I hate to even admit this happen but it did. After our final duck hunt last season I put my rig into storage and didnt mess with it until this July. When I pulled it out, the front portion of the trailer has a white in color corrosion on it. I power washed everything but it really didnt help. Im guessing this was caused by road grime since we had snow packed roads that day.

Is there anything I can do to get this off? I didnt know if there is some type of cleaner or maybe a light sanding would work? I know its just a trailer but ......

Thanks for any help
Mark

OXY CLEAN!

Distilled vinegar, scrub it with a nylon or some sort of plastic bristle brush, then rinse the vinegar off throughly with water.

Hot dip galvanizing is a metalurgically bonded coating of zinc. It is not supposed to be pretty it is supposed to be corrosion protection. Anything you do chemically is going to eat away at the zinc, this includes vinegar (acid eats zinc). If you sand it you will take away a good amount of zinc.

To get rid of the white hit it gently with a soft stainless wire brush. Do it by hand so you don't really get into the zinc. Should knock down what I would guess is "white rust" although it usually only occurs when galvanizing gets wet and has no air flow like metal roofing stacked and left in the rain.

Thanks for the input guys. What Over the Line posted makes sense so I'll try that first and see how it goes.

Thanks again
Mark

Also after you clean it off get you a can of cold galvanize zinc spray. Its just like spray paint and will help protect the area if you have lost some of the original galvanize coating.

BTW, I make a living working with galvanized sheet metal, the vinegar will remove the top layer of powder and make it look new again without marking and scratching it up with much less work, the thoroughly rinsing it with water part is to dilute the vinegar stop the process. You can wash with soap and water to be sure.