I need to shine up the pontoons on the Party Cruiser, which are 50 series aluminum. Muriatic acid cleans the calcium off nicely, but does nothing for the gray color... I can pick up some "toon-brite" from the local dealer, but the stuff is $22 a quart, just wondering if anyone knows if something off the shelf at Walmart or Home Depot might work? Vinegar, some other acid, oven cleaner, purple cleaner, etc...?

Well, I just found out oven cleaner works-- maybe too good...

'TOON-BRITE' is much cheaper on-line.

http://www.pontoonstuff.com/pontoon-boat/219-toon-brite-aluminum-cleaner-pontoon.asp

Google "aluminum cleaner" .... lots o' products, home remedies.

My problem is I want/need to do this TODAY if possible...

The oven cleaner works, turns the aluminum almost WHITE--but after it's rinsed and sat for awhile, it's looking pretty good...

For a big volume job, I think Super Clean All Wheel cleaner might do the trick.


I use it on my wheels, but also used it on something larger aluminum recently on a lark and it worked well as a quickie, if I recall.

It would be a spray, lightly agitate/brush and rinse affair.

I think Walmart sells it.

Used to be a Castrol product, but I think they sold it off.

BTW: They also have Super Clean Cleaner/Degreaser, that works well for that purpose. Be careful when you go to buy, the two bottles look very similar, but are different products/purposes.

If you are going to use a cleaner like Toon Bright I highly recommend that you use Shark Hide afterwards to seal the aluminum.

Toon Bright and similar cleaners etch the aluminum, which increases surface area, which means that your pontoons will get tarnished much faster after you apply the cleaner than they did before.

I have seen the 'whitened' pontoons turn almost black in one season, whereas they may have taken several seasons before the cleaning to turn a nice aluminum patina gray.

Sharkhide.com

Thanks guys!

I'm familiar with Castrol products, I have them all--at work, I forgot to bring them to try them... I'm also familiar with Shark hide...

This boat is an albatross around my neck at the moment, my friend is supposed to buy it, but some $#** always seems to happen... So I'm looking at trying to sell it. But before I can even ask close to book value for it, it needs...pretty much everything! The logs look like complete crap, not even counting all the dents the original owner put in them by parking the poor thing over every boulder in Lake Mead. They're completely coated with 1/16" worth of calcium deposits. So far I've got the outside of the portside logs cleaned. That still leaves 3 sides, PLUS, how to clean the bottoms that are resting on the trailer bunks? Using a 4:1 mix of muriatic acid/water it takes 20 to 30 minutes to remove the calcium from 4' of log. So I've already spent 4 hours, and have 15 hours of scrubbing to go JUST to get the calcium off that I can GET to.

--right now I'm just trying to find out how to brighten up what I've got done so far. And it seems that job will go only slightly faster than the de-calcifying...

PLUS, the rear canvas is totally shot, and the front top canvas isn't far behind. Fortunately all the sides are still ok, but I need to get bids and get the canvas fixed.

The cabin roof is covered with EDPM rubber, and it's shrinking and splitting near the edges, leaving wide open gaps. Need to fix or replace that...

And finally, the outboard-- I can't get the 2nd cylinder to fire consistently. I'm hoping it's just a symptom of the old fuel and spark plugs. Even changing plugs around, #1 always fires just fine, and #2 doesn't. I'm hoping it's just buildup in the carb and not electrical. (#3 and #4 seem to fire okay, but I can't be sure until the motor is under load).

B.O.A.T. ...