my restored 53 chevy has a small colant leak caused by a pinhole in the raidiator and it leaks onto the grill and front splashpan, both of which have a 13 coat paintjob + clearcoat. Ive waxed it alot with Meguairs 26 and i was wondering if getting coolant on the paintjob would hurt it.

Thanks

 

i dunno, but i'm pretty sure that it isn't gonna help the paint..

 

Glycol will, over time, hurt your paint.

 

I think coolant is like bird crap, eggs etc, if you get it off as soon as possible then there is little chance of it hurting the paint. If you let it sit for a prolonged period of time, and worse in the sun then there is a chance of it hurting the paint.

Once you have it washed off and you see no physical damage then all is good. I would re-wax the area because it, the coolant, may have stripped the area.

 

A good rule of thumb but, it's not quite as acidic or caustic as the aforementiond substances. Glycol Ether (commonly called anti-freeze) has a pH of around 5-7.3 (according to an Ashland Oil MSDS obtained online).

With that being said, it's not very scary to deal with from a 'burn' stand point but, it does have the potential to damage the paint.

Along with glycol ether, there are other chemicals in anti-freeze that can do damage to the paint because of their chemical properties. Plus, let's face it, a vehicle squirting AF on the ground isn't very environmentally friendly either.

RP

 

i didnt figure it would hurt too much but ill rewax the area sometime soon. (new raidiator is ordered i think) I wasnt too concerned with the enviromental friendly part too much, since it only gets 12 or so miles per gallon

 

Damn, the things I learn on here...