Horrible white residue? Help!

[LS7Heli 12]

Hey guys! I have built many MANY Clod Busters and Bullheads dating back to 1987 and have never come across this.......

My current project is a 2012 Bullhead that I recently unsealed. The tires are molded fine, but they have a white, sticky, residue all over. Its strong and actually burns my hands when i touch the tires. I am guessing this is some type of mold release agent. 

I have tried dish wash soap, industrial strength all purpose cleaner and R/C Speedwash and it just keeps coming back. I can't believe this garbage would get through QC.....

Is Tamiya aware of this? What can i do as I a building a show/shelf truck. 

[doubledownon11 18]

Well I use rubbing alcohol to prep tires for glueing purposes, you could try that.  But if it in fact it is something moldy, you could try a mix of bleach and water.  

[Juggular 4964]

This is a random suggestion....  but have you tried WD40?  

Give alcohol and bleach doubledownon11 suggested a try.  Alcohol is my go-to cleaner for me too. 

But if they don't work, the solution might not be taking something off the tire, but putting something back in.  The reason for the white stuff coming out might be the oil in the tire being lost over time.  The barrier is gone, so stuff comes out... I would speculate.  

Generally, I use WD40 to restore hard tires back to soft, to some degree.  I've heard that real drag race people use it a day before to "moisturize" tires and make them grippier.  In my experience, WD40 does make the hard tires soft.  But not much gripper (but not slippier either).  

Don't soak them in WD40 for days though.  I've done it for a week for TA01 Hummer tires (yes 7 days in a ziplock).  The tires got 10% bigger and came off the wheels.  That was a BIG FAIL.  But on old FAV tires that shrank over the past 30 years, it restored to original size in 2 days.  It's only 2-3 mm bigger in diameter, but now it's same as new FAV tires.  They are still soft 1 year after I've done it.  

In your case, you don't want to do it to make the tires bigger.  But it might remove the white stuff and "seal" the rest inside the tires, and stop it from coming out.  

All this is just a wild guess, so take it with a grain of salt (I don't mean drinking WD40 with salt).  

 

[frameskip 63]

This might be relevant. Never tried the clothes dryer myself:

Alternatively:

 

[Juggular 4964]

This is great, frameskip!  

So the heat is the solution!  

[JeffSpicoli 1363]

what about that black liquid stuff people use to restore black trim on cars that has faded? 

[nowinaminute 2815]

On 20/04/2018 at 5:42 AM, Juggular said:

But if they don't work, the solution might not be taking something off the tire, but putting something back in.  The reason for the white stuff coming out might be the oil in the tire being lost over time.  The barrier is gone, so stuff comes out... I would speculate.  

Sound theory, it's the same kind of mechanism that sees chocolate form a white coating when fat/sugar rises to the surface. 

Also, some people treat old tyres with glycerol and you will notice after time it will gradually start to creep back out and form the same kind of white coating.

I hear it happens mostly because of temperature fluctuations during storage.

Only a theory as you say but I think it has good logic behind it.

Personally I think WD40 is better than glycerol because it doesn't seem to creep back out of the tyre so easily.