Getting Fuel Dye out of the paint?

What has been found to work well at getting fuel dye stains out of your paint? My paint is an Imron 5000 clear coat system, but I am curious what works for you no matter what paint system you have.

I had a bad fuel leak one time that put blue across the entire bottom of my plane, that i had painted myself with imron. i tried all kinds of things but never got all the blue off until i took a rag and soaked it with lacquer thinner. Took all the blue off and didn't effect the imron at all. Try it on a small area though and see if it works.

steve ciha

Steve's idea should work fine on any polyurethane. Fully cured urethane should not be affected by lacquer thinner. Having said that, I wouldn't let it soak. Just wipe it on and wipe it off. And also like he said, try it on a inconspicuous place first.

I've seen those fuel stains come right off by rubbing a polishing compound on the paint with a clean rag. I don't know the type of compound or paint, but it was a 1982 Beechcraft with original paint (around 20 years old but in great, always-hangared shape).

I used to remove fuel stains from my rag wing with Simple Green. It was painted with PolyFiber polyurethane. The Simple Green worked great.

C. Smith
RV4 # 68 painting

The 80/87 red dye faded fairly quickly in the sun.

RScott said:

The 80/87 red dye faded fairly quickly in the sun.

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I remember laughing when someone groused about remembering when he could buy red gas for a buck.

Then I gulped as I realized that, in my teens, I bought red gas for well under a buck, and rent a 150 for $17/hr, wet.

Let's not go there

I've bought 80 octane AvGas for under 1/2 a buck ($.48/gal).

Thanks for the advice

Thanks everyone for the great advice. Lacquer thinner sounds like it will do the trick. Speaking of fuel prices, here is some math for you.

Price of Crude 2000: $21.00
Price of gas 2000: $.98

Price of crude today: $67.00
Price of Gas today: $3.00

There are 42 gallons in a barrel of crude. They actually get over 50 gallons of product out of one barrel because refining is an expansion (heating process). Using the conservative number and straight math, we get the following:

67-21=46, 46/42=1.10, 1.10+.98=2.08

Gas today should be $2.08 a gallon! Remember the .98 2000 price already had the taxes and profit included, the only thing that changed was crude prices. So where did the extra .92 cents a gallon come from?? Pure Profit...... you read about it in the news as record profits, and thats just what they are reporting. Price manipulation in sync with the rise in crude prices, to make you think its because of crude.

Remember when gas began falling just before the elections, but crude was not moving? That was a fear adjustment. They began reducing the manipulated price because they feared the new and more democratic congress would investigate. Now they are obviously more confident that a investigation is not likely.

If you dont like paying $4.20 for aviation fuel, write your congress representatives and ask for an investigation. We want to know what creative excuses they will spout to cover the .92 price gouging. If they were to reduce their profits to year 2000 levels we would save $30.00 to $35.00 per RV load

Oh man I must be OLD. I remember gas wars and paying $.25 a gallon sometimes maybe even a little less I was 16 then. I also remember my dad renting the Cessna we flew for $17.00 an hour wet. But I also remember my mom doing the weeks grocery's for $35.00 for a family of five, I was about ten then. I also remember $1.35 minimum wage for my first job, I was 17 then. Times haven't really changed, just the numbers we use.