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Straight to the point... My 68 is stripped and in bare fiberglass and I had an epic water pump failure today while it was running. Coolant EVERYWHERE!!! What should I do to help ensure I don't have future paint problems when I get back to the paint and body part of this restoration? Here's a few pics of the aftermath...









All of the streaks and spotting you see is the coolant. And here's a picture of the type of coolant I have in it...

porchdog

i would get on it with dawn soap and water. several time until no evidence of it remains. then a good wax&grease remover. no cheap lacquer thinner. it will melt it all into the surface .

DUB

AS per our phone conversation...like 'porchdog' wrote...I would use DAWN and water. One of the rare times I would wash it with that...but that is just my opinion.

OR..like when we talked...get a hold of a person who is a whiz in chemistry and see if there is something that can break down and neutralize or emulsify the ethylene glycol that is in the coolant.

Knowing that you got it wiped off so quickly...I am sure that the staining should go away rather quickly.

I myself that would use an automotive grade lacquer thinner or acetone and wipe it and be careful if you do due to the fumes. NO SPARKS or KA-BOOM. I personally have not run into fiberglass degradation when wiping raw fiberglass with lacquer thinner or acetone. NOT 'saying' it can not happen...but I have not encountered it.

I had to remove an oil spot on a 1971 Corvette hood where the A/C compressor spit oil on it and it soaked in...and I removed and flipped the hood and poured lacquer thinner on the hood and let it sit and applied heat to the underside ( which is actually the topside now) to draw out the oil and the lacquer thinner that was on the underside for hours and hours did no damage. Just 'saying'.

Everybody can do this in ways that they know that work for them...but I can 'say' that I also rarely wipe raw fiberglass with wax and grease remover...or at least the stuff I use due to it takes a while for it to flash off completely...even when I wiped it very well off of sanded primer. And I just do not feel comfortable in allowing what I can not wipe out of the pores of the fiberglass to stay there and leave a residue behind. I have experienced the ill effects of what can happen if wax and grease remover wiped on a panel and is allowed to flash off a panel and NOT wiped off.

Acetone.... in this scenario is my choice AFTER the initial cleaning has been performed.

DUB

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Thanks guys!