and tires and it wasnt budging with tarminator, polishing, scraping, wd-40 (last thing I could think to try in my bag)....its still on it unfortunately. I worked an area for about 30 minutes with little to no aid and from the looks of it, its about a 10 hour job...$$$ not wanted to be spent = client living with it
 
One can of the areosol undercoat will be the least expensive way to handle this.

After all, these are "wheel wells" and the undercoating will not only cover over, but add additional sound deadening, be pliable, absorb rocks and such, and it will look as good as you could ask, especially after a few months on the road.



Plus, if you don't over-do the application, there will be product left over to redo them when they get looking tacky again.



Beats spraying some dressing that will only last a week or so at best.



Grumpy
 
For paint removal, try DuPont 3812S enamel reducer.



Otherwise, you really need something acetone based, designed for paint thinning. NOT stripper.
 
Don't places like TOL sell "Road Paint Remover"? Not saying I'm recommending it or anything...



I got it off the beater-Audi by letting FK1119 dwell on it for a long time (saturated rag held in place by a 2x4), softened it enough for the plastic razor blade to get it off.
 
It was the keosene in the 1119 that did the work.

You could have used a good safety solvent the same way, keeping the particles damp with it for a while.

Usually works much faster.

The "edges" will soften so you can get a plastic razor blade under the particle to remove it.

Grumpy
 
I was told long ago that a product by PPG-- DX440 --works well for this. I've never been able to find it not do i know if its still in production.
 
Ron Ketcham said:
It was the keosene in the 1119 that did the work...
Click to expand...



Yeah, that's what I figured (well...after you enlightened me regarding what's in FK1119 that is).



You could have used a good safety solvent the same way, keeping the particles damp with it for a while.

Usually works much faster.
Click to expand...



Any suggestions on what a good (i.e., safe) solvent would be? I don't suppose New Car Prep would do it...



In this case I was FK1119ing the vehicle anyhow, so it was a nice simple solution, but should it happen again I'd like to have a plan.



The "edges" will soften so you can get a plastic razor blade under the particle to remove it.
Click to expand...



Right, that's exactly how it worked. Those plastic razor blades are handy things to have around (and they're yet another thing I discovered through you and AI/VG).
 
The New Car Prep works great and the formula change 4 years ago made it work even better.

It is not only non-flammable, but non-combustible as well.

Drove a Ford safety packaging engineer nuts when we started private labeling it for MotorCraft.



"Aww, not possible to be such, you guys are crazy", etc, etc.



Once we got him to really look at what Ford's World Health and Safety Lab's lab results, he woke up.



About as safe of a safety solvent one can obtain.



Pretty proud of that product, no carcenigenic's, 50 state VOC compliant, etc.



Grumpy
 
Ron Ketcham said:
The New Car Prep works great and the formula change 4 years ago made it work even better.///About as safe of a safety solvent one can obtain.



Pretty proud of that product, no carcenigenic's, 50 state VOC compliant, etc.



Grumpy
Click to expand...



Ah, that sounds good. Somebody here had disparaged NCP, saying one oughta just use Mineral Spirits of somesuch instead, but I had a feeling NCP really is simply a "good solvent to use on vehicles". Guess I have a bit of (blind?) faith in AI/VG.



I forget when I got mine, but I wouldn't be surprised if I have the older version. I oughta check the can and see if it's flamable/combustible (I'm guessing that's an easy way to tell 'em apart).
 
Accumulator said:
Ah, that sounds good. Somebody here had disparaged NCP, saying one oughta just use Mineral Spirits of somesuch instead, but I had a feeling NCP really is simply a "good solvent to use on vehicles". Guess I have a bit of (blind?) faith in AI/VG.



I forget when I got mine, but I wouldn't be surprised if I have the older version. I oughta check the can and see if it's flamable/combustible (I'm guessing that's an easy way to tell 'em apart).
Click to expand...



I trust AI as well. I mean I think it's wise to pick and choose your products from a wide net of manufacturers, but NCP is certainly a great one.I'm a fan and have designated it as a staple product in my arsenal. I have the old version circa 2005. I have a little bit left so I'll be ordering. Not bad for 5+ years and I mostly use it to remove LSPs/ polishing oils. Good stuff!
 
Really hard to tell unless you read the label. They both have the "smell".

The older version will have "combustible" on the label, but not "flammable".

Mineral spirits are actually a pretty safe solvent to use.

Good old naptha (lighter fluid) is safe as well for small removal spots. I use a Zippo, so always got a can in both cars, in the shop, etc. Works great, just don't use it around an open flame, but not damaging on auto paint.

Much better than some that are sold which have a xylene content, that's an easy on to spot, law requires a skull and crossbones on the warning label.
 
I use straight naphtha to clean out the insides of the bottle caps of accumulated polish and compound build up. Works well.
 
All this talk of naptha and Zippos reminds me that I need some flints..



For some reason I never use Naptha as a solvent; it doesn't seem to evaporate all that "cleanly", like it leaves a residue or something. I dripped some into the sink when filling the Zippo and the resulting spots were there until I finally scrubbed 'em off with a cleanser (and yeah, that was Zippo brand naptha).
 
Sealed the driveway last week.

As I got to the club later in the day, noticed I had touched the door on the convert and left a couple of finger prints of the sealer on it.

Reached in the car, grabbed an older micro fiber from under the seat, my lighter fluid, wet the towel with it, wiped off the residue, turned to towel to a dry portion and wiped again.

Wall-ahh!

All gone.

Grumpy
 
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