TOPIC:

I have these tires for my AYK 566B that are in very good shape, and have never been run.





However, the tires have some sort of white "dust" all over, that can't be removed with water. When the tires dries up the "dust" comes back....

As these tires are "impossible" to get in this condition (in any condition, actually) I'm hesitant to apply anything to them that could destroy them.

Could I use the stuff used to clean automotive rubber, or are there any other stuff that's "safe" for this?

Tom

I like waterbok's idea and it seems to work really well - peanut oil (soak 'em for a longer period).
Can't predict if the white haze (rubber contaminents, I think) will disappear but it won't hurt either, like any chemical might...

Not meaning to steal your thunder, wb.
I'd probably go at it with a can of WD-40...

Would something like this harm the tires???

I think it depends a lot on the ingredients (which I cannot find anything about).
Very old rubber may not agree with too much solvent. But apparently there are many varieties in composition :

www.autopia.org...-and-care/

Some harm is probably unavoidable to clean up the outer layer.

WD-40 contains 25% petroleum base oil, and petroleum products can ruin ordinary rubber (wikipedia). But then again I have no idea if these tires are "ordinary rubber"....

I think I'll take the chance and try some kind of automotive tire/rubber cleaner.

Tom

I used this stuff on some Meteor tyres (just cos I had some) and they came up a treat and stayed shiny (but not too shiny ).

They needed a bit of a scrub too.
A lot of people here are very cautious about putting anything on vintage tyres, but I would have thought if this ate the rubber of full size car tyres, the manufacturers would have been sued by now.
I'd rather use something that is designed for rubber than WD40 anyway.
AFAIK cheap Polish car washes use vegetable oil to make tyres shiny. Don't think it lasts long though.

Yeah, I'll try something like that, Martin.

Being cautious with WD-40 is definitely a good thing, I am a lot less reluctant to use after I saw what it does to foam tyres though (return from the underworld). It definitely dissolves a small outer layer (with a very porous type of rubber) but I think at some point that active ingredient gets saturated. Really works wonders on this particular kind...

I think that if I owned something that was impossible to replace, I wouldn't mess about with it, even if I was 100% sure whatever I needed to do wouldn't hurt it - there's always a chance of human error creeping in, no matter how "safe" a method is