How To Paint Your Calipers

by Brian Post, aka Firedrake, firedrak@cs.unm.edu

Heya everyone, I've seen lots of cars with painted calipers driving around, but I couldn't find much info on how to do it. I'm sure not a pro, but my calipers look incredible so I thought I'd share my experiences with you guys and gals out there. I'll go through this process in a couple of simple steps.

Materials:

• 2 cans of spraypaint, or 3 if you want to use primer (one of the color you want and the other is clear coat-both need to be high-temp and quick-dry, lots of people have told me that regular paint is fine or to just use high-temp primer, but I used all high-temp-I'm not taking chances) I got all of the paint at a nearby Pep-Boys.
  UPDATE:
  I recently repainted the calipers when I put my new brakes on, and I used a new paint specifically for calipers called VHT Caliper paint. You can get it from Summit Racing for like $5 a can, and I used 2 cans to do all 4 calipers. This stuff works GREAT (much better than hi-temp paint) and really isn't much more expensive than hi-temp paint.
• 2 floor jacks (the one that came w/ your car and your friends, or even better the nice 2 1/2 ton floorjacks you can buy at car places)
• Lots of newspaper
• Duct-tape
• A couple of rags
• Brake cleaner
• A hair-dryer and extension cord
• The stuff needed to remove your tires, and an enclosed space to do it in (your garage, your worst enemies living room, a shack on a tropical island with beautiful ladies all around).

Instructions:

1. Clean your brakes with the brake cleaner and wash them off. Let them dry overnight
2. Jack up the front half of your car and take off the wheels (remember to loosen the lugs before you jack it up)
3. Grab the rags and wipe off your calipers really good (some people say to sand the calipers with some fine grain sand paper at this point, but I didn't), then use the hairdryer and blow the dust and other remnants off of the calipers.
4. Start covering up everything around the caliper with newspaper (you can fold it to fit between some parts of the caliper and rotor, and you can wad it up to stuff in some places), and also wrap areas strategically with duct tape. I also used some plastic grocery bags to wrap the rotor with. Make sure to put some newspaper out on the floor (just in case). I had no problems keeping the paint off the wheel wells and shocks/springs, but if you think you might spray them, cover them too. When you're done, you should see caliper, duct tape, paper, and plastic bags (do the best job you can covering everything up, if you get a little paint on the rotors it won't matter because it'll come off when you first apply the brakes anyways).
5. Start painting! :)....If you wanted to prime them, do 2 or so layers of that first. For each of the layers you spray, do them thin and dry them extensively (I used the hairdryer to help with this)...I'd suggest 3 or 4 layers of color and 2 layers of clearcoat....paint the whole caliper, including the back of the brake pad.
6. When you're done with all of the layers, let the final clearcoat dry. Then youu can cut off all of the paper and duct tape and toss it. Doesn't that caliper look wonderful! It'll sure look good through the gaps in your 18 inch rims, won't it? :)
7. Put your wheels back on and tighten the lugs. Release the jacks and tighten the lugs again with the wheels on the ground.
8. Do the rear of the car the same way as the front. I'd let the car sit overnight just to make sure everything is dry before you take it for a cruise.
9. That's it! You now have some good lookin' calipers to go w/ your good lookin' automobile! The whole process took me about 5 or so hours, not including the washing of the calipers beforehand. If you have any questions or anything, feel free to email me and I'll provide whatever insight I can.