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Halloween night is full of ghosts, goblins, vampires, mummies, walking dead, spidermen, and Joe the Plumbers. But the most frightening thing that you may come up against on Halloween night is eggs. Yes, the formidable egg prank. Seems so harmless at first, but that is until you have experienced exactly the powers they wield over your vehicles paint.

First Point of an Eggs Impact on a Vehicles surface

Eggs are practically like mini bombs when you realize the extent of the damage they can cause on your vehicle. To begin with, the shell is incredibly hard and will include many shards of sharp pieces that will explode upon your paint upon impact. This is very similar to the power of shrapnel in a grenade.

On impact, the eggs shell explodes into tiny pieces, which may in fact leave quite a few deep scratches and scars on the paint surface. With enough force, eggs have even been known to actually chip paint right off of a vehicle exposing the metal surface.

Second Point of the Impact

The second point of impact the egg makes is with its toxic insides. Okay, so maybe an egg is not exactly toxic to you or I, but to your cars paint, it is like pouring liquid Draino down its gullet. The corrosive nature of the eggs nature will set to work eating away paint the minute that it is splattered upon the surface.

When it comes to eggs, time is of the essence, which is why we are reminding you to check your vehicle for any signs of eggs when you get out to your car in the morning. In fact, if there is any way to put your vehicles in the garage on Halloween night, that would be preferred, but if you have no other choice but to leave them out, then you may want to wake up a few minutes early so you can do some investigating.

What to do if Your Vehicle Has Been Egged

The first thing to look for of course will be the telltale signs of egg shell around the vehicle. Often times the egg will slide off and leave little sign that the vehicle was attacked. Take your time to walk around the entire vehicle, expecting everything. If you expect foul play, do not fear, you may still have time to save your paint.

Step One:

The first thing you are going to want to do is grab your hose and begin to thoroughly drench the area with water. The last thing you want to do is try to wipe off the egg, as remember we talked about the sharp shards of egg. You do not want to rub those shards into your paint, as it will only further scratch the vehicle.

It may take a bit to get dried egg off a vehicle especially during a chili autumn morning, but it will eventually break up. You can gently use your fingers once you are sure you got most of the egg off to remove any stubborn residue.

Step Two:

Once you have the brunt of the egg off, you are going to want to give it a good thorough washing with soap and water. This will make sure that all traces of the egg are gone. Once the are a is washed, you can dry it and then inspect it for any signs of damage.

The first sign of damage will be scratches from the egg shell itself. The second and worst sign will be a cloudy or hazy appearance in the paint. If the paint does appear cloudy in the area, you may not have reached it in time and the only way to repair the are a will be repainting. The scratches however, well, those we can fix.

Step Three:

The next best thing to do in this situation will be to remove the top surface of the paint. You would be amazed at the renewing effect of striping a very thin layer of paint in this situation. If the egg has not had much of a chance to seep very far, you have a good chance of removing the damage using some rubbing compound (found at your local automotive store) and a lot of elbow grease.

If the scratches are deep or the haze is thick, it may actually be to your advantage to use some 2000 grit wet/dry sand paper on the area to remove a layer of paint before buffing the area back to a shine with the rubbing compound. Once you are finished, a nice coat of wax may be the icing on the cake at restoring the shine back to your vehicle and making what has become a rather damaging prank, almost invisible.

Final Thoughts

Remember, when it comes to egg splatter on your vehicles paint, time is but the essence. Most other pranks, such as silly string, pumpkin splatter, or even shaving cream are not quite as caustic, but egg needs to be removed right away, or you could be looking quite extensive damage. At least take the time to drop by your local car wash for a quick rinse to get most of the egg off and then you can deal with the rest of the steps once you get back home in the evening.

Okay, now that we got all that bad stuff out of the way… Have a happy “egg-free” Halloween!

