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

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.