I am in the process of painting some cady calipers. After reading the back of the caliper paint can I read that they should be baked at 200 Degrees. Should I or should I not bake?

If you do "bake" them, you will have to dissasemble them. I don't see the seals lasting in an oven. What brand of caliper paint? I used a "caliper" paint on mine 2 years ago. No chips, cracks, or issues. Of course I never read the can?!

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if that is was the instructions say...

I have been using that duplicolor kit and it holds up very well. I have also used regular spray paint with no troubles as well. Never had a problem with any cars with normal driving. I did get a bit of darkening on a caliper i painted with bronze spray paint.

just prep them like any other metal

I thought about disassembling them but that would be too much work. I am using "caliper" paint. Thanks for the advice.

Yeah, just tape them off and paint.

Two years ago...



Recent....



Prepping is key to a great paint job.

Great looking suspension Tony. I hate that rotors rust.. I wish there was a way to get a non rusting rotor! Whered you get that sway bar? Or did you paint it silver?

[This message has been edited by tbone42 (edited 05-30-2010).]

The rust sucks! I will sand and paint the outsides and the vent holes one day. Someone here did that, and the results were awesome. It is a lot of work, but Spokane winters let me take care of her properly. The sway bar is painted.

Paint your callipers and then do a few hard stops. That will bake the paint.

Very nice job Tony Kania. Did you paint the rotors and dust shield too?

use a heat gun. just watch out for the breaklines

i dont know if i want to use a heat gun. you got rubber seals that can melt. but im sure they can resist heat pretty well. but i would just do some hard brakeing like the one of the members mentioned.
i painted one of my calipars. but i must hve not cleaned it well enough. i think it had a small amount of break fluid left on that i didnt get. and it jsut wrecked the paint.

I wouldnt even consider bakeing the paint,you risk the chance of bubbleing and wrinkleing the paint.Make sure you degrease the calipers well.Then degrease them again,just to be sure their clean.

quote Originally posted by John316: Very nice job Tony Kania. Did you paint the rotors and dust shield too?

Yes, and yes. To be completely honest with you though, next time I am definately going with powder coating. I have no issues with the paint that I did, but friends in the area are in a powder coating rage, and I like it. Looks like candy.

Thanks for all of the compliments guys. I put way more time working on her than I ever do driving her. Compliments like that make my day. Thanks.

Tony

Plain old spray paint is fine. Caliper paint dont really do any better. If you really want to spend lots of money, take them off, apart and powdercoat them. Ive had regular Krylon last for years on daily driven cars I have that I show several times a week.

If you dont want rust on your rotors, there are zinc ones you can buy.

I've always just cleaned them with paint thinner or something similar. I used high temp silver exhaust paint. It says it needs to be cured after X amount of time. So after painting them, I ran them threw the wringer by doing a lot of high speed hard braking to get the calipers really hot. The paint is as permanent as it could be now. It's been on for years and it still looks perfect.

I cleaned mine with a wire wheel on my bench grinder. Cleaned them up pretty good. Then a rattle can paint job. The paint seems to be doign just fine.

Here's a caliper 1/2 cleaned.

quote Originally posted by John316: After reading the back of the caliper paint can I read that they should be baked at 200 Degrees. Should I or should I not bake?

General rules for painting small parts:

1) Unless you're a paint expert, use the proper paint for the application: brake paint for brake parts, etc. You may or may not get good results from a general-purpose paint.

2) Read and follow the manufacturer's instructions. It's their paint, and nobody knows it better than they do.

3) Both surface preparation and post-cure (if any) are at least as important (if not more) to long-term success than how you apply the paint itself. Along with solvent washing, scrubbing, detergent washing, scrubbing, and water rinsing, bead blasting is an excellent way to remove dirt, rust, and corrosion to prepare metal parts for painting. Bead blasting generally leaves a micro-velvety surface that is almost perfect for paint adhesion.

That said, even though 200 F would probably be OK (it's within the normal operating range of brake caliper temperatures) I would not recommend post-curing your calipers with the rubber seals in place.

In the special case of stock '88 Fiero calipers, you can just remove the cast iron bridges from the aluminum caliper bodies and prep/paint/cure them alone. The bridge is just about all that is visible anyway. I have had good results over many years using VHT brand brake paint (a rattle can aerosol).

'88 caliper bridges before and after a few minutes in the bead blast cabinet:


Paint applied, cooling after oven post-cure:


Installed; the rotor had received similar treatment:


The roughness you can see in the pictures is the original, "as cast" surface ... not due to the bead blasting. Bead blasting actually does a fantastic job of preserving fine details in metal castings.

[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 06-02-2010).]