Masking off car to paint brake calipers

A

atlantarange

New member
Hello all.. I was planning to paint my brake calipers. I want to tape off the undercarriage and fender of car. Should I be using the blue painters tape that you would use for painting walls? Will this harm the paint of car?
 
if it were me, i'd remove the caliper from the vehicle completely, and remove the pads from calper, cover fittings
 
First time doing this. New rotors and pads are being put on so I figured this would be a good time to paint calipers. I didnt want to have to remove the brake line. Would rather just tape up and paint.
 
I want to say that keeping the caliper on is going to make prepping the biggest PITA and will probably cost you more time than if you just removed the caliper, plugged the line and replaced the copper crush washer.. But since you don't want to remove the calipers, I suggest finding a duplicolor kit that comes with a brush. Makes very little mess, and no overspray.
 
Most paint in a spray can just doesn't hold up or look too good (tons of texture /orange peel) IME - especially on a part that gets so hot. I watched a how to video of a company who makes a spray caliper paint - and thought even their results looked pretty shabby.

If they are aluminum (raw) - I would OptiCoat them. If you want them painted - I'd do it correctly and get them powder coated.

But if your still interested in doing this, there are a lot of DIYs online on how to do it on the car.
 
alexxxx89 said:
I want to say that keeping the caliper on is going to make prepping the biggest PITA and will probably cost you more time than if you just removed the caliper, plugged the line and replaced the copper crush washer.. But since you don't want to remove the calipers, I suggest finding a duplicolor kit that comes with a brush. Makes very little mess, and no overspray.
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+1. If you want to paint them, brush, not spray.
 
atlantarange said:
Hello all.. I was planning to paint my brake calipers. I want to tape off the undercarriage and fender of car. Should I be using the blue painters tape that you would use for painting walls? Will this harm the paint of car?
Click to expand...

Atlantarange -

To answer your question - No, using blue painters tape will not harm your paint, unless the paint is peeling off the car already.

If your paint is in good shape, any masking tape will be fine.. Of course, use common sense, and dont leave it taped up for days in the sun, etc...

Painting Calipers is pretty easy if you want to do it in the fender well opening.

You can remove it from the disk rotor and find a coat hanger or something strong enough to hold the weight and hang it up in the fenderwell, or even leave it on the disk rotor and paint it like that..

Do NOT hang the caliper by the brake fluid hose ever ! You could damage the hose or the connection point and cause a leak then or later.. Very, very bad...

If you remove the brake fluid hose, you will have to Bleed the brakes - all 4 - and on some cars like Bimmers, there is the ABS module that cannot be bled except by the Dealer using their computer... If you dont get all the air out of the brake lines, the brakes will not work as good..

The thing that is really important is to get the caliper really, really, clean first, and then really dry all over..

If you have hot weather that will help speed up the process..

It would help if you had at least 12" masking paper or wider, and tape all around the caliper where you dont want the color of the paint to stick to..

They have a masking paper and tape holder at Home Depot in the Paint Section.. They also sell the masking paper in various widths and of course, all kinds of masking tape..

If you end up getting paint on the disk rotor, its ok, because the application of the disk brake will wipe it all off..

You could cover the front hub of the wheel with paper and tape to keep that from getting sprayed..

After its really clean and dry, you can use the Duplicolor brake caliper paint and it will come out really nice and shiny, if you start out with light, coats that you let dry and gradually put heavier, wet, coats on, letting them dry good between coats..

You need really good lighting to see what you are doing and to insure you dont accidently spray paint where you dont want it to go.

Painting them on the car will not get the backside edges painted very good, but if you are not worried about that, then go for it...

The idea here is -

- Have everything you want painted really clean and dry
- Have everything you do not want painted, paper and taped off
-Shake the heck out of the paint can a lot and even during the application.
- Keep a steady hand and make the passes uniform, keeping the paint can as much as possible the same distance from the caliper on each pass.
- Your last few coats should be made "wet" so the paint is shiny but not so wet that the paint is running off the parts..
- I think they might sell a clearcoat to go over all of that, but Im not sure.. If they do, it would increase the glossiness of the color and provide some more protection.

Good luck !
Dan F
 
atlantarange said:
First time doing this. New rotors and pads are being put on so I figured this would be a good time to paint calipers. I didnt want to have to remove the brake line. Would rather just tape up and paint.
Click to expand...

Are you replacing the rotors and pads yourself or is a shop doing it?

If you're doing it yourself, I'm zero help.

I had 4x rotors and pads replaced not too long ago and had the shop paint the calipers. Came out really nice and added only 75 bucks to the bill.

Then again, I'm a Ronkhalcoholic...lazy.
 
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