hardened sap

I

imported_Neothin

New member
So a good friend of mine is in town this weekend and with him comes his isuzu rodeo. Knowing that I enjoy car care, he's asked me if he can do anything about the spots on his hood and roof. I went over today and had a look at them (alas no camera) and it looked to me to be hardened tree sap or maybe some kind of glue (as weird as that may seem). He said that the spots have been there since he bought the SUV and that was almost a year ago so who knows how long these spots have been on the paint. he said that no wash has been able to take them off. A clay bar didn't work either. Assuming that these spots are indeed sap, how would I go about getting them off? Would putting an APC/WD40/bug + tar remover soaked paper towel over them for 10 minutes, removing, agitating, repeat as necessary work or am i going to have to do something more drastic? If it is sap, I'm kind of figuring that there is going to be some etching so i'll be bringing my PC along. Any help would be appreciated.
 
I think isopropyl alcohol works for removing hardened sap. You could try the APC first, letting it soak for a few minutes if you don't have any ISO around.
 
Neothin said:
Anyone else have any tips/tricks?
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Rubbing alcohol is going to be your best bet, so I'd make that the first shot. Spray/wipe/apply somehow some alcohol to the sap spots, and with any luck, you'll be able to just lightly scrub them away with a MF.



If not, then what you'll want to do is get the sap spot moist with alcohol, and carefully scrape the top (which is usually the only really hard part) off with your fingernail. Don't worry, I've done it on a million cars before, and you can usually scrape the sap spot with your fingernail without even touching the paint. Then, rub it off with alcohol and a MF.



The above techniques have never failed me, though if you simply can not get the stuff to come off - turpentine is going to probably be the next thing to try.
 
Sap that's been on the paint for a few years or more will NOT come off with alchohol; it will already have "dug" itself into the paint. Turpentine might be a better choice, but it will only work on certain types of sap.
 
My buddies minivan had pine tree sap sit for along time and it is hopeless. It has bored right thru the paint. I would not even touch it with a pole.
 
I have used isopropyl alcohol to remove tree sap that was dried up just like two part epoxy. Use an MF you don't care about. For really dried up sap get a corner of the MF damp with IPA and let it sit on the sap for a minute or two to help loosen it up, then just wipe it up. If there is lots of sap you will need to go over the area with a clean MF or it will be sticky. You will need to re-wax.
 
Methyl Hydrate works twice as fast as Iso. on most sap. I used Iso. for years until i tried MH. It doesn't soften paint.
 
Used an ISO soaked paper towel on the spots to no avail. Switched over to poorboy's apc soaked paper towel to no avail. Went a little crazy and decided to mix the two and poured it liberally over the spots, let it sit, and then took a claybar to it. That did the trick. Whatever it was is gone, but small yellowish spots were left. Took a polishing pad and some AIO to it and those were removed. Hood looks great now. THanks for the advice guys.
 
sorry to bring an old thread back from the past but I may have an answer for this.



Today as I inspected a detail I was working I noticed large tree sap spots on the hood of the truck.



They looked like this...

sap.jpg


So my immediate reaction was to do a search on Autopia for removing such spots. That brought me here. I was going to try the alcohol as mentioned but I reached out grabbed Goof Off from the arsenal and I am happy that I did. I've used the product numerous times in the past to remove glue from pin striping, decals, dealer stickers, and so forth. I put a bit on the spot let it sit for about 30 seconds and starting wiping it off easily with a paper towel. It took a bit of time but it was very simple.



So if you have a sap problem Goof Off might be an easy option of removal.



Take care. :xyxthumbs
 
twitch said:
So if you have a sap problem Goof Off might be an easy option of removal.

. :xyxthumbs
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That's my secret too. It's works much different than Alcohol. You also might want to bring a bar of clay to test out too. Clay will do less, if not any, damage when removing some tree sap. If you use Alcohol, you might be needing to rotary it after, not PC.
 
Neothin, sounds like your fried got lucky with the sap. I've done quite a few cars for customers who let sap on they car for long periods of time and even though ISO or solvent will usually remove it, DEEP etching ofted occurs. I just did my cousin's car because she had to return it on a lease, and compounding with a rotary and wool MANY times did nothing for the etching. I seem to encounter this frequently. Next time I'm going to drip or spray clean into the affected area, sand, and buff - I will report my results.
 
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