Hi guys.

I started the Mini up again for the first time in weeks. So I left it to idle for about 10 minutes and when I came back I noticed a bit of steam coming from under the bonnet. So I lift the bonnet and it seems there was an air pocket in the system and the radiator fluids were flowing out from the sides of the cap.

When it's hot the fluid instantly dries up and evaporates as it touches the coolant tank (it is made form stainless steel). It leaves behind this hazy white residue which I have tried to scrub but it just refuses to come off. The tank WAS a polished mirror finish and now it looks like crap. The surface is smooth like the tank, but it stained.

How do I get this stuff off without having to sand down the tank and machine polishing it? Is there some special chemical I need to use? Normal all purpose cleaners don't work at all!

Thanks in advance!

 

I'm not sure if this will work for your or not, but when I need to polish anything that was shiny before I use "Mothers" polish. Has always done the job for me. Good luck.

 

The coolant is caustic and has etched the tank.....(sigh). Phil who is a sponsor (detailers domain) has some very good metal polishes he can get to you, but know this there will some pretty good effort to polish it.

 

It's a good idea, but if it's stainless it will never have that satin look anymore, plus if it's polished it won't dissipate heat as well. You may have to steel wool, or similar the whole thing to keep a satin look???


John

 

John you are right, stainless is MUCH different than polished alloy, chrome etc.... That being said the job becomes a little tougher as the finish can be degrated, 0000 steel wool as John said could be used but I would try that on the underside if possible to see how the finish(texture) is affected.If the car was in my shop I would try all the different products at my disposal to see what would work until the problem was corrected, obviously that was what the OP was looking for was something to use but do not want to have you on a wild goose chase buying products as this problem is a chemical etch on metal issue and not polished alloy at that.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. What a pain this is going to be.

I went and bought some Meguiars metal polish and I managed to get a tiny half inch area semi-clean after a good minute of polishing by hand.

I think I need to do this one Sunday afternoon when I have some free time and try get it back to what it sort of looked like.

PS. The tank is stainless steel.

 

Mike I have some excellent metal polish you can try as well if you interested

 

Well if you came right with cleaning a little by hand, then there is a good chance you can get full correction with machines.

 

Thanks Carn, I managed to get most of it off - but I destroyed one of my buffing pads in the process It looks almost as new now, so I'm happy!

 

If it etched very badly, you can try some very high grit sand paper, 2000 or so. Wet sand it, steel wool, polishing compound. I spend a lot of time polishing, and stainless is quite time consuming.
For what it's worth, the effect of polishing on heat dissipation in radiators/coolers is negligible. I don't think you'll notice any performance difference Mike.