I am looking at painting my calipers in the next couple of weeks to add some pizzaz to my exterior. I have heard people just paint the calipers right on their car. However, I want to paint the entire caliper and not worry about getting any paint on the rotors or anything else. I am wondering if it is very hard to remove the calipers? I don't need to completely remove them, just take them off their mountings so I can handle them a little easier. I have not looked at them to see how hard this would be or what kind of mounting they use. I just think they would be easier to paint this way. Thanks.

 

Anyone?

 

any paint that gets on the surface of the rotors will come off after driving the car. I did mine on the car, if you adequately mask the rotor, brake lines, etc. they will look great. if youre worried about not being able to get the entire caliper, use a lift and you can turn the wheel so that the entire caliper is exposed. mine look perfect so im sure yours will too. to remove the caliper, there is the issue of the brake like and having to bleed them afterwards because of air bubbles. if you are willing to do that, then the caliper is attached with a couple bolts and not too hard to remove. If I were you, I would just paint them on the car.

 

Thanks for the reply. I was hoping someone that had painted their rotors would reply. I figured I could turn the front wheels to get the whole rotor, but what about the rears? If I paint my rotors, I want it to look perfect. Thanks again for your reply.

 

your painting your calipers not your rotors. and dont worry man, ive done this to all three of my cars and they all looked great. what you cant spray you cant see correct?
you must use high heat paint (engine paint) or a variant. color choice is limited so be careful what you chose.

there are some things that you must consider before painting them...
1) they must be cleaned...really clean. so go get a can of brake cleaner and spray them down. then get a wire brush and remove ALL dirt and brake dust from the caliper so that the paint adheres.

2) mask EVERYTHING. if you are not used to spray painting you might want to consider the caliper paint that applies with a brush. if you do use spray, once again mask everything, and if it is at all windy you might not want to attempt this. overspray on your car will look like doo doo.

3) multiple coats are needed. i ussually do about 4 or 5 coats. and make sure to give them time to dry in between. when i did mine i would prop up one side of the car at a time, use jack stands, and grab a beer between coats because it takes about 10 minutes for each coat to dry

4) this will take time. give yourself at least 2 hours. im sure there is a DIY post somewhere on here but i figured id save you the trouble. and lastly, this paint can chip, especially right after you do the painting. so when your re-installing your wheels make sure not to touch the caliper (thats what i did and i needed some minor touch up)

5) enjoy the new look. i cant have a car without painted calipers, doesnt look right

I would say the most important part of this is removing all debris, dirt, and anything else stuck to the calipers with a wire brush. by doing this your paint job will look flat and the life of the paint will grow exponentially. you might want put a towel over your mouth/nose because all that brake dust comes flying off. when i did mine there was clouds of dirt coming off of every rotor. if you dont see these clouds, brush harder. if you use brake cleaner while brushing the caliper your life will be easier but remember paint will not adhere to a surface with brake cleaner on it so make sure you let it dry.

 

when the wheel is off you can get your spray can behind the caliper and hit all sides. be careful with over spray. light compound might take it off but that is something you want to avoid completely.

 

I meant calipers, I don't know why I said rotors. haha

Thanks a lot for the help. I wasn't sure if I would be able to get behind the calipers once I got the wheels off or not. I plan on using the duplicolor brush on caliper paint that comes with cleaning solution.

 

you seem set, make sure to get that dirt off with a wire brush and make sure to have at least a six pack of your favorite brew to enjoy the drying process

 

If want them to really look nice you should go at them with a dremel tool to remove the factory paint and remove all of the casting marks and texture in the metal. After using a drum sanding bit on the caliper bodies, they will start to look like this:



As with any painting project, the more time spent on prep, the better your results will be. After completely smoothing out the caliper and all of the casting marks, apply several light coats allowing ample drying time. If you want a more glossy finish, a high temp clear coat can also be applied, alos in several light coats.

I did a test on one of my stock calipers which I am not using due to my BBK, but here were my results:



Total time spent was about 3 hours including the caliper mounting bracket which I also smoothed out using the dremel tool.

At some point I will be painting my rear calipers black to match the front BBK calipers and I may do a more in depth writeup...dont hold you breath though as I am going to be having back surgery next week and am not sure when I will feel up to it.

 

Is there enough room to dremel the calipers while they are still on the car? I don't want to have to rebleed my entire brake system once I get them put back on. I would rather just leave the lines connected and let them hang if I am going to remove them from the brackets.

 

You can dremel the parts smooth without removing the caliper, but you are going to make a big mess with all the metal dust and it wont be very comfortable to work on. It will also be difficult to get in all the tight little places, but if you cant really see them anyway its not too big of a deal.