My experience with tree sap today (tips/tricks)

I

imported_jaobrien6

New member
So I had my car parked out from under the carport for about a week, because we've been cleaning up from house projects and I had a pile of garbage under the carport that I had to take to the dump. After the car had sat for almost a week, I realized that it was getting covered in sap from our evergreen tree. Must be the wrong time of year, I guess. I had what I now estimate to be 30-40 droplets of sap (each about the size of a pea to the size of a dime) on the back half of my car. Some of them had been on for days, and had dried and hardened.



So, I read through some previous posts on tree sap, and looked over the suggestions, and tackled this today. I'd never had nearly this much sap on a car before, and wasn't sure what would work, especially on the dried stuff.



Some suggestions I found that didn't do squat: IPA and hot water with your favorite shampoo. The IPA actually didn't seem to do a thing. The soapy water worked fine on the fresh sap, but didn't even phase the dried stuff.



Bug/Tar Remover (I used Turtle Wax) - This also worked very well on the fresh stuff, but didn't touch the dried stuff... at first. Since this is fairly thick, and stays in place, I sprayed it on, and started letting it sit longer and longer. The longer it would sit, the more it would soften the sap, and the more I could wipe off. I finally developed this method:



1. Spray Bug/Tar Remover.

2. Sit down and drink some beer.

3. After about 5 minutes or so, wipe off tar remover and softened sap.

4. Repeat.



After about 4-5 repetitions, even the most dried, stubborn sap, finally came clean, with barely any effort. This whole process took me about and hour and a half 'cause I had so much sap on the car.



I followed up with a quick wash and duragloss AW since I know the tar remover stripped off the #16 I had on there. I'm sure I probably created some marring before I realized that I needed to just keep repeating the steps and the sap would soften enough to wipe off with very little effort, but I'll leave polishing for another day.



No pics 'cause I was just trying to get this done before I ran out of light this evening, and didn't really plan on this being a learning experience...



Hopefully this helps someone else if you find a whole mess of sap on your car someday.



John
 
I just had a friend who spent the weekend up at Mono Village in the Sierras, with his brand spankin new 07 F350 4x4 Diesel. He calls me up and asks what he can do with the huge sap globs from the Sugar Pines. He said it was everywhere and on everything. I told him to use WD-40, and a MF. Wash afterwards and seal it up! (He likes to leave the polishing to me) ((Geee, thanks)) This truck is huge.....=(

Worked like a champ he said!
 
Like Homer would say, WD40 - is there anything it can't do! That stuff has got to be in everybodies tool chest.
 
WD-40 washes off. It also works for bugs. Keep in mind you need to reapply your LSP after using any Tar remover, etc.



Stoners tarminator works. It doesn't work well on old, hard sap, especially in cold weather. Once the weather is warm it works pretty good though.





Denatured alcohol works very well on sap, even old, dry sap. I use it for paint, plastic, and fabric convertible tops with great success.



Here are some examples: http://autopia.org/forum/click-brag/88796-05-bmw-z4-sap-removal-56k-no.html



http://autopia.org/forum/click-brag/79411-2006-mini-cooper-convertible-56k-warn.html
 
When using IPA I have found using 70% or better works best. Putting the IPA on a dry mf and then wiping the sap seems to work better than putting the IPA on the sap. A damp mf or wet surface seems to dilute the IPA enough that it doesn't work as well. Same reason the 50% isn't as effective.
 
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