Caliper Painting

[Francesco 71]

Unfortunately, painting them does little to extend their useful lives any more than leaving them to rust naturally. The exposed areas that move rub against one another without lubrication, and over time attract grease, dirt and brake dust, and rust all the same. The only area that a good paint will protect is the seats of the slide pin bellows, maintaining a decent seal. Painting the pad guides is a bad idea.

[marchanna 115]

The pad guides always seem to be the most problematic area too. Thick layers of rust usually build up restricting pad movement causing uneven pad pressure against the disk - this often happens within the lifetime of one set of pads. When I do it, I'm going to measure the clearance, and if there's enough room I'll paint them and maybe file them down to get a consistent surface that allows free movement. It's not a high friction area, so even a thin coat of epoxy should hold up.

I'm not sure what I'll do around the bellows yet; maybe a little grease or a bead of silicone.

[Francesco 71]

Yeah, since neglecting the brakes one year and destroying a new set of discs with the pads essentially seizing in the guides without releasing (and getting awful fuel economy in the process), I've taken to removing the pads at each tire swap, and cleaning all the contact areas. This includes grinding the guide areas of the pads and taking the Dremel to the slots on the calipers. With drilled and slotted discs I can immediately hear the difference while coasting, no more "whirring" sound once they're cleaned out.

[marchanna 115]

I replaced the pads on my in-laws' Hyundai once and was astonished with the rust build up. After taking the pads out, I couldn't even fit them back in. I spent a good hour cleaning up the guides to the point where they were functional again. That's a real safety issue, considering the rust can hold the pads firmly against the disks causing excess heat and brake fade.

[tolsen 630]

Why paint when you get fancy covers for next to nothing?

[marchanna 115]

Well' like I said, I do want to protect the callipers from corrosion and rusting, which of course this will not be a complete solution, but I also want the colour match to my tridion cell. That would require painting the covers anyway.

In addition, I'm not sold on covers. I think there's the risk that:

1. they could fall off

2. they trap moisture and salt on the callipers, accelerating corrosion

3. they reduce clearance between the rims and the calliper

Plus, the one's I have seen aren't really that cheap.

Edited May 13, 2015 by marchanna

[1983JZR3W 32]

I have the covers on my '09 Brabus coupe. They are the Brembo "3-D" covers in red with white raised letters. If I remember correctly, I paid about 16 dollars US from a vendor in Hong Kong on E Bay. This was for four covers. They have been on the car for about four years with no issues. I have the large covers on the front and they require at least a 16" diameter wheel, but I am ok as I have 17" wheels all around.

I did do it completely out of vanity. In my opinion, they look very nice and I have spent a lot more than 16 bucks on other mods on my car. Some people use a car as an appliance and that's ok in my book. But I have been modding cars since I was teenager and I am now 68 and have no intention of not personalizing my vehicles.

So go far it Marchanna, mod it all you want, life is too short to drive a "belly button" car.

[marchanna 115]

I think I will. I enjoy modding. I do it to my motorcycle too. As a hobby, it's not such a vain thing, for me anyway. It's like producing a piece of art or some other creative expression. I'm sure for some it's a strictly ego-centric thing, but quite frankly, I don't think it matters how much you mod a Smart, you're not going to get the same respect as if you had an unmoved Lamborghini.

I like spending the time and care to do things right, or to improve upon the original. I think it's therapeutic.

[GoFaster 9]

Painting them is completely cosmetic and won't hurt anything, so why not?

I have yellow body panels, so I painted the calipers and caliper holders, and the rear drums, yellow. Did the painting off the car using the plain ordinary Duplicolor stuff from Canadian Tire. Mask off all rubber parts and the bleeder valve and the connection for the brake hose. Don't paint the slider pins. It will probably have to be touched up now and again; I'll likely do that on the car.

Every time I rotate the tires, I take the caliper off and lubricate the slider pins with Sil-Glyde (silicone grease meant for lubricating brake caliper slider pins). No sticking calipers here!

[Francesco 71]

I originally painted mine Chevy engine orange, a close approximation of phat red. But within a few hundred km the dust and dirt made them ugly. I've since switched to POR-15 black.

[marchanna 115]

Well, hopefully the combination of polishing out the texture, some wax, and the low dust pads will keep the dust to a minimum. Only time will tell.

[marchanna 115]

My Calliper brackets:

[marchanna 115]

And the callipers . . .

[David_18 13]

Nice !

[marchanna 115]

Thanks. I'm just waiting for it to harden so I can put it all back together.

[1983JZR3W 32]

Looks great!! Very anxious to see them back on the car.

[marchanna 115]

The G2 actually gets a lot better coverage than they allude to, so I ended up putting on a much thicker coat. This has obviously slowed the drying/curing process, so I may not have pics until tomorrow.

The finish came up really nice, and so far I'm quite pleased with it. The high visibility area I knocked down quite a bit to take the texture out, which you can really see on the bracket.

Definitely a high quality product, which they back up with a lifetime guarantee against pealing and flaking.

It came out a little darker than the green on the car but I'm okay with that.

[marchanna 115]

Here's what it looked like before:

[MikeT 744]

Nice work

[marchanna 115]

A couple more pre-assembly pics:

[marchanna 115]

She's all done and back together. I'm thinking I need some more open rims now to show off my brakes:

[David_18 13]

Take a picture outside at the sun.

[marchanna 115]

I tried that but with the shadows and the whiteness of the car they don't show up that well on camera:

But here you go anyway:

[David_18 13]

Still look good.

Maybe a bit lighter color will stand out more. The tridion is more bright.

I use a bright blue on mine, they really pop out when they are clean. https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t31.0-8/1040074_10151547144236849_2110270519_o.jpg

(Don't look the disk color....)

Edited May 25, 2015 by David_18

[darren 192]

Wow, nice job! Subtle, but eye-catching.