xeony2k

Over the weekend I painted my calipers on my Tit. Gray 8. Friday evening I put it up on on stands and removed the wheels to get a start on cleaning it up. Saturday I cleaned it up and painted. The "theme" was silver w/ red lettering.

I used high temp rated spray paint, which I sprayed into a paint container and brushed on. If I had to do it again... I would have taped it off more precise and just sprayed it directly on. The key here would have been nice light coats. I have kind of a fat finger... so you might want to practice on something other than your caliper if you want to try spraying them. IMO, brushing the spray paint on was a major PITA. Plus I think honestly more time spent with newspaper and masking tape would have been easier than paint drying up, stiff bristles... yadda yadda yadda. Sunday morning I removed the templates (from Polak) and sprayed on a few coats of clear.

The clean looking hubs are an improvement by themselves and I think the calipers also look pretty clean. I say "clean" because they don't really jump out (IMO), but they look nice. I painted both with a silver paint with a little metallic flake in them.

Here is the before: (Yuk!!!)


Left Front After:


Left Rear After:

7andan8

The wheels look great xeony! I have this job on my "to do" list also. I was curious if you took the calipers off of the car or left them on? I had hoped to leave mine on when I did it, but a buddy said "Don't be lazy, take them off and have them sand blasted". Also noticed your in VA ... I'm in Lynchburg.

xeony2k

Well thanks first of all. I worked pretty hard on them and it was like 110 in the garage Saturday. Maybe it wasn't that hot... but it was pretty warm! Really not the best weekend to do this sort of thing... 95F+ and at least 60% humidity.

Depending on how dirty they are, they can be a lot of work to get clean even if you leave them on. I know mine were filthy and my hubs were terrible rusty. Taking them off honestly would/could probably be quicker in terms of time spent. If they are filthy and you are comfortable removing your brake system components for cleaning and painting... go for it! I left mine on and spent at least half a day with my Dremel, sand paper, rust remover pad on my drill, brake cleaner and everything else I had on hand to clean them up. It was anything but lazy, LOL.

I'm a little north of you on 29 in Culpeper btw.

cleoent

i dont see any pics...

cleoent

now they showed up.. weird.

I like it, how did you do the writing? Very cool.

xeony2k

Templates were purchased from: Polak Graphics

Blue87Sport

Do you have a picture with more of the car in it? I would like to see how the silver calipers play against the Gray paint.

Looks like you did a great job on them. Did you sand them to smooth the texture or just get the dirt and dust off?

xeony2k

No I do not have a picture with more of the car in it. Alas the car is dirty (never take pics of dirty cars)... but I did clean the insides of the rims since it is pretty easy with them off. I will get one for you if I happen to see it in the daylight. My wife likes to drive the car and I haven't seen it much this week... yet.

I did not worry about the texture of the brakes. I had thought about sanding/grinding the area where the templates were placed... but it really is not that bad. The bulk of the work was removing the crud on the calipers and cleaning the rusted hubs. I have a pic of one of the calipers/hub about to the point where I was ready to start masking and painting. It is bright and shiny. My hands were so dirty and I was sweating so much... I didn't get a lot of pictures at this stage though. Dripping sweat and grime don't mix well with Digi cams.

cleoent

so you stick on the caliper the stencil, then paint, then pull it off? Brilliant!

ZZ8

Looks great xeony2k. It is also on my to do list. But I need to ask this: How did you clean the hubs? Mine look like yours (first picture). Is there a way (after they are clean) to prevent the rust from coming back?

7andan8

Thanks for your inspiration xeony2k. I suffered through my own hot, humid day of scrubbing and painting. Take a look and tell me what you think.

xeony2k

You are welcome, I am glad I inspired you. I'm certainly no innovator here, but again you are welcome. I think they look pretty good. IMO, you can't go wrong with red calipers.

To clean the hubs I really used three things. I used some wet/dry sandpaper with brake cleaner as my "wet". It evaporates quickly, so you have to use generous amounts or reapply more cleaner often. I used a pretty fine grade (1000?) that I grabbed from my sandpaper cache. I also used a 3M wheel that is designed for light rust removal on my corded drill. To be honest this is great for overall caliper cleaning... it just lacks the fine detail. Finally I used my dremel with a bit that is similar to the 3M wheel for finer detail. Wiped it down and used some paint prep chemicals.... paint away.

As promised earlier here are some pics with more of the car in it. As I stated initially, they don't really jump out (red, yellow, purple, etc.), but it gives a very nice clean look. In fact the first time I saw my wife come down the driveway with it... the "cleanliness" of the calipers and hubs really looked nice. The rusted really bothered me... without further adieu

Blue87Sport

Thanks for posting the pics, Xenony2k. They look great!

I think the silver color you chose goes very well with the Ti-Gray. I've been want ing to paint my calipers but couldn't decide on a color. Red is a bit too much for an understated color like Gray in my personal opinion, so I was very interested in your results. Very nice job!

xeony2k

The silver I used is a Duplicolor product. It is actually the "Ground Coat" for their MetalCast paint products. It can be used as a stand alone (obviously) and is a "silvery" color with metalic flake. A little more exciting than silver. It is rated up to 500F. The only caveat the tech at Duplicolor mentioned is that it should be clear coated with a high temp rated paint of course.

connor@tirerack

THe Tire Rack carries the G2 brake caliper painting kit for 38.00. This kit uses epoxy paint which is just about bullet proof rather than enamel which can be damaged by brake fluid. The kit is available in 9 different colors (Red, Yellow, Blue, Silver, Gold, Black, Purple, Green and White) and you get enough to do 4 calipers. If you click ont he link i have attached below you will see a full description of the paint system.

http://www.tirerack.com/brakes/g2/caliper_paint.jsp