painting your calipers

[zoefke]

At one time or another, we all get tired of our boring looking calipers. We see painted calipers, but we dont really want to risk ****ing anything on our cars up. We also dont really want to take everything off when we paint it. Well in this article, I will show you an easy way to do up your calipers using tools you already have

Items needed:
- Jack stands (or for the ghetto folk, cinder blocks)
- Jack
- Tire Iron
- Newspaper, and plastic bags
- Degreaser or other cleaning solvent (make sure its non flammable)
- Bristle brush of some sort
- High Heat Paint

Ok, so I decided to paint my cailpers. I wanted them to match my yellow 'H' Emblems, so I picked up some Dupli-Color Engine Enamel Ceramic 500 degree Daytona Yellow DE164s Paint at my local autozone. High heat paint is important because your brakes get hot. You can get paint rated higher heat than this, but I couldnt find any that was yellow so I went with this.

Project car: 1991 Honda Civic LX Sedan

Step 1: Jack up car, remove tires, put on jackstand, and repeat with other side of car (for those of you who have 4 wheel disk brakes, do em in whatever order suits you)

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/883/fd1eca85la0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

My car only has front disks so I just jacked up the front
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/4880/fd1eca68yb8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Step 2: Clean your calipers as good as you can. I chose to use some degreser we had, which probably didnt do the best job, but I could not think of anything harsher than this that wasnt flammable
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/7339/fd1eca46rr1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

This looks good, doesent it?
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/7128/fd1eca1bpt4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Step 3: Cover all the **** you do not want to paint, do not just spray away because the end product will look like crap and you will hate it. Dont worry if a little paint gets on the rotor, it will come off once you brake.
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2531/fd1eca05bx9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/5420/fd1ec9eaxv0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Step 4: Do a couple of nice LIGHT coats, using an hour between applications (what I did). Dont try to do it all at one time, because you will have runs and it will look like crap.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/2682/fd1ec9c7ma0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I did about 4 Coats in the end, once you are satisfied and the paint is DRY remove all the bags and newspaper and **** and admire your work
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/4310/fd1ec9b1sd6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/6168/fd1ec99bqx4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

time to throw the VX rims back on
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/4100/fd1ec96ecp6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

And there you have it folks, one quality job.

Final note: Do not paint your drum brakes as it looks pretty ricey, and usually flakes off (if you like it do it, but I wouldnt)

[Mbuti]

Before painting mine, I put some small pieces of newspaper on the recessed "black" parts, to add some depth to the caliper, not just a blob of color.

[3rdGenCrazy]

nice write up u got here. but it'd be better if u didnt have to click on EVERY picture to see it. still a nice write up.

[zoefke]

sorry for the little inconviniance
I've changed the writup so you can now see the pictures instantly

greetz

[jsherer]

I slid my caliper off of the rotor(had to unscrew two bolts) and propped it on a box under it, then i painted it. But I did NOT disconnect the brake lines.

[jimmyznutz]

It looks much cleaner if you remove the caliper from the rotor and take out the brake pads so the only thing getting paint is the caliper itself. I did mine in satin black.
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h311/jimmyznutz/PICT2375.jpg

[zoefke]

I fully agree.
but this was one of my first rides
so improvised a little bit

greetz

[Pooponurhead]

I may be repainting mine in the next couple weeks YAY! When painting the calipers, could some kind of primer be used? I'm sure it would help the paint stick a little better than just bare metal, cuz no matter how much you clean it, theres still gonna be a bunch of crap all over the caliper. Sand paper and primer FTW!:smile:

[Si Speed]

I just used brake cleaner and a wire brush to clean it off and waited 20 minutes between coats but you mighta used a different paint. I used Duplicolor.

[thomas97]

either you have two cars and didnt do this to your prelude, or you took this from somewhere, post up some credit if ya took it from somewhere!
:smashfreakB: :cool:

otherwise i agree, if you paint the shoes it looks liek a blob.

[zoefke]

at this moment I have 3 cars
and I useally dirve my cars no langer then a year before replacing them,

greetz

[inmate]

is the paint you got a spray paint?

[zoefke]

its a spray paint specially for coloring your calipers
I ordered it at autostyle
greetz

[inmate]

Can you use bleach to clean the caliber? I heard the degreaser doesn't clean it very well?

[mcimo]

If I remove my calipers to paint them, is it possible to remove the brake line, and then reinstall it later?

[BadMofo]

If I remove my calipers to paint them, is it possible to remove the brake line, and then reinstall it later?

Absolutely... but then you have to bleed all the way around.

[mcimo]

Well I guess that would make sense, because I'd take them all off to paint them anyways.

[GoToast]

Brembo red... :D

[Si Speed]

Polished calipers is the way to go...

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n36/djoreyo/IMG_0964.jpg

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n36/djoreyo/PolishB04.jpg

If I can get me a beater this summer, I'm definitely doing this.

[mcimo]

^Just to let everyone know these are not E's calipers, or tires for that matter ;)

[GoToast]

but that looks like they sent them out to be polished. and polished only goes good with some rims and certain ppl's tastes. >:P

[99PreludeSh]

I think if you are going to paint your calipers have some decently nice rotors to go with it maybe some slaughted ones?

[mcimo]

but that looks like they sent them out to be polished. and polished only goes good with some rims and certain ppl's tastes. >:P

Wrong ;) Those are our very own Rory's and he did them himself. Too bad he doesn't have that beauty anymore :(

[Si Speed]

He did the ones on the Supra himself as well.
And Slotted rotors are good, better than cross drilled since they don't break like those do, but they eat up your pads a lot faster, which is sort of senseless if you don't have extensive mods where you actually need them.

[GoToast]

Well then tell the boy to make a write-up. Share the knowledge and money saving with other ppl.

[Smok3y]

Well then tell the boy to make a write-up. Share the knowledge and money saving with other ppl.

http://www.preludezone.com/showthread.php?t=111

[Irish Luder]

i painted my friends callipers for him on his s15 the same way and it made such a difference. when we were cleaning them we just used scotch brite and lighter fluid to degrease them and painted them with regular oil based car paint.

here are some before and after pics..

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n211/Chawkie/P4080001.jpg

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n211/Chawkie/P4080005.jpg

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n211/Chawkie/P4070013.jpg

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n211/Chawkie/P4070017.jpg

[sfields]

Yea I just did mine in red, I took the fronts off because I was changing the rotors anyways, the backs I got lazy and just painted with the rotors on... I wouldnt recommend it because now I have to take them apart and scuff up the back pads because theyre squeaking due to the contaminants(paint) on the pad.

[98BB6SH]

here is mine...
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s249/bravoelement/Prelude/Interior%20Pics/IMG_4135.jpg

they look 10000000 times better

[InvaderTrax]

Anyone else notice the amount of paint he got on the rotors by doing it this way?

[96SLUDE]

Yeah i think the initial write up is not to good, i just all four brakes and new brembo drilled and slotted rotors over the weekend, took everything apart and relubed everything, took awhile, but the initial writeup looks lazy, its not even even, idk you should take the time and pull everything apart.

[jcball3r]

even if you got paint on the rotors, they will come right off when you hit your brakes while rolling