| Author | Message | ||
     Hughlysses |
I picked up a Fieldsheer mesh jacket on sale 3 or 4 years ago in "hi-viz" yellow and it turned out to be VERY well made. I think I paid ~$80 for it and it was a ~$180 jacket. I ordered the optional CE armor for the back to replace the foam pad. It's comfortable, breathes really well, and has solid Cordura material on the backs of the arms and shoulders. It looks like it'd hold up pretty well in a crash. After only a year or so, it was pretty grimy looking. Every drop of grease, oil and tar from the road surface that wound up on it really stood out. The washing instructions on the tag said to wash it in cold water only with very mild detergent. I pulled all the pads out and my wife washed it for me in our front loader washer (which is supposed to do a markedly better job than the old style top loaders). It looked a little better afterward, but mostly the oily stains stayed right where they were. She ramped up things a bit and applied Shout to all the stains and tried again. A little better maybe, but still most of the oil stayed in place. I figured I was stuck with a nasty looking jacket and kept using it. Finally a few weeks ago, after a non-rider at work made a comment about how my jacket really showed the road miles, I figured it was time to buy a new jacket. I searched and searched, but couldn't find anything as nice as what I have for less than $200. It occurred to me if I could find a way to get my jacket clean, I'd be perfectly happy to keep it. I googled "cleaning h-viz motorcycle jacket" and found several threads on the subject. A couple of people said they'd had good results with Simple Green. I figured "what the hell, if it ruins it I haven't lost anything". A few nights ago, I got out my spray bottle of Simple Green and a small hand cleaning brush. I hit one of the sleeves and scrubbed it a little; low and behold the grease spot comes right off. Sweet! I worked my way all over the outside of the jacket including the Cordura portions and the mesh. It was pretty wet with Simple Green by this time, so I took it in the shower and starting rinsing it with cool water. At first the rinse water was really dirty, but that showed I was getting a lot of the dirt off/out of the jacket. I hit the few remaining spots with more cleaner and kept scrubbing until the whole thing was clean. Man, it almost looks like a new jacket. Some of the upper surfaces are slightly faded, but I think that's more from sun exposure than the Simple Green. Anyway, if you've got dirty hi-viz gear, try this, I bet it'll work for you too. |
