On 8/23/2009 3:03 PM Kim Brennan wrote:

> Salt (several types are used, sodium chloride, magnesium chloride) are
> easily put in to aerosol form by ocean spray, road spray, even "dust"
> storms. Sodium chloride, in particular, is very hydroscopic (attracts
> water). The fact that it is on the lower rubber gasket suggests it
> entered via the vents, and condensed on the inside of your vehicle. Due
> to the black color of the gasket, it will absorb more solar radiation,
> and hence evaporate more water (leaving behind whatever was dissolved in
> the water)  than the glass above it. All this is simple logic.

It is. But the stuff is pretty evenly distributed across the lower edge of
the rubber. Even if the stuff was in aerosol form and geysered up out of
the vents to condense on the glass then later dribble down onto the
rubber, I'd expect a pattern correlating density of the stuff with
proximity to the vents.

Without further evidence, I'm uncomfortable with the road salt sucked into
the air vents proposal. No one else has said, "Hey - I got that, too!" and
I bet that I'm not a minority living in a place that gets snow and might
run into salty road water.

I lived two miles away from the ocean in San Diego county and never saw
this, and salty air is not uncommon there, yet I didn't see this salt
buildup there. Might ask Mark Drillock, who camps down within feet of the
ocean in Baja if he's seen such a thing. Mark?

Photos of salt stuff here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/j.michael.elliott/Vanagon#

So to that end, to the group: if Kim is right, and the salt along my
windshield's inner lower rubber is but the tip of a saline iceberg, the
nose, if you will, of the salty camel under the tent of Mellow Yellow's
ferrous bodywork, where would a surefire place to look -- preferably an
easy place for a guy temporarily one-legged -- to find more signs of evil
road salt buildup?

In the meantime, I'm gonna find out if Bend uses salt of any sort on the
roads.

--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
Bend, OR
KG6RCR