Painting callipers?

[Mercdriver]

Any recommendations, intend fitting new disks and pads and may as well give callipers a lick of paint.

I have used smooth Hammerite in past but ICI taken over and changed formulae.

Rustoleum combi colour Seems to be good, any comment on how good it is

[donkmeister]

Might be more involved than what you want, but Big Red will electroplate or powder coat your calipers. I think they took about a week from sending away to getting them back.

Failing that, there is actual high temperature caliper paint.

[Smint]

Been painting my calipers and unswept areas of discs with standard black metal paint for decades, often been Hammerite but couldn't tell you which brand the current pot of paint, heat damage to paint has never been an issue but i don't abuse the brakes.

[Pebbles167]

If it's a decent car/brakes, I'd send them off. On a runabout or track car, get some cardboard behind the caliper and spray some high temp paint on. Even basic spray paint does the job in my experience. Takes under 30 mins to do the lot.

[Mercdriver]

Thanks for suggestions, don’t want to disconnect the pipes to remove callipers and have to bleed the brakes

[Chris32345]

On an everyday car normal paint will be fine no need for high heat on a caliper

[Master Of Puppets]

The one thing you dont want to be doing is painting over rust, to make it worth your while you want to be taking as
much of the caliper as possible back to metal, then paint it with BH Hydrate 80, and then your paint on top of that, thats the
way I do them and have been for years, even through winter with heavy salted roads they remain looking good.

Crusty bubbling paint on calipers is such a bad look, do it right do it once.

[thebraketester]

https://www.foliatec.com/

[Megaflow]

Life is far too short to paint brake calipers. Hateful job

[njw1]

Give them a good wire brushing and then use engine lacquer, been doing it for years with very good results. As above though, it's not a job I particularly enjoy.

Edited by njw1 on Saturday 16th November 11:28

[Dashnine]

I’ve got AP Racing calipers on my car, and while the calipers are black the raised lettering has been (badly) hand painted in yellow.

Any ideas of how to do a better job, a rubber paint roller or something similar perhaps as I’d not really consider that I could do it any better by hand!

[Cliftonite]

Why spoil the appearance of a good car, or even just the nice wheels, by highlighting an ugly chunk of metal behind the wheel?!

[Lincsls1]

Cliftonite said:

Why spoil the appearance of a good car, or even just the nice wheels, by highlighting an ugly chunk of metal behind the wheel?!

Mate of mine had a reasonably new Jaguar a few years back and the calipers and unswept areas of the discs were quite severely rusted. Looked horrible and spoilt the car somewhat.
They can be painted discrete colours too, if you don't want them to stand out too much.

[donkmeister]

Lincsls1 said:

Cliftonite said:

Why spoil the appearance of a good car, or even just the nice wheels, by highlighting an ugly chunk of metal behind the wheel?!

Mate of mine had a reasonably new Jaguar a few years back and the calipers and unswept areas of the discs were quite severely rusted. Looked horrible and spoilt the car somewhat.
They can be painted discrete colours too, if you don't want them to stand out too much.

I don't have pics unfortunately but on one car I had all four calipers rebuilt and electroplated to OEM colour, and the side profile went from "tidy for an old car" to "that looks like a new car". I needed the calipers refurbished anyway, I probably wouldn't have done it for purely aesthetic reasons but with new discs and pads at the same time it was a transformation.

[darreni]

Dashnine said:

I’ve got AP Racing calipers on my car, and while the calipers are black the raised lettering has been (badly) hand painted in yellow.

Any ideas of how to do a better job, a rubber paint roller or something similar perhaps as I’d not really consider that I could do it any better by hand!

I had my AP calipers refurbed by Godspeed brakes, they did a fantastic job in full seal & nipple replacements - £300 ish a pair.

[Belle427]

Rustoleum make some good paints, it will last as good as anything else out there. The good thing is the prep doesnt have to be perfect to apply it.

[Bainbridge]

Silver Hammerite bubbled away on the first track session for me, though it did look good before then.

Bought some high temp caliper paint to do them again in the spring.

I'm not into brightly coloured calipers, it's just to get rid of the rust.

[Dashnine]

darreni said:

Dashnine said:

I’ve got AP Racing calipers on my car, and while the calipers are black the raised lettering has been (badly) hand painted in yellow.

Any ideas of how to do a better job, a rubber paint roller or something similar perhaps as I’d not really consider that I could do it any better by hand!

I had my AP calipers refurbed by Godspeed brakes, they did a fantastic job in full seal & nipple replacements - £300 ish a pair.

Mine by way of comparison…

[LuS1fer]

I used E-tech caliper paint from eBay - red on the Mustang, sky blue in the Insignia and MR2 and yellow on the MX5 RF. I throw away the brush they provide and use a square artist brush. I've used the same paint for hand painting alloys.

I have used more generic caliper paint off eBay but it's not quite as smooth after brush painting.

[donkmeister]

Dashnine said:

Mine by way of comparison…

If you are ever tempted to remove those hex caps for non rusty ones, or to do any sort of refurb then ask around on an owners forum first - I know that on at least some AP Racing calipers they're an absolute pig to remove. Despite appearances, they're not intended to be split for overhaul.