I bought gold caliper spraypaint and brake cleaner today. anyone wanna give me the lazy-mans method on how to do it? I dont want to spend too long on it, and i dont want to take apart the brakes at all... and i dont have jackstands so i guess i can only do one at a time.

these are the guides ive been looking at so far
http://www.2phast.com/Corvette/calipers.htm
http://www.yellowmustangregistry.com/BrakePainting.html

heres the plan right now. i would value the input of someone whos done it before.

1. jack up and take off one wheel. use brake cleaner, and scrub down with a metal brush. rinse with water. use dremel with brush to strip it some more. rinse again

2. cut up garbage bags and use masking tape to mask off everything except the caliper. its okay to get some paint on the rotors right? is there anything near the caliper that NEEDS to be masked off really well?

3. spray paint. thin coats. allow to dry. 5 or 6 coats?

then could i put the wheel back on and let it finish drying? if so i could move on to the next wheel... and i could keep things moving along. how many hours should i allow it to dry for afterwards?

 

Everybody takes painting the brake calipers too serious. I have had mine painted for about 6 months with no problems yet.

I painted mine while I was changing my brakes so I didn’t have to mask off much. I just made sure I didn’t get too much on the rotors. I also just sprayed the caliper with a non-residue brake cleaner then dried it with the air hose. I painted them with a cheap Hi-Tech engine paint (Alumni-Blast I think) and it still looks fine with just one coat (other than a bit of brake dust!).

Your method sounds great though. But it is too thorough for me. I was just interested in getting rid of the dirty black look of the calipers. Just as long as you use common sense and don’t get overspray on everything it’ll turn out great. A little overspray on the rotors shouldn’t hurt, it should wear off with no problems, as long as you don’t get crazy with the paint!

 

bump. anyone else?

 

Correct me im wrong but should we have to worry about spraying on the rotor? i heard someone say it will burn off..?

 

OOOO...this sounds tight....I have finals this week and then the next week off b4 graduation and I took those 2 weeks off of work so i am gonna have a ****load of free time...what kinda spray paint and where can you get it? Please get really really detailed....i dont wanna f-up my car....also do you have pics ACJ?

 

Also what would you recommend color wise when someone has a black 99 with stock rims?

 

Just get high temp paint at any auto parts store.

 

Sorry, but my digital camera sucks, so no worthwhile pictures.

I used Seymour Alumi-Blast (Hi-tech, I think) spray paint. It is a silver color and it holds up real well. It is what we use in the garage to paint alternators, intakes and anything else we want to stand out on one of our motors. I’m not sure where my dad gets it…but you can probably just use any hi-temp paint in place of it.

As for the color, that’s totally up to you. I just wanted a nice clean look and nothing that would draw attention to my usually brake-dust covered wheels. The Alumi-Blast is a nice silver/grayish kind of color. It matches great with the stock 4th Gen. SE wheels. In fact, I used the same paint to touch-up the center caps on the wheels.

Painting the calipers is really simple. If you have ever used spray paint before, then you can do it. Before you do any painting you’ll want to clean the calipers. I just used a brake cleaner that leaves no residue (most brake cleaner cans will say this). Just spray the brake cleaner on, and then blow off with an air hose (this just makes it dry faster). If you need to, a rag can also be used. Then just mask off what you don’t want painted, and then paint the caliper. It’s that simple. Don’t get too much on the rotor though, a little won’t hurt and will come off with use. If you do get a lot of paint on the rotor, the brake cleaner will take it off fine.

Someone else on here can probably do a more detailed write up for you, but you probably won’t need it. Painting the caliper is a very simple task—and takes no skill whatsoever.

 

Gr8 cause just like crappopotamus all I have is the jack so it will have to be done one wheel at a time....how long do you think it will take...2 hours?

 

If you spray on the part of the rotors that the pad touches, it will burn off. However, if you spray on a part of the rotor that the pad does not touch, it will leave an ugly rotor.

