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aemeijers

On 2/19/2011 9:51 AM, wrote:
On 2/19/2011 8:31 AM, aemeijers wrote:
On 2/19/2011 7:32 AM, Ohioguy wrote:
My wife ran up against the painted wooden edge of our garage door while
backing out the car. Now we have a scraped bright green against our dark
grey, which shows up quite a bit.

I used a lot of elbow grease, plus some soap & water, hoping that it
might just be water based paint that would come off somewhat easily. It
didn't work. Then I tried mineral spirits, hoping that might take it
off.

Most of the paint is on a plastic or rubber "bump guard", but a small
amount of it is on the actual driver side door.

Anyone have any suggestions on other concoctions that I might try to get
it off?

Thanks!

One of those green scrub pads, like you probably have in your kitchen,
used dry. You'll probably have to touch up the clear-coat with a spray
can, though. Wipe down the area with something to remove the wax and
dust before you do so.

Green pads would be brutal...I'd try a magic eraser before I'd use the
3M green scrubber.

If your wife is challenged by narrow spaces like that, you may wanna add
a strip of some non-marring plastic material to that edge of door frame,
or replace the entire stop strip around the doorframe with one of the
plastic alternatives that provide a better weather seal anyway. I think
they only come in white, though.

Not criticizing your wife, by the way. I've scuffed the RH mirror on my
van a couple times, backing out without paying enough attention. It
swings out of the way, but it still scuffs the paint.

When my parents built a new home, my mom marked the center of the garage
to aim for....took some nylon line, suspended a tennis ball on it and
hung it from the garage ceiling. The ball was at the point where the
hood ornament was when the car was in the right spot.

That only works if you have stereoscopic vision. Since my eyes point in
different directions, I pretty much look through one eye at a time. It
always amazes the eye doctors that I can choose which eye I am looking
through, without covering the other one. No problem as long as I am
moving, since parallax gives enough cues. But standing still or creeping
dead ahead, not so much. I have a boat fender hung on a rope on the
wall of my too short (due to last minute bump-out previous owner added
when he was doing the addition) garage- when my short-wheelbase minivan
kisses the boat fender and the rope moves, it is forward enough to close
garage door. There is an outlet on the wall I use as an aim point over
TDC of steering wheel. I have to park both cars at an angle in the
garage, to be able to open the doors. (Did I mention my previous owner
was an idiot? 2 more feet in both directions, and that garage would be
much more useful.)

But that wasn't the issue- backing out without wiping stuff off the side
of the car is. Again, because of my impaired stereoscopic vision, I have
trouble telling how far side mirror is from side of garage door opening.
I have to go real slow as mirror passes the door, and bob my head
around, to get visual cues. Usually 0-dark-30 at the time, so all I have
is reflected light from the headlights.

I'll never get to enjoy a 3D movie either- I have to wait for the 2D
version. Theater 3D gives me a headache in about five minutes.

But such is life.

--
aem sends...