Cleaned and Painted the Rusty Stock Rotors
 

I just passed my one year anniversary and noticed just how bad the stock rotors looked. I was really close to buying new zink coated rotors but decided that it's such a waste since I have at least a couple years left on the stock ones, so I decided to paint both the calipers and the rotors and I thought I'd share a couple of pics of how good they can look with a little effort... now we'll see how long they last.

http://www.clicktohit.com/paintedrotor.jpg

And here they are with the wheels on, hard to see in the shade but trust me, they look WAAAYYY better than the wall of rust I had in there before the weekend...

http://www.clicktohit.com/paintedrotorwheel.jpg

Nice job. Looks really clean. Did you hand paint the RX-8 on there, or is it decal/template?

I'll have to tackle this one day. Since I bought the new 8, I've noticed that the rotors don't rust as badly as my old one did. Must be hit or miss like the fuel consumption...

wow, nice. what steps did you take to painting your rotors?

Please, share the steps you did because the job is beautiful. I am also going to paint mine silver very soon. Was it with the G2 kit?

What brand of paint did you use? temperature rating?

I bought the standard Wallmart Caliper Paint in both Silver and Red. I didn't even remove the calipers, nor did I bother taping anything off. If you have a steady hand and take your time you can get the lines perfect. If you don't have the confidence in your touch go ahead and tape them off, a little effort up front will make the whole process go faster since it took me a while. Keep in mind these are brakes, so if you slip a bit wipe, and if you miss a bit no one will be able to tell.

With the rotors I first cleaned all the rust off with a wire brush and some CLR... this was tough, it took a while since you want to get as much of the rust off as possible if you want the paint to last any decent amount of time. Make sure that when you rinse off the CLR, you dry it right away with a rag or old cloth. If you don't rust will form before your eyes, you'd be shocked, I was.

I taped off the 5 bolts and then proceeded to paint everything that the brake pad didn't touch. I made sure I went right to the line, and took my time, this is important. It's impossible to tape so you will have to do the circle freehand. If you spill on the rotor surface the pad touches make sure you wipe right away. I also painted all the way around the outside edge, and made sure the paint went down into the seem between the front and back.

I then started on the calipers with 4 coats of Silver being very carefull not to get any paint on the pads, rotors, or anything that wasn't metal, I waited until it was completely dry before doing the rx8 logo (12 hours).

I found a logo online http://www.sudburys.co.uk/mazda/images/RX8-logo.png Like this, and printed it off to the right size. I then took an exacto blade and thick black electrical tape, cut out the logo turning the tape into a stencil and taped it onto the caliper. I skipped the dash so that I could make the letters larger and still fit them on the caliper. I then proceeded to do 4 coats of red and let it dry overnight.

Make sure you dont drive for at least 15 hours, and don't let your wheels get wet for 48 hours if at all possible and voila.

Oh, and here's another picture of the whole wheel during the daytime.

http://www.clicktohit.com/paintedrotorwheel1.jpg

That looks great. You did an excellent job. I'm leaning toward silver calipers even more now.

Did you put any clear coat over the paint layers? Any problems with brake dust sticking?

Nice job, Ive already done my rotors, i used a black which just dissapears in there. It looks a lot better than rust. I want to do my calipers in a gun metal colour have not seen that done before but have seen it on some exotics

I bought some hight temp clear coat but as soon as I applied it ruined the caliper paint finish (bubbling). Although I didn't paint the rotors last year, I did do a coat of silver on the calipers, and after a few months the brake dust will start to stick in the cracks if you use harsh wheel cleaners when you wash... I started buying the milder mag cleaner and it didn't ruin as fast afterwards... the Michelin one in the yellow bottle is good since it's not as acidic as the rest. If the warning on the wheel cleaner says to wait for the wheel to cool down before applying otherwise you may damage the finish, that's not the one you want to get on the caliper paint if you want it to last.

We have some pretty rough winters up here in Toronto, so it's expected that the finish will take a bit of a beating in the colder months which means I'm resigned to doing some touch ups every spring when I put on the summer wheels.

Those hubs look shweet .... I took mine up to mazda yesterday for a number of things and told them to paint the hubs, they did, silver !

nice job !!!!
they look neat and much better than stock

nice job. I did mine with black hubs and red calipers, looks alot better than the rust.

I got the same treatment at my dealer - did a nice job. The rotor hubs were terribly rusted and looked awful so it was an immense improvement. However, in less than 6 months there were bits of rust beginning to show so I expect it's worth sanding and repainting myself this summer. I always wanted blue calipers anyway. :)

im not liking the calipers (totally biased!) but those rotor hubs look really clean..i might have to do this soon..