Soap tarnishing polished aluminum horse trailer?

[Sjeane]

Was helping my dad clean his horse trailer today and we sprayed an all purpose soap/degreaser on the top of it and on the AC shrouds to take off the mildew. everywhere on the sides of the horse trailer where the soap/mildew touched the aluminum panels, looks like acid or something ran down the sides, was wondering if there is any one that has ran into this problem. everywhere else we washed it without soap it is as clean looking as it could be. we tried several different wax's, soaps, even 160 proof shine. nothing will get off the tarnished looking streaks. we tested some wheel acid on a small spot and all that did was strip the reflective layer off of it. you could still see all of the streaks where the soap ran off.

 

[chixmaidservice]

My local tack shop sells a product specifically for washing aluminum trailers. The next time I venture there, I will try and look at ingredients to give you an idea what to use. They have an online store but I'm not sure if you can see labels, but you could order the cleaner and try it out I guess. www.sstack.com. good luck

 

[wyoDreamer]

I have some aluminum things that got tarnished like that. I haven't been able to get rid of the tarnish, but if I find anything that works I will post here for you.

 

[Sjeane]

Been a while since i logged in, thanks so much for the replies. The thing that is puzzling me is we have used this same multi-purpose cleaner on everything. Even other polished aluminum stuff. This horse trailer is the first thing we had to tarnish with it. Makes me think it might have been a chemical reaction between the soap and a different produc of wax or something that may have been on the trailer

 

[wyoDreamer]

If it is a new container of cleaner - they may have made changes to the recipe. You know - New and Improved.

 

[coleco]

Try ketchup.