how to paint your brake calipers - Honda Forum / Acura Forum

Melt · 10-18-2003, 09:47 PM

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 fucking 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)

My car only has front disks so I just jacked up the front

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

This looks good, doesent it?

Step 3: Cover all the shit 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.

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.

I did about 4 Coats in the end, once you are satisfied and the paint is DRY remove all the bags and newspaper and shit and admire your work

time to throw the VX rims back on

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)

GPoodle · 10-22-2003, 01:57 PM

MikeSho, admin on these boards did an awesome tutorial on using aluminied paint for the anodized look a while back. The post is probably long gone with the forum problems though...

Mike?

Melt · 10-22-2003, 06:05 PM

yea i remember seein that ... his calipers turned out a LOT better than mine.

mike_sho · 10-23-2003, 07:10 PM

You did good masking and stuff and used different stuff. Iam just not sure about degreaser around brake rotors. Any sort of weird stuff gets on there and you can get some weird stuff. But they do look clean , so I need to add that into mine that there needs to be some scrubbing involved.

I just sanded mine , and used alcohol to scrub & prep it....I should have used a wire brush or something with the alcohol to further clean them.

I reposted the article in the tech article archive. I used I think plastikote new "anodizit" paint. Which basically the colors are nice and what makes them look good, an eletron blue and a nice deep red. They come out with a high gloss.

crdcz03 · 10-26-2003, 12:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mike_sho
You did good masking and stuff and used different stuff. Iam just not sure about degreaser around brake rotors. Any sort of weird stuff gets on there and you can get some weird stuff. But they do look clean , so I need to add that into mine that there needs to be some scrubbing involved.

I just sanded mine , and used alcohol to scrub & prep it....I should have used a wire brush or something with the alcohol to further clean them.

I reposted the article in the tech article archive. I used I think plastikote new "anodizit" paint. Which basically the colors are nice and what makes them look good, an eletron blue and a nice deep red. They come out with a high gloss.

speaking of your DIY... where is it? lol

i came in here looking for it

Hooked_on4 · 10-27-2003, 11:09 PM

Hey Mike thanks to your article, I painted mine bout 2 months ago but did the anodize red and it looks great, here what they look like

if it works

and BTW crd you have to go into SHO ARticles and you'll see it

thanx again

mike_sho · 10-28-2003, 05:29 PM

Very nice looking. Finally get to see the red. Looks great , matches the car.

Id also look into painting the side skirts red. You can get exact duplicate red honda paint in a can. Get some sand paper , sand the side skirt till its smooth , get some of the primer from that same company , then hit it up with the red and maybe even purchase the clear coat. Do that and youll have a home made body kit. Or at least it makes the oem look a lot nicer.

I might do a write up on it , but its pretty much that simple. If I could find someone in my area I might do there car and do the write up and pictures at the same time.

My car is black so the results arent so dramatic. Ive done white and red.

crdcz03 · 10-28-2003, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mike_sho
Very nice looking. Finally get to see the red. Looks great , matches the car.

Id also look into painting the side skirts red. You can get exact duplicate red honda paint in a can. Get some sand paper , sand the side skirt till its smooth , get some of the primer from that same company , then hit it up with the red and maybe even purchase the clear coat. Do that and youll have a home made body kit. Or at least it makes the oem look a lot nicer.

I might do a write up on it , but its pretty much that simple. If I could find someone in my area I might do there car and do the write up and pictures at the same time.

My car is black so the results arent so dramatic. Ive done white and red.

do mine do mine!!!

ill help too

and ill pay you with food

but seriously... let me know

Hooked_on4 · 10-28-2003, 09:57 PM

Yeah thats a great Idea

I just might have to do that along w/my side molding

thanx again Mike

mike_sho · 10-31-2003, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hooked_on4
Yeah thats a great Idea I just might have to do that along w/my side molding thanx again Mike

Side molding? The part on the doors? *shiver* those scare me. I would never do those. Id let a pro do that....

Also try riding around with no mudguards for a day. Someone got me to drop mine on here and It does look better. Even though I kinda liked them and made it look kinda more functional.... Youd be suprised how it is without.

But I dunno I like them on your car as well..... Maybe I just like both looks , but It seems with them off and when you have rims. It looks nice.

Hooked_on4 · 10-31-2003, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mike_sho
Side molding? The part on the doors? *shiver* those scare me. I would never do those. Id let a pro do that....

Also try riding around with no mudguards for a day. Someone got me to drop mine on here and It does look better. Even though I kinda liked them and made it look kinda more functional.... Youd be suprised how it is without.

But I dunno I like them on your car as well..... Maybe I just like both looks , but It seems with them off and when you have rims. It looks nice.

whats the big deal about side molding? I would take them off paint and reinstall them. Is that a pain to do? And Imma have to think about the mudguard thing, never thought about it good idea though hmmmmm

Melt · 10-31-2003, 04:27 PM

i wouldnt take off your mudguards, ESPECIALLY if you have an older car. Think about it the paint under em will look new as fuck while the rest of the car is faded.

Phantom_Sol · 11-04-2003, 01:33 PM

HEY guys, i tried the anodizit method. it came out great. esp3ecially if you take a dremel to the caliper first to polish the majority surface. BUT just to test it, i sprayed some brake cleaner onto it afterwards and the paint started coming off....

but then again, i let it dry for a day or so but i didnt heat it up to cure it. that could be wy it ran though. i used high temp engine paint with ceramic. after driving around for 3 hours, the paint has hardened. nicely

rnstein69 · 11-05-2003, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Phantom_Sol
HEY guys, i tried the anodizit method. it came out great. esp3ecially if you take a dremel to the caliper first to polish the majority surface. BUT just to test it, i sprayed some brake cleaner onto it afterwards and the paint started coming off....

but then again, i let it dry for a day or so but i didnt heat it up to cure it. that could be wy it ran though. i used high temp engine paint with ceramic. after driving around for 3 hours, the paint has hardened. nicely

yeah-i just painted mine earlier today using that same engine enamel paint-they came out great-im gonna post up some pics later-the calipers look really nice-espeacially compared to the way that they looked originally-great diy and props to mike_sho!!!