The owner said that he had a 1937 Packard book and I said do you have any other cool car related stuff and he replied that the book is in an old service station that has been in his family since the 20's and he had other stuff so off I went

these are the highlights of the other stuff I got there, it is all covered in soot so i will be spending tomorrow cleaning

this can will eventually be a Mobil Freezone antifreeze can again once I get decades of dust off of it

The mobil charts are cool, the whole middle spins to give the specs on the car you spun it to

I saved the best for last, I am halfway through cleaning these, here are some before and after shots

last is a set, the second one has some paint loss as you can see

Nice finds. I like the bardahl.

Be careful trying to clean that Freezone can....The paint on those is very thin and comes off with just about any cleaner. I used WD-40 on mine and it was too strong and normally that cleans about any item safely. I really can't give you any pointers on what to try, but I would try a small area before trying to do the whole thing.
Nice finds, glad to see it is still out there in obvious places!
Darin

thanks, i do too. if you look closely there is still an unopened can in the display, it is covered in crud right now so it is easy to not notice

thanks for the advice Darin, do you think i can just leave it submersed in water for a few hours to loosen the dirt?

soak them in warm water with dawn dish soap for about 20 min and use a soft sponge should clean up nice

will do that, thanks

Nice find. Congratulations

NO DISH SOAP!!!!!!! NO DISH SOAP!!!!!!!!! It can eat paint away just like paint stripper!!!!!!!

i have been using the dish soap and i think you are right, cant tell if the paint faded from it or was like that under all that grease

And soaking might actually loosen old paint if water seeps under it!

Try first a soft slightly damp rag and don't rub hard, especially if there is grit in the dirt.

And then, if nothing else, tho this may sound weird, when they remove dirt for old paintings, they use Q-tips that they put in their mouths to dampen (if I am remebering correctly) and use that to clean the surface. Of course they would wipe till the Q-tip was dirty, then start again with a new Q-tip. They would not 'double dip' the Q. Nor do they put gobs of spit on the painting.

Apparently the enzymes of the saliva help to remove the dirt.

They clean tiny areas at a time, wiping in a gentle circular pattern, staying on one spot till clean.