Photo by Eun Leanan

They are juicy, sweet, maybe a little nutty at times, but definitely multi-talented. The engineering team at Baylor University has been researching the many applications of coconuts (being a rather plentiful renewable resource) and is happy to report that besides pina colada’s, bonking people on the head, and cream pie, there is but a whole realm of things that can be made with these nutty balls of fun.

Fuel Source

To begin with, coconut oil can actually be used to power a diesel engine. This oil mixture has proven to be relatively cheap, clean burning, plentiful, and most importantly, completely renewable. As great as this resource would be as a fuel source, there is one problem with it that hinders its popularity for this particular use… its viscosity during normal ambient temperatures.

Coconut oil only flows well enough to use in a diesel when it is at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. So barring its use while in the middle of the Sahara desert, it could not be used in its pure form while in many places around the world. One solution is to use two fuel tanks in such a modified diesel vehicle. The one tank would hold the coconut oil, while the other, a standard, all-around, “use anytime” diesel mix.

You would have to start the vehicle using the standard mix to warm up the engine, then switch over to the coconut oil. As you neared your destination, you would have to switch back to the standard diesel for a bit to flush out the line of the coconut oil, which would gum up the fuel delivery system if it were allowed to cool.

Of course, you could also just mix diesel and coconut oil together, but that would just be too darn simple for American engineers, not to mention, not quite as environmentally friendly.

Interior Plastics

The other automotive use of the coconut that is being looked at right now by Baylor University, is using its fiber strands in automotive grade plastics. Current automotive plastics are made out of a composite material of synthetic fibers, which are both expensive and toxic, but do a good job at what they were designed for.

Coconut fiber however might be able to top synthetics by a number of fronts. To begin with, not only would coconut cost less, at about $0.60 less per pound of fiber strand, but its characteristics would also provide greater strength, stiffness, and leave less of an imprint on the environment.

The only catch right now, is whether or not the coconut composite can prove itself fire resistant enough to pass government regulations. Most likely is should, as the density and hardness of coconut certainly makes it a rather difficult to set fire in most circumstances. But the answer to that question is still pending on research.

Other Uses for the Coconut

Coconuts also make for a great activated carbon to filter toxins (as in H2O filtration systems) and would make a formidable diaper filler (as they hold a lot of moisture)…

Who, besides Gilligan, Skipper, the Professor, and Marian would have thought such a simple food source could have so many talents!

Photo by Caribb

While the lefties would never admit it, a right CAN actually be better than a left when it comes to gas savings. One such instance happens to be the right hand turn lane, which you may or may not already know has been proven by the UPS to be the preferred choice of direction change by their delivery fleets.

In 2004, the UPS officially began their practice of incorporating right turns in their routes and low and behold they actually saved on both money and emission output of their vehicles. It was found to be quite effective. Soon after, the green community began reminding people that they can actually improve their own gas mileage by simply planning their route around right turns.

Their theory is quite simple really. When we wait in line at a left hand turn lane, we are faced with oncoming traffic, which can obviously slow things down significantly. Making a right turn is generally easier to do, quicker to maneuver, and involves the least amount of wait.

Of course, this theory is primary advised for those in the city where traffic can become quite a big hindrance during your daily jaunts. If you live in a small urban town where you could make a left turn with a blind fold on and still have a 98 percent chance of living, then this advice certainly doesn’t pertain to you.

But for those of us who do live within conjested urban trafic, such a small step of planning your routes around right turns can add up to reduced idling (gas savings), less emissions output (saving the world- well, a little bit), and getting where we were heading a lot quicker than the left turn alternative.

With all this said, we also find it our duty to remind you to get your tires rotated regularly if you follow such advice. You should rotate your tires every 5,000 to 10,000 regardless, but when you turn one direction more than another, you are actually wearing your tires unevenly, which will reduce the useful life of your tires if you do not compensate for this.

This helpful advice was brought to you by your helpful, friendly, government United Postal Service driver, who wears shorts, smiles occasionally, and is not disgruntled enough to be giving us bad advice…