Painting Brake Calipers
- Thread starter Shel_B
- Start date
Same as painting anything - prep prep prep
The parts store kits are OK. I prefer brush-on for sliding calipers and spray on for fixed.
The parts store kits are OK. I prefer brush-on for sliding calipers and spray on for fixed.
The one point I'd make is that I see some folks paint their calipers red or yellow (or ??) to highlight them. If your car has (large) pie-plate sized rotors, and four- or six piston opposed calipers, yeah, then great. But if your wheel size is large, and your calipers are fist-caliper type with smallish rotors... mebe paint them in a colour to protect them against corrosion, but so as NOT to stand out??? Why highlight their relative inadequacy?
Shel_B
Site Donor 2023
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2020
- Messages
- 5,167
If I were to paint them I'd paint them grey or black, mostly to obscure rust and the accumulated wear of time.
Shel_B
Site Donor 2023
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2020
- Messages
- 5,167
LOL
Ideally you would remove them from the car, take them apart, bead blast the body, properly degrease them and hang from coat hangers for proper painting. Few people bother doing all that but wonder why the paint starts peeling off in a year or two.
Won't dispute that... but it really is $pendy, at least imo...
I clean mine with brake clean and a brush, then paint mine with a little brush. Takes about 3 coats.
This. It works great and lasts very good. I touch mine up in the spring and fall .Keeps the rust away here tin the salt mines of CT
I painted as part of a brake system overhaul, and while it's more work, really the best way to do it.
Detached the calipers and brackets, cleaned them with a wire wheel, rebuilt them, and painted with Rustoleum caliper paint. It's three months short of six years, and they're holding up fine.
If a parts washer or blaster is available, that's the way to go, but most people don't have one, so another method has to be used to perform what is the most vital tasks.
Even with a chemical solution, brake dust caked into the porous surfaces of the castings is going to require some mechanical agitation to remove; there's no way around it. Don't think about using a canned brake cleaner, even if you're willing to buy a case of it, because it might take that, or more. Gas, or other powerful solvent? As a kid, my dad had me clean dirty parts with gas, but not something I'd do now.
I don't recall exactly why, but I chose Rustoleum's silver caliper paint over VHT, Krylon, and the others. Might have been rated temperature, but it was the combination of factors. A $6 can did four calipers and brackets with three coats, and remnants for potential touch-ups, which I haven't had to do. I'm sure the epoxy-based coatings are better, and considered them briefly, but ~6x-10x cost better, as well as being trickier to use?
In my book anything that's worth doing is worth doing right. Would never consider spraying everything, or some things and not others, like a lot of jobs people do.
Still very satisfying to see the results of that work, when looking at the wheels, or washing the car.
I sent my Stoptech Trophy calipers to this guy:
http://www.goldlinebrakes.com/
Here's the result ($1200 for teardown/rebuild & resin painted Porsche Red):
http://www.goldlinebrakes.com/
Here's the result ($1200 for teardown/rebuild & resin painted Porsche Red):
This ^^^^^^
Don’t ever paint calipers. They take a special thin polymer coating that is not the same as paint, even paint sold as “caliper paint” is too thick.
The trouble with painting calipers is that the paint holds the heat in and keeps the heat from properly dissipating.
The folks at Goldline understand that, and can coat your calipers with a proprietary polymer coating that is only 0.005” thick.
This website link will explain the benefits of the Goldline caliper coating process better than I can. Suffice it to say, I’ve been using their restoring and coating services for over 20 years, many times on cars uses in vintage racing. Never an issue with overheating calipers and brake fluid as I did before using the Goldline services.
And decades later, the polymer coating(s) still looks brand new.
Polymer Coated Disc Brake Calipers - Rebuilt Disc Brake Calipers
Goldline Disc Brakes specializes in custom rebuilding of disc brake calipers. Since 1967, we have rebuilt calipers using OEM quality parts to bring them back to like new condition. We welcome any special requests and can deliver custom rebuilt calipers according to your specifications.
www.goldlinebrakes.com
Z
I “spray bombed” the calipers of my Grand caravan back in 2016 with Rusteleum black paint. I prepped it well of course by removing rust, dirt and grime. But I didn’t use any special paint or primers. Just masked off/taped off areas I didn’t want pained and sprayed away. I think I put on two or three coats.
They look great to this day. No chipping that I can see through the wheels. I’m sure there is some if I took the wheels off and inspected carefully, but it’s a great result for the little effort I put into it IMO.
I mean it’s a minivan and my goal was to not show any rust. If this was a “nice” vehicle I would’ve probably taken the calipers off and do it with more care and attention to detail. Would that effort hold any better over the years? Hard to say.
They look great to this day. No chipping that I can see through the wheels. I’m sure there is some if I took the wheels off and inspected carefully, but it’s a great result for the little effort I put into it IMO.
I mean it’s a minivan and my goal was to not show any rust. If this was a “nice” vehicle I would’ve probably taken the calipers off and do it with more care and attention to detail. Would that effort hold any better over the years? Hard to say.
The calipers in post #16 are sexy....never thought that of calipers before.
JHZR2
Staff member
I don’t know that the paint is the end of the world. I’m sure some of these colored calipers are painted.
But it is sensible that the right thing be used where possible. Thing is, most folks won’t be interested in getting in for a $1200 caliper paint job.
IMO the most important time to consider using something is when getting refurbished calipers. OE calipers IME darken and stay corrosion free by design. I have 40 year old calipers that look great. But rebuilds often lost whatever treatment they had from the factory, and need something. Otherwise they’ll fully surface rust very rapidly. Even if that’s a clear urethane, cold galvanizing zinc spray (which is what I use on rotor hats with great success), or something else.
