Pine Sap On Acrylic Window: Help! Now What?

[Mikerson]

I have cleaned lots of pine sap off of car paint. Isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) is what I like to use.
Check out this chart: https://marketing.industrialspec.com...t-from-ism.pdf

Hydrocarbons and ethanol don’t appear to agree well with PMMA.

Whatever you use, make sure your rag is really soft and don’t scrub too hard. Let the chemistry do the work. It’s easy to scratch these plastics.
As an aside, isopropyl alcohol will also take off the layer of wax on paint, so reapply wax after removing the sap from paint.

[Bellpilot]

I heard WD40 works great for sap removal.

[BotmFedr]

For those who are curious........


Isopropyl alcohol, 99%. Cleaned up a very gooey type of pine sap.quite nicely. Finished with a light soapy rinse. I have no idea if I've chemically altered the plastic of the window, but it looks great now!

[rt66paul]

Baby wipes will usually clean anything and shouldn't be too harsh.

[wilma]

Believe it or not, salad oil has worked to remove pain sap. My van got a bunch of sap when we were at Calaveras Big Trees Park, in the California gold country.

[jim2901]

I use Protect All to clean the acrylic window on my van although I'm not sure it would dissolve pine sap. For that I might try using Coleman Fuel which I've found to be a good all-around solvent that doesn't harm plastic surfaces.
Jim

[Timerider]

Living on the East side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, I'll second the use of Coleman Fuel (a.k.a. "white gas") for removal of pine tar (a.k.a. sap or pitch). We heat our home primarily with wood (1-2 cords/year) collected under permit from the USFS - mostly Lodgepole Pine, but occasionally Jeffrey Pine (which often has more pitch). Getting the pine tar off of my saw/tools/vehicle/self is an annual ritual.

I've used Coleman fuel on a paper towel to clean pine tar off of my saw case (polyethylene), the bug deflector on the front of my 4Runner's hood (polycarbonate or acrylic), and various Toyota automotive trim pieces (unk. plastics), not to mention the glass and paint. It works so quickly that the solvent really doesn't have time to damage the plastic, even it it could potentially be harmful over a longer period of time.

It also works great on getting pine tar off of hands and out of clothing, but your hands might need some lotion afterwards, because it strips ALL of the oils from your hands.

[HIGHCOUNTRYMIKE]

I second "Plexus".

[AkenMorde]

Thanks for sharing.

[wander]

Clorox wipes worked great for me on the windshield and paint, but don't know how it would react with acrylic.