Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Went to do cleaning in seat storage which has been closed since last October. Not surprised to find.......


The thing is over 4" across and may have had near 50 of those demons from Hell. If I knew how to get to Joy's FB account, she took some IPad shots of me covered up with winter gear head to toe on a 99 degree day in July!! Had two cans of Raid Wasp Knockout and hit them from two angles. Don't think many made it out. So far the rest of the under seat storage is clear.

On another note, the seats have accumulated months of mildew and staining that nothing appears to remove. Our last resort will be Clorox which a boat buddy around the corner swears by. I'll try that next with a water hose to follow to rinse clean.

Simple Green is a good cleaner.

Clorox Simple Clean Up is also good for cleaning.

And then finally, we had some black marks that wouldn't go away.

A Mr. Clean Eraser worked wonders.

Okay. So here is the list of stuff that does not work.....

Simple Green
303 Cleaner and Spot Remover Carpet/Upholstery
Clorox Wipes
Magic Eraser
Lime-a-Way
Soft Scrub
Starbrite concentrated Vinyl Cleaner and Shampoo
Starbrite Vinyl Cleaner and Polish

One that does have some effect is...
Starbrite Mildew Stain Remover --contains Sodium Hypochlorite and Sodium Hydroxide - not nice chemicals (bleach)

The only product I've found that will remove these stains is Clorox Bleach. Caution, this is some really dangerous stuff and if used wrong or spilled will pretty much destroy what it contacts.

I used it full strength on a rag and did a full water flush with hose to rinse.

I'm not recommending this but it appears to be working for us. We are making sure to treat the vinyl after cleaning with copious applications of Protectant.

I think if these stains had not been baked on for so long, they could be removed with some of the milder products. It has been many months of other things going on here and the boat has been neglected. Don't let this happen to you!

When I get a nasty stain, I use Wesley's BleachWhite, (yep, whitewall tire cleaner) dilute it about 25% with water, shoot it on, rub lightly and rinse it off with clean water, quickly! If you leave it sit, it will destroy the stitching. It has taken out blood, magic marker blots, ketchup and mustard stains and new, wet towel bleed through. It works, but be careful with it. I learned about it from a body shop employee. They use it to treat blood stains in cars. Use it sparingly, I have been using the same bottle for about 15 years, now. On the boat, I carry Tough Stuff, 303 protectant, Windex, RainX and LA Awesome.

Thanks Bryan. I've used the L A Awesome in the past but have not tried it recently. The two bottles we had seemed to destroy their own container while in storage

I'll look up that white wall cleaner you mentioned. This entire ordeal was simply neglect due to a bunch of other projects running into Summer. Normally, we run the boat all winter here and especially could have this last mild one.

While we were doing cleanup, I found a few maintenance issues that need addressing. I noticed the gas fill rubber hose (1.5") has some cracks, a few small critters to dispatch and one of the batteries needed a bit of water. Joy runs the Nano wide open the whole two days of cleaning. I also noticed a few cracks in the outer rubber coating of the Teleflex throttle cable, kinda exposing what looks like helical steel slightly rusty sheathing. Not sure how I might address that. For the time being, I might coat with silicone grease and wrap with some kind of wonder tape just to cut down on exposure.

Bryan,
Did search, ran into this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-3pTVbgE-g

I'm glad I still have my bottle of Westley's brand! Good to know, thanks for the info!!!