feels weird to say painted when our shop does powder coating for a living. However with the wheels you can not see the calipers enough to justify tearing them down and bleeding the system to powder them... when i do calipers i scrub them with a steel brush, non chlorine brake cleaner, scrub again, brake clean again, mask... then paint... works great, holds up great, and lets you rip though them quick, did one side in just over an hour.. also did them in satin black, lets you lay the paint on there super thick and just blends in and vanishes vs standing out

 

My calipers are pretty rusted, I'm not sure a steel brush would be enough here!


This might be a stupid question, but did you take or cover anything up? I'm assuming you at least removed the caliper from the bracket so you could get the rotor out of the way...

 

I have 1 more to do still, i can do a full write up on how i do it, mine where really grimey as well, but the brake clean and wire brush will suprise you. to be honest this is just till i have the time to pull them off the truck and powder coat them, but i said the same thing on my wifes car and they have been painted for 6 years and still look great! ever 2 or 3 pad changes i will give them a fresh coat. I mask around the caliper with blue painters tape, i do not remove the caliper from the bracket or the rotor, leave it all there. i mask off the boots on the guide pins and then use news paper to slide behind the pad to cover the rotor. works great. to be honest i do not even let them dry, i just soak them with paint let them tack up, then put the wheel back on, move on to the next one. done about 10 or so cars like this and they come out great! as i said this week i have another one to do, so i can take pics and do a step by step how to to help out the board with a guide

 

ask and you shall receive. here is the how to on the brake painting... there are a tone of ways to do this, this is how I do mine. I do powdercoating for a living so eventually i will break this down when they need rebuilt and powder them, however for now, this will get me though the next 3-4 years till it is full rebuild time

first get the vehicle up in the air




from here i take a brass bristle brush to the caliper, careful to stay away from the rubber seals


hit it with some brake clean


cleaned up, ready to be masked


masked


ball up some tape and you can put that into the center part, use some smaller masking to wrap up the rubber boots


be sure you cover the brake line as well


i like to do one heavy coat, some guys will do several light coats, i dont give a **** about drips as you can not see them if it does, but hey it is up to you, i like to get it lightly dry put the wheel back on, and move on to the next one. A halogen spot will help to cure the paint with the heat output




then remove the masking and you should be good to go






put the wheel back on




then move on to the back, pretty much the same but the masking is different a bit
spray


scrub


spray again to clean it all up again then mask it and spray


all done... i chose black as i wanted them to vanish when the wheels are on, it worked!

 

all done




















here is a shot of the other side caliper that i painted about a month ago

 

Great post, thanks!

But why boring black? Wouldn't yellow or red look better?

 

these are the worlds ugliest brakes, the rear is smaller than any of the brakes on my bikes... i wanted them to vanish not stand out... later if i powder them i will shave and fill them to give them a better look then coat them to color match like i did my hitch. but for now, i wanted them to vanish behind the wheels

 

That's a great look. I agree that it helps them vanish and that it helps.


My calipers are rusted (but functional), in the short term I took a wire brush to them to try and bring the dirt and rust to an even level of 'meh.' At some point in the future though, I'm planning on painting them just like you did :-)

 

Dont, even really rusty ones will clean up great with a wire bursh and some brake clean. give it a run man works great