Painting Brake Calpers

[heat]

I have a Black GP and I'm also interested in painting them red...I bought GM Victory Red [DSGM4769] & Rust Killer which is basically a primer and painted my engine mounts red already...I'm planning on using the same colour for my Calipers. I'll do it on a sunny day...I'm totally new at all this so if anyone has tips for me and y1a3o that would be great!

[GR8racingfool]

Prep and paint.

Use a high quality paint that will hold up to the temperatures that the brakes can reach. Something at or above 1200* paint would be good. But if its in the 500* range that will work as well.

I never had much luck with spray paint, or brush on paint. The up keep was just stupid, and wasted time, and in between upkeeps, you could tell they were "self done" paint jobs. Now I just completely disassemble them, have them sand blasted which cleans then entirely of built up brake dust, and have them powder coated. Reassemble/rebuild them myself using new GM parts, and install them and forget about them. When they get dusty, they clean up perfect with a towel, no scrubbing. But if the dust get caked on well, then I can can scrub them with never worrying about the paint chipping or flaking. Costs some money to do it powder coating style, but money well spent if your going to keep you car for more than 3 years down the road.

Here is a stock rear caliper I rebuilt for a guy who had one seize on him. It was powder coated and fully rebuilt.





Here was a pair of powder coated ones I ran on my car before I built up a set of the F-bodies.


(bad camera picture...they are as red as the rear one above)

Here is a powder coated F-body brake today on my car:


~F~

[y1a3o]

if i take the brake calper off, how easy is it to put it back on? i just dropped 500 on new brakes and i dont want to mess any of this up. if i take them off, will i have to worry about my brakes??

[GR8racingfool]

if i take the brake calper off, how easy is it to put it back on? i just dropped 500 on new brakes and i dont want to mess any of this up. if i take them off, will i have to worry about my brakes??

If you can remove it, you can put it back on, and get the bracket bolts tight~!

If you don't feel comfortable doing them...ask for some local help to come by, or pay somebody qualified to do it. Brakes are kinda a safety thing...I would be more worried about them failing than messing them up.

My $0.02 on the matter.

~F~

[Sabrewings]

How much did the powder coating/ sand blasting cost you? Did the shop know what they were doing or did you have to set it up?

[GR8racingfool]

How much did the powder coating/ sand blasting cost you? Did the shop know what they were doing or did you have to set it up?

I think I was charged around $75.00 a set for powder coating, blasting added in.
Example, fronts, 4 pieces total = $75.00 add in rears + $75.00 for a total of $150.00 for a full set of 4 calipers with brackets.

Yes, the shop knows what they are doing. They do Big Dog Motorcycles (google it) bike frames. They do about anything, and know what should be and what should not be coated. They have done hundreds of brakes for me, and recently a few M90s for people wanting that done. I drop these parts off never worrying about them.

All i do is disassemble them myself, give them a quick washing in solvent so they dont have any brake fluid in them, and are sorta clean to handle on the out side, and drop them off. Once done, they get a washing to get everything cleaned out of them before they are reassembled.

Replacement parts, such as seals etc. runs around $88.00 or so total for the full set for a set of stock brakes.

For ME to do up a set of brakes, labor of $62.00 ($31.00 a set) and parts of $238.00 or so usually runs around the $300.00 mark when its all said and done for a set of stock brakes.

F-bodies are different, cause I will prefinish the aluminum by hand before it gets power coated, and at owners request, drill and tap the mounting brackets to accept the stock W-Body caliper bolts since I am against using washers/spacers, and smaller bolts on these.

~F~