ZHPizza's red car

[johnrando]

Good stuff. Good luck with it all.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[ZHPizza]

Spent some time yesterday cleaning the corrosion off of the rear calipers with some stainless wire brush drill attachments. The dust left me looking like a raccoon. A+ for having a particle mask handy.




I was planning to paint them gloss black, but I'm digging the finish as-is. Anyone know if painting is required to protect the newly exposed surface?

[Sockethead]

I'd put a coat of clear on if nothing else they are plain old cast so they will rust again.
I used silver caliper paint on mine years ago. It's held up very well

[ELCID86]

Looks good. I keep meaning to paint mine.

[johnrando]

G2 has a high temp caliper paint system.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[BMWCurves]

As these guys said, I would think a clear coat or a similar-colored paint would do the trick.

I've got a yellow paint kit from G2 that's unused, but I doubt you'd want it.

[ZHPizza]

G2 has a high temp caliper paint system.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

As these guys said, I would think a clear coat or a similar-colored paint would do the trick.

I've got a yellow paint kit from G2 that's unused, but I doubt you'd want it.

Yep. I have a G2 kit in the garage. I was just looking at it and thinking that I didn't want to bother with it since I like the finish as is. Then you guys show up and start talking about doing things the right way I swear...

[johnrando]

Lol. Even the clear coat wld hv to be high temp, right? Btw, those g2 kits 'expire' according to them, so you it b4 u lose it.

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[Sockethead]

I just used Duplicolor caliper paint in a rattle can. I didn't do nearly as good of a job as you did cleaning and it's still holding up great... that was like, 7 years ago

[ZHPizza]

Finally got around to the actual painting part of the process last night and wanted to jot down my tips for anyone else wanting to do this:

- Prepping sucks. I spent far too much time and made a ridiculous mess grinding away 12 years of brake dust with wire brushes. I'm talking like 1-2 hours per caliper with power tools. If I had to do it again, I would embrace the airborne carcinogens and use a couple cans of brake cleaner while I scrubbed.

- I unmounted the calipers to clean them and put them back in place to paint. I tried a few different ways of suspending them, but this ended up being the easiest way to paint them without fully removing them from the car. Removing the rotors gives you some more room to work (duh).

- I bought a bag of little paint sponges to use instead of the included brush. Don't do this. It's all good and fine until you try to get some coverage in a seam and then your even, light coat gets flooded because you literally just squeezed a sponge full of paint. Dumbass. They also tend to become sloppy after about 60 seconds of use.

- I used about a dozen of the sponge brushes to get down one decent coat on all four calipers, then thought "maybe I should try the brush that was intended for use with this stuff." It was 10x better. It's much easier to do actual light coats and I found that if you slowly drag the bristles over the surface of the caliper, it does a great job of filling the little textured pockets in the casting, giving you a smooth finish after several coats.

- A lot of people complain about the durability of the little bristle brush that comes with the kit, but I think most of those reviewers are actually Neanderthals who's idea of using a paint brush is angrily smashing it into things. It's a tiny, cheap brush. Be gentle. I think I lost three bristles over 5 coats.

- Oh and there's even more complaints about needing multiple brushes because the one in the kit gets stiff when it dries between coats....maybe try KEEPING IT IN THE DAMN CAN BETWEEN COATS. Jesus, people.

Summary: Do multiple (4+), light coats. ~1 hour dry time between coats if you can swing it. Be slow and gentle with the brush. Store it in the can so that it doesn't dry out.

Oh and here is the kit that I used. It's great and I'd definitely pay the premium over a spray can again.