Author Topic: HOW-TO: Painting brake calipers .....with photo's  (Read 14479 times)

Offline boneybradley

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HOW-TO: Painting brake calipers .....with photo's
« on: 24 February 2008, 22:06 »
Here's eightyeightmph's caliper painting thread...moved from the main site (as it will posibly get lost) and i will keep it here for us mk3 owners

Just thought I'd give it a go....

First I picked up a can of Halfords finest brake caliper (HT) paint. In red of course as I'm giving my valver that Anniversary look.

Pop the car up on stands ( I did one side at a time ) & drop the wheels.
Grab yourself a nice big wire brush or an attachment for your drill & have at it with the brakes.

NOTE: You will sneeze/cough/spit black if you don't wear a face mask!



I happened to have some painters masking tape lying about but any will do. Mask off everything that you don't want to paint, valves, pipes & disks being the obvious.



It says on the can that the paint is 'touch dry' in 15-20mins. As it was flippin' cold I had to double that & at one stage resorted to placing a heater near the brakes.
Anyway, as I had done a blinding job cleaning up the calipers but had no primer I'd put a thinish first coat on.



Please excuse my naff camera phone pics. I can assures you the paint is bright red not barbie pink!

Once this was dry (both front & rear) I put the second coat on.




It started too look pretty good, after it had dried I was happy with the finish & voila.




With my filthy wheels back on I think it gave the car the 'right' look!



Thank you for your time! :wink:

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« Last Edit: 27 March 2009, 10:48 by boneybradley »
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Offline boneybradley

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I will also add...many people here (inc myself) use hammerite smooth.. it will take longer to dry and maybe not as good as real caliper paint but its much cheaper and you only need a 250ml tin (costs around £6 for this)
and hammerite comes in loads of colours and it's also possible to mix with other hammerite colours for a unique look..
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Offline eightyeightmph

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No way! My first 'sticky'!  :grin:
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Offline G60GTI16V

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lame... sorry, i did mine the other week with hammerite silver (cant remember the exact name) this is lazy boi styly.
make sure you remove the caliper and carrier which is an extra 4 bolts to undo and clean the all up and paint them all up (not just the outside) plus it will do it some good as it will stop them pads stickin causing you sqeaky brakes. hammerite didnt take that long to dry on a nice day. will ad a pic of mine tomorrow looks better silver than the ever most popular red, oh look it has red brakes! lol :tongue:

Offline eightyeightmph

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Nice post dude, really positive & everything.....

If you read (can read :rolleyes: ) I painted mine red to look like anniversary calipers. Personally I think silver would look "lame" as it would hardly show up, but then I wouldn't go putting you down about it just 'cause I have a different taste to you.

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Offline Greg

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Great writeup 88, thats exactly how i did it a couple years ago.
Good news is that after 2 years, that halfords cali paint still looks
fresh - no cracks, no peeling, no fading. Using alloy wheel cleaner
type sprays is fine too.

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Offline eightyeightmph

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Wow! Fantastic, they look great. Brill! :grin:
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Offline iMation

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that looks pretty good tbh mate, well done 88.
Meh....

Offline mark3valver

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those red one's look great nice effort!!!  just for information, I used halfords high temp manifold paint which was £5 in a can. did them silver for a sort of oem look, I agree if doing the front one's its worth taking the calipers off and the carriers but not if your doing the backs!!!! those carrier bolts are a nightmare - only try to take them off IF you really have to!!!




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Offline LostBok

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nice little guide, 88mph!

thanks for the inspiration... I've just got some nice new front discs (X-drilled Brembo's) and now want to show them off a bit more... so went and got the red caliper paint over the weekend.

I'm doing front and back, so probably gonna go for masking tape approach rather than taking the calipers right off.

One potential problem: What do people reckon the dry-time is if they're outside and on a cold-day (i.e. England, now!)... I've got a really narrow 1950's style garage, so when the car's in, there's scarcely enough room to get the wheels off (certainly not front and back at the same time), so I think I'll be doing this on the drive and leaving the wheels off for as long as it takes to dry...
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