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Painting Calipers?

2K views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  Alec 
#1 ·
I'm thinking about painting my calipers this weekend. I'm not really doing it for looks, so I think I'll just go with black. The reason that I'm doing it is that I've noticed some rust on the calipers[thumbd]. That kind of pissed me off being that I've got a car that I bought new this August with only 8 miles on it. Ok, off my rant and back to my question, I'm wondering who out there has done this. If you have, do you have any tips, suggestions, or things to watch out for? Also, how did you mask your rotors so you didn't get paint on them? I painted the drums on my old car with some hi-temp caliper paint, but that was easy, I didn't have to worry about where the paint went. I thank you all in advance for your help.
 
#2 ·
I painted the drums on my Contour by covering everything but the Drum. The calipers were removed and I covered everything with plastic. Then I removed the Brake Pads and painted them. This is the same thing I did for My Focus. It is pretty easy. Some say not to remove the caliper but I did so to keep from getting paint on anything else by accident.
 
#3 ·
Thanks for the info, unfortunately I don't feel confident enough in my mechanical abilities to remove my calipers [:(]. I'm hoping that someone can tell me how to paint them without having to remove them.
 
#4 ·
Not a bigger painted my cars drums and calipers I didnt cover anything on the car , just the paint .


When i did my friends svt he covered everything but that thing got a lot of coats plus primer mine just got two coats of black to make sure it looked even.
 
#5 ·
Well I did it last weekend. It looks pretty good, there is one spot that I need to touch up from where my friend touched it before it dried.
 
#6 ·
Hey I recently painted mine too, (I just sparyed plasti kote stuff in a cup and did it with a paintbrush) but they don't look as good as I wanted them to, and I was wondering if it's difficult to take the calipers off? Jistrum, is there any easy way to do it, or if not is there a place I could find out how?
Thanks
 
#7 ·
It's easy. Jack up the car and take off the tire. There's two bolts that hold the caliper in place. Unscrew them, push the piston into the bore (take off cap for brake fluid first), and lift it off. Just don't drop it, you might break the rubber brake line. If you want to take the pads out, the pop right out. Just try not to get any paint around where the piston pops out.
 
#10 ·
I just masked off my rotor and lines and stuff with a garbage bag and some masking tape. Then I sprayed it with some caliper paint from autozone. If I get a chance, I'll post some pics later.
 
#11 ·
Hey BIGBADWORM,

You can spend a lot of money on paints like G2 etc, but you really will get the results you're looking for with a cheap can of caliper spray paint from pep boys or autozone like awebb said. The thing is, you just have to do a really good job. For instance, my focus is a 2001 so I had to spend some time with a wire brush scraping any rust off, and I also used this stuff called Brakleen to get the brake fluid, oil, grease etc off. (If you haven't used Brakleen before, its great for cleaning your discs and even getting all that black shit off the inside of your rims.)
But as far as the paint goes, just do as many coats of it as your patience allows and it'll look great. (I used "Plasti-kote" brake caliper paint that cost me like $7 at pep boys)
 
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