Hand cleaner as tar remover! You gotta see this!

**Accumulator** · 07-14-2018, 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by Street5927

Wow.... my neighbor, who is in his 70`s came over and said "If you really want to make that thing shine, use black shoe polish, that`s what we used in the old days"..... uggh!!!

Eh, your neighbor is full of it. My Mother and her sister were waxing cars back before WWII and they sure weren`t using shoe polish (rather Simonize, which they hated buffing off). There are clueless people in every generation but it`s not like nobody was taking decent care of vehicles back in the old days...even way back before "vehicles" had engines (e.g., Zymol).

But really...I just don`t get it. Do people go through life marring up every fragile surface they encounter? Sheesh, I wouldn`t have survived childhood...

EDIT: Gee, I`m sorta vibing cranky today

**grungy** · 07-15-2018, 07:29 AM

For a car I bought new (less than 20 miles on the odometer), the paint was really rough (think 80 grit to the hand). The embedded contamination did come off along with some clear. Mind you that was in 1988..

**ShaneB** · 07-15-2018, 09:00 AM

Ya know what else works great at removing tar? Sandblaster

**jimmie jam** · 07-15-2018, 09:06 AM

Back in the 60`s...yes, I`m that old. We would pour a cup of kerosene in the water bucket (no soap) and wash the car in the winter to kill all the road grime and leave a nice sheen on the finish. Crazy, right?

**Accumulator** · 07-15-2018, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by jimmie jam

Back in the 60`s...yes, I`m that old. We would pour a cup of kerosene in the water bucket (no soap) and wash the car in the winter to kill all the road grime and leave a nice sheen on the finish. Crazy, right?

Yeah, back then my pal`s dad used to use a kerosene/?some kind of oil? mix on his `62 Chevy, a work vehicle that traveled to far-flung job sites in all kinds of weather. It served him well for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles back when most Ohio cars were scrap after a few years. While it sure wasn`t, uhm....Autopian, it had its good points and on job sites with mud up to your knees it looked a lot better than most of the (much newer) other vehicles there.

**jimmie jam** · 07-15-2018, 06:48 PM

Originally Posted by Accumulator

Yeah, back then my pal`s dad used to use a kerosene/?some kind of oil? mix on his `62 Chevy, a work vehicle that traveled to far-flung job sites in all kinds of weather. It served him well for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles back when most Ohio cars were scrap after a few years. While it sure wasn`t, uhm....Autopian, it had its good points and on job sites with mud up to your knees it looked a lot better than most of the (much newer) other vehicles there.

Interesting Acc, I was born and raised in Warren, OH...that`s where the kerosene went down, lol. Some of the reasoning was that the oil residue would protect the finish under the trim and leave a coating on the chrome. I also would coat the chrome with WWII surplus cosmoline, that is until I could afford a winter "beater". NE Ohio is also where I learned of IW845 in 1973. Ah yea, the good old days..............."Blue Coral" and "Classic" paste waxes were the bomb.

**Accumulator** · 07-16-2018, 11:37 AM

jimmie jam- I always suspected that prior military service somehow factored in on the "Kerosene approach".

Heh heh, sounds like when *you* say "cosmoline" you`re actually talking about the real stuff!

And !Oh Yeah! just get me going on those old products! Blue Coral was actually very good stuff though labor-intensive (many layers kept the local Funeral Home vehicles looking incredibl, utterly Autopian-quality and that was back in the `60s-`70s!) and I fondly remember all the stuff in the Classic line including that weird/ugly-colored, sorta granular wax, loved the artwork on their containers!

**Accumulator** · 07-16-2018, 11:42 AM

Oh, and BTW...I`ve been thinking about this thread and how I`m posting so high-and-mighty about others being idiots who should`ve known better, BUT I`ve [messed] up some painted surfaces here in the house by foolishly not doing the kind of thinking/test-spots/etc. that I`m blasting others for skipping

Depending on how somebody presented the situation, I`d look at what I`ve done and say "oh, what an idiot, whoever did that must be stupid." Some latex interior paint didn`t withstand the sort of cleaning that I`d been assured it would...yeah, I just blindly accepted what I wanted to hear instead of thinking for myself.

**jimmie jam** · 07-16-2018, 06:41 PM

Again, funny you should mention Funeral Home vehicles...my buddy worked at a local FH "Gillen-Larkins" on the night shift while we were in college. In exchange for taking care if the vehicles (hearses and the Fleetwood 75 limo`s) we could bring our cars into the heated underground garage and wash/wax them in the dead of winter. Nothing like stylin around NE Ohio in January/February in a freshly washed/waxed ride...allbeit short lived. Those Caddys were some outstanding real estate to work on...the front and rear bumpers were so far apart they had different zip codes.

**Eliot Ness** · 07-16-2018, 09:25 PM

Originally Posted by Accumulator

......I fondly remember all the stuff in the Classic line including that weird/ugly-colored, sorta granular wax, loved the artwork on their containers!

I still remember applying Classic car wax to my parents 1963 Chevy...... it buffed off very easy but I think I still have a sore arm from applying that stuff!