Painting Calipers and...rotors?

DJ · Post by DJ » May 17th, 2006, 5:41 pm

Hey, my car is currently getting re-painted but one thing that isn't is the calipers. I painted them a while ago so I will need to put some fresh paint on them, just looking into what else I can do when my wheels are off.

My question is: can you sand and paint the part of the rotor that is rusted where the pads do not touch, near the center. It's not really an issue in the front because the pads touch most of the surface keeping it clean and rust free, but in the rear because of the smaller pads with my new rims the rust near the center of them is VERY easily seen. If possible would it turn out ugly? I would think that painting that part silver would look alot better than rust.

solo_ryder · Post by **solo_ryder** » May 17th, 2006, 7:36 pm

It may be just a good idea to get new rotors that have a rust free protection spray already on them, you can find some on eBay, or get new rotors that are plain and srpay the areas that the brakes dont touch with like a zinc based spray paint or high heat paint that does not attract rust.

Bolverk · Post by **Bolverk** » May 17th, 2006, 8:30 pm

My friend had his rotors on his 300zx painted black, the center hub part and the outer edge. Looks much better than ugly rust, there is still a small ring of rust between the paint and where the pad connects, but its only noticeable if you get up close. When I got new rims I hated seeing the rusty rotors, so I bought some Brembos that have the zinc coating, check out my worklog to see how they look. Now my friend wants to do the same thing, but if you are short on money, I say paint them.

DJ · Post by DJ » May 17th, 2006, 8:43 pm

Thanks, i'll paint them a silver close to the colour of the rotor for now. Next time I need brakes I will go with the Brembo's.

Hoodzy · Post by **Hoodzy** » May 18th, 2006, 12:38 am

if u painted the rotors wouldnt they just get insanely hot and bubble/crack off??

PATDIESEL · Post by **PATDIESEL** » May 18th, 2006, 1:30 am

Yeah, you need to tape off the contact area and don't paint the face that touches the wheel or the heat and pressure will stick the paint to the wheel.

If will look good though. (Make sure to use high temp paint. The rotors get pretty hot)

DJ · Post by DJ » May 18th, 2006, 8:36 am

Yeah, I intend to use something like an engine paint, that is what I used on the calipers and that lasted a couple years.

Macen · Post by **Macen** » May 18th, 2006, 5:27 pm

I used heat standing paint. Works very well.

jschrauwen · Post by **jschrauwen** » May 21st, 2006, 1:40 pm

DJ, I haven't got pics yet and will in the next while. Not necessary to buy new calipers. I acquired rebuilt ones for the front and rear and lightly sanded them to remove anything that would impede the paint from bonding. I got some (Brembo gold) caliper paint ( they carry actual caliper paint) from Canadian Tire store and painted them ensuring all rubber parts and piston face were sufficiently covered (masked off). Once paint had dried....(an hour or so) I placed all 4 calipers on tinfoil covered cookie sheet into oven and baked at 150 degrees for 3 hours. I then let the oven cool with them in there for another 30 minutes. I've now got a very hard and smooth coating on them which will make for easier cleaning in the future and "should" prevent future fading and cracking......touch wood. The CD rotors I also put on were new NiCad plated (goldish colour) and should hold up......again - touch wood. Your idea to clean the original rotors from all rust is a good idea although I'm not sure how long that will last without a good controlled paint baking process. There are slightly larger pads available to give a larger swept area (contact patch) on the existing rear rotors. I purchased them through ebay and I believe they are made in Australia, but not sure. Those specific names of pads and such is contained in the suspension forum.

Macen · Post by **Macen** » May 21st, 2006, 1:43 pm

I didn't bake mine for that long. 5-10 min max. And the paint isn't that hard now afterwards, so maybe I should've baked them longer.

jschrauwen · Post by **jschrauwen** » May 21st, 2006, 1:48 pm

Macen wrote:I didn't bake mine for that long. 5-10 min max. And the paint isn't that hard now afterwards, so maybe I should've baked them longer.

Periodic checks in the oven showed me that they were still a little tacky after about 30 minutes so maybe i was just lucky at the time period. My biggest concern was the rubber seals and made sure that i didn't compromise those. After about 1.5 hours the calipers paint felt hard to the touch but left them in there longer just on speculation.

Darcy · Post by **Darcy** » June 18th, 2006, 2:34 am

I got new rotors and pads recently and had them painted with engine paint. Turned out really good, but too bad I didn't get the rust-proof ones. These are about a month old, and the paint is still good.

DJ · Post by DJ » June 18th, 2006, 2:29 pm

I finally got around to painting them all and it turned out well. The silver I used for the rotor is pretty much the same color as the rim. I'll take some pics when I get a chance. My car has to go back in to repair my bumper since it was rear ended less than 200KM after getting it back from a full body and paint job.
I have some pics of the fresh paint but I havent put up any pics yet because the camera really doesnt show much of a difference from what it was before.

Jutzi420 · Post by **Jutzi420** » June 18th, 2006, 5:10 pm

I've gone through the same process almost yearly with my car. Originally I had all the calipers painted with Hi-temp white, but it tended to be hard to clean. My last attempt I stripped my calipers down to base parts and had them shot-peened, then used the gold stuff from Candian Tire that's meant for brake parts. It's held up pretty good for close to 2 years, they have some rust on em (Canadian winter's fault, even with extremely minimal driving)

I've also had the niCad plated brembos for maybe 3 and a half years, they look better than the old stockers I had but still show rust (Damn road salt in action again) The one thing I've found with the gold paint or the niCad is it's close enough to a light rust color that a little bit isn't noticable until you get close. I think I'm gonna respray everything next spring tho.

DJ · Post by DJ » June 19th, 2006, 12:42 am

This is how my stuff turned out:

Also adding a few new pics to the cardomain site