Date:         Sat, 14 Apr 2007 22:11:35 -0700
Reply-To:     Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Robert Fisher <refisher@MCHSI.COM>
Subject:      Re: daily driver = RUST Re: Friday Ramblings, probably long,
              possibly pointle...
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
              reply-type=original

I was delivering pizzas in Knoxville many years ago during one of the worst
storms ever in the time I was living there (this was about '85 maybe). The
THP had just declared all roads closed in the area except for emergencies so
I was headed back to the store when I passed a house where some idiot was
cleaning the snow and ice of his driveway... with hot water, from his water
heater.

I made it through ok but you could already see what the result of his
stupidity was going to be... I've often wondered if he managed to kill
anybody.

What made me think of that was that those of you in the salt belt could
probably wash the underside of your cars in your driveway or even garage if
you were quick about it and if you had some idea of what to do with the
runoff. Some of those small home pressure washers are rated at 2 or even 2.5
gpm- You're not supposed to run water hotter than about 140 F through one of
those pumps but most household water heaters are set slightly lower than
that so you could get away with running the supply out of the water heater
for a few minutes. It shouldn't take very long to wash the worst of the crap
out.

I've been thinking about this because a) I own a pressure washing business
and b) we're probably going to move from sunny SoCal to not-quite-as-sunny
Nova Scotia in the next 2-3 years so I've been giving some thought to how to
keep our vehicles from getting destroyed. A quick and dirty way to get the
runoff would be to have another person standing by with a Shop-Vac, but what
I might do is get a several yards of gravel and make a van-sized 'wash pit'
in a flat spot off the side of the drive. Roll the van onto the gravel every
so often, give it the once-over and move the van to wherever you normally
park it; do a more thorough wash at 'warmer' times when the opportunity
presents itself.

Kind of a PITA but not so much as having your vehicles disintigrate out from
under you.

Cya,
Robert

----- Original Message -----
From: <JordanVw@AOL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2007 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: daily driver = RUST Re: Friday Ramblings, probably long,
possibly pointle...


> In a message dated 4/14/07 12:26:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> magikvw@GMAIL.COM writes:
>
>
>> Salt and snow will eventually take their toll but if people would wash
>> thei
>> cars more often in the winter it certainly would help keep the rust at
>> bay
>> longer.
>>
>>
>
> kinda hard to wash your car when the temp is below freezing..   which is
> the
> case in most northeast states the majority of the winter.
> you car gets covered with salt in october, and stays that way till april.
>
> when i was coming back from GA last month, towing my westy, i went thru 10
> miles or so of the nastiest road salt on i-95 south of baltimore..  i had
> planned my return trip (post V-day snowstorm) to try to make it back on
> all dry
> roads, but got caught in a freak snowsquall that activated the previously
> dry salt
> on the roads and turned it into a nasty wet brine..  temps were in the
> 20's
> ..  the van, trailer and westy were totally white with that sh*t.  when i
> got
> back i took the van to one of those do-it-yourself car washes to try to
> spray
> it off but that was kinda pointless,  the water froze as soon as it hit
> the
> metal and all my doors froze shut..  didnt even was the salt off.
> so it sat like that. nothing you can do.
>
>
> fun times in the salt belt.
>
> chris
>
>
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