Black grease on my new seat belts

[Michael F.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

either dawn, goop, gojo, orange stuff from autozone all work and have not damaged anything I have used it on in the past...good luck.

[Chuck S.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Thanks Ed, I put Dawn on my grocery list. I remember hearing that on the radio.
Valeria

I'm a stalwart believer in "gentler is better" for cleaning chassis parts, but for cleaning grease off fabric, I disagree with starting with water soluble detergents or other cleaners for the sake of being gentle. If the dye is removed by the solvent, however, then you really have no other alternative.

The problem with soap or other non-volatile cleaners is that once the site is saturated, solvents will be much less effective. Ever tried using tar remover on a wet car?...and that's a hard surface, not a fabric.

If such cleaners were the first choice, dry cleaners would be using Dawn or Goop instead of perchloroethylene (a good solvent choice...if you can buy it for non-commercial use in reasonable quantities).

My work is done here; I just wanted to give you another option besides pressure washing. You may have only one shot at getting your seat belt totally clean; let us know how it turns out.

[Valeria H.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Chuck, Thanks for your input. This is a more complicated question than I thought I posed.

The option of getting the mechanic to replace the belts went nil when my 2 yr old Doberman ran their 7 yr old brown Lab into a metal pole the last time I went to pick up my car from his house. The lab (Buster) had a short seizure, then tried to get up after 2 minutes and promptly fell over favoring his right leg.

I offered to pay half of the vet bill but they would not hear anything about it. I still really feel bad about their dog. After 6 weeks their dog is at about 95% of normal. There is no way I could even complain about the grease. I just want to get it gone.

I'll try to talk to our dry cleaners that we have spent a small fortune with over the years and see if I will be able to get a small amount of the percloroethylene.
Thank you all so very much for all of your responses and remarks.
Please say a prayer for Buster's recovery.
Valeria
There is always a story connected with a Corvette!

[Jean C.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Valeria,
OK, strike my previous suggestion. This is sort of like Paul Harvey's line ..."And now for the rest of the story."

Good luck at the dry cleaner.

See you in Charlotte.

Best regards,

[Edward J.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Valeria, I would just pull the belt out and take it to him, I am no chemisit but there may be a formula to the solvent, he maybe able to do it for you while you wait ?good luck Ed

[Joe L.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Valeria, I would just pull the belt out and take it to him, I am no chemisit but there may be a formula to the solvent, he maybe able to do it for you while you wait ?good luck Ed

Edward------


I think that's the best idea yet on how to deal with this.

[John D.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Valeria, Various household cleaners mentioned may do the job but on the other hand they may do damage.
Remove the soiled/greasy belts and bring them to a recon shop. A 1st class detail shop. Those boys know all the tricks in the book and will get your belts spotless in short order.
No experimenting with them. Good luck, JD

[Valeria H.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Thanks guys!
I will be picking my car up this week and will try to ask him what happened to my seat belts and to get a resolution.
I hate to say it but "I AM A WEINIE" Ok, now that I released that information, I am in awe of those who know C1 cars and can rebuild any C1 at any point on this 50 year old sports car.
I'm a push over, marshmellow, etc. and need to try to reform!

Bottom line is that I need to get it right and cleaned up before the convention this summer.

Looking forward to meeting all of you here in the Queen City of Charlotte, NC which Oprah Winfrey absolutely adored!! It really is beautiful here.

Valeria

[Wayne P.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Valeria I believe Tide has a degrease and stain pencil you just rub it on.
Good Luck.

[Bruce B.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Valeria,
What ever method you decide to use, first try it on an area you do not see when the belt is in the car. That way you can test for dye fastness and also some synthetic belt fabrics might not like the cleaner or solvent.
Good luck.

[Valeria H.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

The black grease is for the most part splattered over all 4 belts. I am due to get the car back into my hands this Friday for it's 2nd long cruise on Saturday. I have every Friday off!!! 3 day weekend every week!!!

