Well I’m looking to paint my calipers black, because I don’t like to look at dirty, starting to rust calipers. I’d like to do it while they’re relatively clean. What should I do before painting them to ensure they look decent. How long should this take? I don’t want to be without a car for more than a day.
Thanks
-Steve
Brake parts cleaner /
layzie likes to use his nail polish :gay:
I did mine when I did my lowering springs. Took about 3-4 coats and about 20 minutes a caliper. If you want to do red, I have a lot left over at my friends house.
The best way to do it is powdercoating, IMO.
In which case, order some replacement or reman unloaded calipers, and send them out.
When they come back, swap em on & bleed.
naval jelly and then paint them, or do what nick said
I’ll see how much it would be to have them powdercoated, if not I’ll do what zerodaze said.
If you need to clean them, do what zer0daze said.
naval jelly makes me tingly in the pants.
scuff the hell out of them with sandpaper. get a kit from http://www.g2usa.com/ or one of the vendors on ebay. It’s a two part system that you combine and brush on - as it drys it hardens like crazy and becomes smooth.
specific caliper paint always works better. If you follow the directions + sand before then you’ll get good results like I did without even removing the caliper.
+1 for g2 paint kits…
Thanks for all the info and suggestions guys. I think I’m going to go with that g2 kit. What color do you think would look best on my car? I was thinking black but if you guys have any other non ricey suggestions I’m all ears. I like the color of the gold sti calipers because my car is black with gold accents and such, but I’m not sure if it’d look good or not.
Yeah stock.
the R32 calipers are blue… so that would look both cool and a little poser at the same time… on a black VW I’d almost do something crazy like orange or lime green. black and grey never look bad.
I’d avoid red and yellow because they just end up looking like poser brembos.
I used G2 and it works pretty well.
One thing you have to watch out for is that once you mix in the hardner it starts to cure.
You cant take your time in painting 4 calipers because the paint will become too thick to be usable. You have to have everything totally layed out, prepped and ready.
Painting just 2 shouldnt be a problem. Time your work regardless
I’d put the car on jack stands… get all 4 calipers sanded as much as possible, do a little taping off… then mix and go to town. also, make sure the temp is about 50 out, and that it’s not humid. You’ve got a good 20 mins to apply as long as you keep mixing as you go. do a nice thin coat then move to the next caliper - continue around the car and keep touching up adding a little more at a time until they looking good or you run out of time because the hardening has started.
the only thing with poiwdercoating is u have to talk the seals and pistons out…so get shitty ones that need to be rebuilt…the paint kits are really nice and work well and are durable…theblue is on the money…clean with wire brush…scuff…clean with brake clean…most kits come with a can…and paint