Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Hi there, Can anybody recommend a product to remove an oil stain on a concrete hard standing? Concrete been down about 18 months and I did mop up most of the oil following the spill last weekend but it has soaked into the concrete.
Plenty of products available but wonder whether anybody has first hand experience with any of them

Cheers

Martin B

I'd try lacquer thinner.

Try and lift as much out as possible using absorbent agents, sawdust is good, cement even better (they use it on race tracks) biological washing powder is quite good and helps with stage 2

Stage 2 scrub well with detergent and boiling water and then pressure wash until you can no longer see any rainbow colours of the o?l being swept away with the water.

the stain will still be visible but usually becomes less visible as time goes on.

A Customer dumped a lot of really dirty diesel sump o?l on my lovely block paved car park (laid by my own hands) I didnt see it in time and have done stage 1 and 2 but not yet pressure washed it, the stain still looks very black

I think red or white wine is good...
Drinks loads of it while you ponder what to do

Brake cleaner. Sorts out most problems.
Paul

I use cat litter over night. Then sweep up and pour another mound of it and let sit overnight again. Pulls most of the oil out of concrete.

B&Q Concrete cleaner and then power washer the trick is not to let the oil dry in, so pour kitty litter / Absorbent Granules over the oil making sure you don't spread it further and rush over to B&Q from past experience the longer you leave it the harder it is to shift. Always worth having a bag of Oil Absorbent Granules about for such occasions.

Concrete does clean up quite well (might take a couple of attempts though) but don't try this on Asphalt drives etc (it will start to soften the drive)

It might sound silly but as a last resort I was able to use sandpaper to sand out a thin layer of dark oil stain from my garage floor before my wife could complain about it. Whew

I've used a couple of different products specifically made for removing oil from concrete. Both were available from the local hardware store (USA) and did a very good job for both new and old oil stains. Removal of the 50+ year old stains required grinding the floor. This was done prior to painting the floor of the garage. Good luck.

If you are going to continue to drive old Lotus'es I would recommend getting some more used oil and just coating the entire floor! Won't be noticeable then and will enhance the ability to repel water!

Kurt.

I recently epoxy painted a 75+ yr old concrete floor. I just used the two stage system from the local DIY store. There were lots of oil stains, as you can imagine. The first stage is a chemical clean which bubbles out old oil, then next stage is paint mixed with epoxy. Try to find the first stage. I think it is sold separately as well as in the kit. If you have the time, it takes a two day process to do the full monty, but I highly recommend it. A paper towel cleans up oil now. Good luck. Dan

Get a blow torch and burn it off, for small drips.. Works EVERYTIME

Simple, metholated spirits, mop it up with a rag. Gone.