Painting the brakes

raikko77

raikko77

New member
I am going to paint my calipers because I cannot stand the sight of the rust and dirt on them,and also because red calipers would so good on a black car.

I was wondering, what is the proper course of action to paint them?

1) Cover all but the caliper
2) Use brake cleaner religiously wipe the down.
3) Sand down the rest of the rough spots
4) Use a high heat resistant primer
5) Use a high heat resistant paint (engine paint or brake paint)

do multiple coats of the paint for good coverage.

Does it matter if I get some on the outside of the break pad and does this affect the performance of the breaks

Thanks

Ryan
 
I'm about to do the same thing on my new truck. I'm gonna tape it all off , then i'm gonna get my cordless drill get a wire wheel attatchment and clean them up some and paint.

If you tape everything off properly you won't have to worry about getting some on the disc.
 
Just remember to use high temp paint. Anything less will flake off after only a couple months. What I do is just spray paint into a cup and then brush it on. If you do it any other way then you will get overspray all over your car. Trust me on that. I painted my calipers once by just spray painting them and it got everywhere. Brush it on and you don't need to worry about masking anything off.
 
I just did mine this past weekend! Just reemember to wipe down anything your going to paint with alcohol. other wise you will have adheasion problems.
 
So your sayong that the spray can stuff isn't going to hold up?

I just wanted to make sure that I get even coverage
 
I just used VHT this past weekend ..I taped everything off really well and sprayed it! I was able to remove the one area that I hit with over spary with a little bit of paint thinner!
 
You could buy brake paint, that always seems to be a good course of action. Be sure to mask religiously, evrything but the caliper all the way to the other side of the hood and most of the way down the car should be covered. You would be amazed at how far a few stray droplets of paint can go.
 
tubafeak said:
You could buy brake paint, that always seems to be a good course of action. Be sure to mask religiously, evrything but the caliper all the way to the other side of the hood and most of the way down the car should be covered. You would be amazed at how far a few stray droplets of paint can go.
Click to expand...

So true... .I spent more time doing prep work than I did painting!

I used "Brake paint" VHT from Summit racing
 
I was doing some touchup spraying on the exterior of my house. I sprayed the bottom of a door with a window. There was a super fine mist of paint all the way up the 7 feet of glass. Clay to the rescue. No wind. Overspray is crazy.
 
Yeah, I was watching an import tuner show where they painted the calipers of a focus (non-import???) They also recommended painting them on with a brush only because of overspray. It took about 5 coats to get the coverage that they wanted, but it looked damn good when finished.
 
The overspray isn't difficult to remove. All you have to do is clay your entire car and all your glass. Its just not very professional to do something that you know is going to spray all over your car. Spray paint can travel a really long way. I sprayed something in my garage last week and I could see the overspray particles in the light beam coming in through the window over 20 feet away almost immediately. If you think that it's not going to get on your car when you are spraying 8 inches from your paint then you are crazy.

Its not that the spray can stuff won't work, its just that the non high temp stuff isn't going to do very well. Your brake calipers probably get hotter than your valve cover does. You need to use high temp engine paint if you are going to paint those calipers. If you don't then you'll find out why they make high temp paints the hard way. Your paint will flake right off the brakes within months. I just spray the paint into a jar and brush it on with a foam brush. It works just as well and nearly as fast. You don't have to spend time masking anything off and it still looks great. It was one of the first things I did to my Legacy when I got it. It makes a huge difference to paint the crusty stock calipers on most cars.

PaintedCalipers.gif
 
I painted mine last month. Sanded down any rust I could see. Than throughly cleaned the area with brake cleaner. Than taped off the areas I didn't want paint on and painted the calipers and part of the rotors with a brush. I used G2 Caliper Paint. This stuff is awesome. It's a two stage system, paint and reactor, and spreads beautifully. It is heat resistant up to 900 f. My car is silver and I painted the calipers and rotors silver.
 
well, i'll let you guys know about it this week. And after all the advice, I'm gonna play it safe and brush it on.


Thanks a lot guys!
 
Well, ladies and gents, the calipers are now Brembo red. I ended up spraying then because the paintbrush method seemed to long. As for the over-spray, I pretty much covered my car. A neighbor of mine thought that I had trashed the car because of the amount of painter's tape, newspaper and garbage bags.

They look amazing, and now a couple of my friends want me to do theirs.

I'll post the pics soon, when my camera feels like working again.
 
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