Friend has an old Gore trailer. She needs some suggestions on cleaning up the oxidation on the white paint? Any tips or suggestions? I wasn’t sure if you could use aluminum cleaner? Thanks in advance!
Two Gore trailer owner here. Gore recommends using an automotive rubbing compound product, followed by a paste wax. The rubbing compound does a really good job, but is a ton, no, ten tons of physical labor. But after you finish the trailer looks virtually new.
Gores have white fiberglass roofs. I started spraying the roof after pressure washing it clean of the black growth with a product called Wet&Forget every year. After five years now, the roof has remained clean and white, and no more climbing a stepladder with the pressure washer wand,
I also spray the white painted body with the same Wet&Forget product. No more black streaks running down the sides.
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Never tried LCDR’s method. What works for me is SoftScrub and a yellow and green scrubbing sponge. Try that in a small area and see if it works for you. Once you have SoftScrubbed the entire trailer area that you want to, wash and rinse thoroughly with Mother’s Car Wash soap. Dry. Then do the 3 step Mother’s Wax system —As to the black streaks, these are caused by pollutants mixing with rain water. Again, the Soft Scrub should take these off and they should stay off if you wax thoroughly. I only wax once a year (I hire the neighbor kids to do it under my supervision because it involves a ladder, and I no longer do ladders at my age).
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Honestly once it gets to this point it’s too late. Either strip to raw aluminum color, or plan to repaint.
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Here is the text in the “Trailer Washing Procedure” my Gore dealership included with both of my trailers. I shortened it because I am a one finger typer/keyboarder.
Pressure wash the trailer using Krud Kutter multipurpose pressure washer concentrate.
White aluminum - Apply 3M rubbing compound #06085 or equivalent. Follow with Turtle Wax Super Hard Shell wax.
Fiberglass top - Use the same #06085 rubbing compound. Then wax with DuraGloss #501 Marine and RV polish for fiberglass.
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That’s assuming it still has a clear coat though. This one is gone baby gone, rubbing compound will take it to the aluminum. When you wash this trailer on asphalt, it looks like milk running off of it.
How do I know? I had an old Featherlite that was in this condition re: oxidized paint. There was no fixing it.
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We are going to take it back to the aluminum. It’s pretty trashed, we’re in for a large amount of work. I will do before & after photos. It’s a great trailer with a tack room, so worth fixing up.
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Would you please share how you stripped it down.
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I sprayed on airplane paint stripper, let it sit at least 10 minutes.
Scrubbed the majority of paint off with a sponge.
Followed by a rotary buffer with aluminum polish. Finally I rinsed down with an Aluminum brightening mix.
I waxed the aluminum lightly afterwards. Not easy!!!
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Bet you need a shoulder massage. Looks great!
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