The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Painting disk brake calipers

Eastwood sells a "kit" for painting calipers with a brush so you don't have to take the thing apart. I like that idea because I'd just like to get rid of the rust and put a coating of gray or black paint on them.

Is there another way to do this without spending $40 for the Eastwood kit?

I beleive that dupli-Color has a similar product, should be able to find it at the flaps.

Unless you're planning to trailer the truck everywhere and never do anything other than drive it on and off the trailer for a car show, the paint won't stay put. Brake parts are there to generate HEAT, lots of it, because that's what stops the vehicle. The paint will peel off in a matter of a few minutes of normal driving. Paint on calipers also serves as an insulator, keeping them from dissipating the heat they create. Boiling brake fluid doesn't stop worth crap, as anyone who has experienced brake fade can confirm!
Jerry

I agree with Hotrod Lincoln. Bad idea.

Harvester

My bet is that if you were to paint the calipers, the extra heat generated by the insulating qualities of the paint would cause a immediate and catastrophic failure of your brake system. This would probably happen in the parking lot at the shopping mall and result in the death of many women and children.

Eastwood caliper paint is good to 900&deg. Dot 3 brake fluid boils at 369&deg. Knowledgeable folks paint and powder coat calipers all day long and live to talk about it.

Paint the suckers if you want to, it's only a bad idea if you paint them pink!

Stuart

I'm not painting calipers, but I painted the inside of the backing plates of my 53 with a high temp rattle can paint from the hardware store that is sold for painting BBQ grills, etc. (supposed to be good to 1200 degrees).

saw the dupli color stuff at advance auto parts.it is specifically for calipers.seems if it was bad to use it with all the liability issues involved they wouldnt sell it.but then again i dont know much of nuthin.......dave

I think this may be another example of how theory doesn't play out in the real world. I'm with David on this one... if it had a harmful effect on something as fundamental as brakes I doubt seriously that anyone would risk making and selling it.

I'm going to paint mine silver with instructions in my will to post an obit here if I die in an accident caused by my painted calipers.

LMAO!

I've got an 06 Mustang that we painted the calipers the day we took the car off the lot (we ordered the car, so we ordered the kit in advance) with one of Eastwood's kits, and haven't had any problems with either the brakes or the paint coming off. It looks just as good as it did the day we painted the calipers.
Samantha

Even the cheap Rustoleum has held up well on the 37 pickup calibers for 8 years now. A little faded now but still doesn't look bad......BUT if you plan to be RACING then it may not be such a good idea?!

since we agree can i be the benificiary and get whats left of your truck for parts????????? dave

You're in.

not so, I painted the calipers on my Vette with the duplicolor caliper paint and it held up fine. I painted the rear calipers to match the factory painted front calipers.

ps, Jerry did your class ever get to work on that 216 you got from me?

How about powder coating? I plan on powder coating the same color as my truck. Then the dust shields I am going to have them powdercoated like a chrome.

Tom

I painted mine with the body color/paint. Did little prep to them and brush painted it on. No primer or anything just body paint. 8500 miles later they still look great.

I paint the calipers on all my vehicles. A rattle can of high-temp paint flat black. I re-touch it up when ever I do a brake job. It helps keep the rust at bay. I also paint the brake rotors (masking off the friction surface). This keeps rust from flaking the rotors away from inside the venting. For more bling - I have also used both the eastwood kit as well as powder. I like powder best.

BTW, just a few things from my experience:
Rust is by far a better insulator of thermal transfer than painted metal.
Dot 3 brake fluid is hydroscopic and will boil as low as 250F when it has absorbed enough moisture from the air (at about 7% by volume).
Standard brake seals melt at 250F

Yes, it's on a run stand in the shop, not running yet, but soon. There's a broken oil line to the rocker arms down inside the side cover that needs to be spliced. After some soaking with Kroil, the engine turns freely and the compression test comes out pretty good. Only one cylinder has more air leakage on the cylinder leak test than I like to see, so it's probably going to run pretty good. It's also getting a HEI distributor adapted to it.

I prefer to err on the side of caution about painting brake parts. If you feel it's an absolute necessity to look cool instead of be safe, there's a spray-on cast iron coating machine shops use on cylinder heads and blocks that gives a uniform dark gray color and inhibits rust. That might be OK, but I've never tried it.
Jerry

I know where there is a 454 painted with the same paint that was used on the body. That was almost 60,000 miles ago and it hasn't peeled anywhere so I can't imagine the same paint not working for calipers.

I'm not sure about the safety aspects but I've seen I don't know how many new cars come out with the calipers painted, and I've seen some painted drums, not sure if that'd be the same or not but those people aren't dead either.

What about the cars that come from the factory with painted calipers? They last OK and brake OK.