My grandfather use to use kerosene in a squirt can to get the fire started each morning in the old wood cookstove. One day my uncle borrowed the squirt can and put a little naptha in it to squirt down the sparkplug hole of an old gasoline lawnmower to get it started. Grandpa came down for a look, seen HIS oilcan and grabbed it up and put it back on the shelf by the end of the woodstove. Next morning I was laying in bed, heard granpa get up and about, heard the old lids clanking on the wood cookstove as he crumpled up some paper and put it in, then some kindling wood, then I heard a couble of DOONK-DOONK noises as he pressed the base of the old squirt style style can to squirt what he THOUGHT was kerosene into the stove. Then I heard the scratch of a sulphur match---then 'KABAAM!!!!"----"HOLY JESUS ANNIE!!! (my Grandma)--THE DAMN STOVE BLEW UP---GET THE KIDS OUTA THE HOUSE!!!" Nobody was hurt, the house didn't catch fire, but my uncle was in deep shit for the next couple of weeks---
the military restorers use lemon pledge to keep the oxidation off the flat camo jobs. also sheds water for a while.
He's remembering correctly. Although the few I saw were done with clean motor oil. And . . . it's baby powder that attracts the girls.... The first all primered car I saw was a 40 Ford coupe circa 1954. Black primer and after a couple of wash jobs it didn't look like it did after it was first shot with primer. The owner wiped it down with motor oil, but was sorry he did not long after. The oil attracted dust like crazy and this was in a beach town in SoCal where it's not so dusty. Not anything like here in the Dez where if you wax a black car, you have to dust it after you're done. I heard he had a helluva time getting the oil off before the painter would take it in for "real" paint. It did get painted, looked great, but I don't know how well it lasted. Along these same lines, little brother's first car was grandad's bought new 1954 Ford. It was the stock 54 Ford light metallic green. He had a painter friend of dad's, cool guy, shoot it with a dark metallic green and the car looked good. The painter recommended the first wash job be done in a week and only cold water used. After that he could wash the car with a cup of kerosene in the water and it would stay looking good. The old painter was right, every time little brother washed the 54 it looked like it'd been freshly waxed. Interestingly, it didn't smell like kereosene after it was washed and dried. After about a year, little brother started using a powdered car wash soap and carnuba wax. The car looked great until he got drafted, went to Vietnam and sold he car. Simple answer is, there are no shortcuts to having a good looking car....
my mates dad painted his galaxy flat temporarily, then someone told him it would look better if he put baby oil on it, then no one wanted to paint it. i hate getting oil, WD or tyre shine near metal or paint, you never know what you are going to want to do down the track and oil and silicone can penetrate the metal.
We used a lot of things 'back in the day'. My favorite tire dressing was brake fluid. Tire black looked painted but brake fluid made the rubber look like new. couldn't have been good for the tires but we didn't care. Learned the trick from my dad, a jalopy racer & hot rodder in the late '40s and early '50s. Ernest
I think it would have been fine until the girl he was dating leaned against the car in her nice dress and got it covered with ANY kind of oil which would not wash out completely.
When I still worked as a mechanic we had a old timer with a dark green early 70s Monte Carlo that he used diesel on. Man that car had a shine.
The Jalopy Journal