I may not get to the problem for many weeks as I leave for an extended vacation out of the country on the next
Monday. I will however get back to you about what worked and did not work.
Thanks to all for your advice,
Valeria

[Gerard F.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Chuck, Thanks for your input. This is a more complicated question than I thought I posed.

The option of getting the mechanic to replace the belts went nil when my 2 yr old Doberman ran their 7 yr old brown Lab into a metal pole the last time I went to pick up my car from his house. The lab (Buster) had a short seizure, then tried to get up after 2 minutes and promptly fell over favoring his right leg.

I offered to pay half of the vet bill but they would not hear anything about it. I still really feel bad about their dog. After 6 weeks their dog is at about 95% of normal. There is no way I could even complain about the grease. I just want to get it gone.

I'll try to talk to our dry cleaners that we have spent a small fortune with over the years and see if I will be able to get a small amount of the percloroethylene.
Thank you all so very much for all of your responses and remarks.
Please say a prayer for Buster's recovery.
Valeria
There is always a story connected with a Corvette!

Valeria,

Best bet in cleaning seat belts from grease is Simple Green. Just spray it through with a paper towel in the back. Simple Green is fairly neutral and is not going to react on the belts.

Then fire your mechanic for having his Lab around the shop. Not very professional, especially when he has customers with Dobbie pups. You ought to have your mechanic approved by your Doberman.

Just ask Ebony (a chitsapoo), if she would ever approve of one of those nasty Labs at the shop.

[Valeria H.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

Ya'all are soo funny!
My mechanic's shop is at his house. He has a 3 bay garage + space which he claims he bought and the house just happened to come with the garage. He is a drag strip racer and races a 58' souped up Corvette with close to 900 HP. You can see him doing a wheelstand recently with his 58' if you go to you-tube and put in "wheel stand at Rockingham" it is really a neat video.

Buster, the brown Lab is very sweet (I hope this does not offend a soul) but his intelligence does not come any where near my hyperactive Dobie. I really think Remi (my Dobie) did this to him on purpose!! On to the car.

I am scheduled to get the car back on Friday. I am taking this cleaning thing slow as I do not want to get it wrong and I have till July - yeah! convention time - to get it right.


Thanks for all the responses and hope to see each and every one of you here in the beautiful Charlotte area in July. You can personally check out my car to see if I got it right with the seat belts.

Thanks again to all,
Valeria

[Valeria H.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

I finally found a product that really removed the black grease from my beautiful red seat belts. My '60 was honored this fall by being one of the featured cars in the Charlotte AutoFair in their celebratory display of "60 years of Corvettes". I just received the car from the person who touches up the paint the day before I needed to get the car up to the speedway and did not have time to look over it. The next morning I quickly vacumed the car out as I was geting ready to deliver the car and noticed the grease on the belts that I could not get out.
Quick as a *****, I tried several products without success. I remembered recently purchasing several bottles of a cleaning concentration from a door to door (ugh) salesman who demonstrated removal of ink and crayon from a towel. I poured a small amount of the concentrate on the belt with a pad underneath it. I was able to brush it out and or wipe it on the underpad. And, lucky for me there was no bleeding of the red dye. The belts look pristine. I also was able to clean rust spots from my laundry room counter. I am planning on trial cleaning several other items they claim the product will work on prior to writing a tech article for our local news letter. The name of the product is "Dirt Busters". Talking to another NCRS member about it, they also have had this product and have used it with great success.

[Stephen R.]

Re: Black grease on my new seat belts

My new mechanic (who is an absolute expert genious with C1 cars) has displaced a fair amount of dark grease on to my new seat belts (they are repro) but still new. Can anyone give me ideas about how to get this dark grease out without discoloringing the belts?

Valeria

I've used Ivory Dish Washing Soap on my rugs when i get a grease stain. May work on the belts. This is the hand soap, not the machine dish washing detergent.