I'm planning to paint my calipers, and so I took a look at the general setup of my car. I noticed that the heat shields behind the rotors are extremely rusted/dirty (car was bought used), and was wondering if I should just replace them or if I could paint over them after some cleaning.

Anyone got some thoughts?

try to clean off the heat shields.. if it cleans up nicely then don't paint them

you should be able to clean those up. what color are you painting the calipers?
just make sure you get caliper paint so it holds up to the heat

you should be able to clean those up. what color are you painting the calipers?
just make sure you get caliper paint so it holds up to the heat

Was gonna go with black or dark grey (but shiny!) so the calipers and rotors stand out more. Currently, it's a mess of brown/rust color, and basically hides in the shadows.

I'll try to clean them up sometime this friday, when I was the car. Should I be using some fine grain sandpaper? I tried using Eagle One polish to check what was on the shield, but it would take the whole can to clean all 4.

I painted my heat sheilds with high-heat black about 1 1/2 years ago...Same time I painted my calipers, had no problems so far. Holding up great!

I painted my heat sheilds with high-heat black about 1 1/2 years ago...Same time I painted my calipers, had no problems so far. Holding up great!

Yeah, I'm planning to paint my calipers sometime, so I thought why not take care of my heat shield at the same time. When I got it, it was in pretty crappy condition (cosmetically).