1. just clean the caliper and let dry
2. tape off(without taking off the rotor...you only see the front part anyway.)
3. spray with paint....very light coats and lots of them look better than thick coats. Like when you spray the first coat, make it look like there is barely any paint on there. By the time you get like 4 or 5 coats on there, it will look really hot.
4. You can do both wheels on one side with just the jack....possibly.
5. use clearcoat if you want it to have a little more gloss. I did this.
6. Be careful to read the times for drying on the paint cans. All paints are different. The clear I used took a hour to dry for every layer. Pretty time consuming, but worth it. It looks good, IMO.

 

cover the rotor with a towel and tuck or stuff it under the caliper and then spray the caliper. its not hard and takes 5 minutes tops.

 

bump. im gonna do this tomorrow... any more comments?

 

Same here....post on the board when your done and pics if you can..ill do the same. I still can't decide what color to use for my black max....maybe red will look nice...

 

Red does look really good on a black max.
I used red on my red max.
Matches surprisingly well.

 

What kinda red is it? I was thinkin about light red but maybe a darker red would be better.

 

You guys want my advice - to clean them, use a dremel with a circular wire brush attachment first. It will make your job 100000x easier than doing it by hand.

Then spray your paint into a plastic container (a cheap tupperware thing) and brush the paint on. You will use about 2-3 cheap brushes ($1.00 or so), but it'll save you the time of taping things off.

It's a surprising easy job. I did mine in one night, while watching the hockey game.

 

There is no need to brush it on there when it is a lot easier to tape a bag on there or some newspaper and then just spray.

The red looks kind of like the one on the right. It is not quite as pink looking as in the pic. Do you know what the Nissan bright red looks like? It is almost an exact match. It is just a bright red and looks good on black. My friend had a black WRX and he used the Duplicolor red like I did and it looks really good:

 

What about the brake paints they sell at Autozone? Wouldnt those be better to use? Just curious because I plan to do mine tomarrow!

 

I did mine red today and it looks hella good. It took about 2 hours and it is VERY easy and fun kinda.....just get brake cleaner and 4 plastic bags to cover the rotors. At pep boys they sell this thing called caliper spray paint...LOL....it worked great....dries fast and looks hot. Will post pics tomorrow....^ ^

 

I heard that if you paint the calipers while the pads are still in there, it's a pain later to remove them.

 

ya know what...i bet ur right.....o well that is what the pros are for ^ ^

 

That picture of the paint that I posted up there was some that you get from Autozone.
It is high temp and that is what you need.
I would get a clear coat too.
This will seal it in a little more and make it shine better.
It does take longer to dry than the regular paint though.

 

I need to paint my calipers. I got the G2 caliper paint from a SWA GD for like $25 shipped. Now i feel like i got ripped! If you can buy that crap at autozone for cheaper. However, it says it has a high gloss finish, oil and chemical resistant and ::drum rolls::: never ever faids.

The kit comes with:
Hi tech paint system
Engine cleaner application brush
Mixing Can
Sturrer
Full color decal

Im still waiting on my rims, tires, springs, and shocks. Already got my rotors, breakpads, and ss brake lines.

 

You did get ripped.
I might have spent $9 total.
Spraying it on there will take a lot less time than it will for you to brush it on there too.

I have posted how to get high gloss....use a clear coat! It looks great and cleans the brake dust right off of it. It has been on there for at least 2 months and not faded. I don't think it will either.

It is your money.

 

I painted my calipers yesterday with that VHT paint that they sell at Autozone. It came out really well. The hardest part of the whole thing was masking off everything that didnt need to be painted. I will post pics. up on this thread in the next couple of days. I must say that my car feels much faster than before with these painted calipers

 

I just used regular paint, not even hi temp paint. It's been a year and it still looks good. I took my brakes apart though because it's pretty easy and I wanted to change my brake fluid. Visit these links for the advanced methods.

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=1389610&page=1
http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=1291628

 

people will actually do that.....dont steer noobs in that direction.....hehe :-(