and what a bitch it was!! After cleaning the shit out of them and sanding them down as much as possible.....it still took 5 coats of Plastikote Hi-Temp paint...RED.... to cover. Then once it seemed as though i had the coverage i was looking for, it became quite apparent that i needed a clearcoat to top it off..WHAT AN ADVENTURE.
Go to Pep-Boys with my gf lil' bro...one last bottle of hi-temp clearcoat left..thank god!!!!...BUT WAIT...he decides he wants to see just how "clear" it looks when sprayed. Of course now with any spray paint bottle, you need a screwdriver to open it up...NOT HIM....he goes and rips the cap off and tears the friggin nozzle off with it!!!!.....what was i to do?? so we bought it and used it....the shit was close to impossible to get off our hands..leaking all over the place....it was a mess.
Anyway....the first front caliper we did was tough, but we learned from it and then the rest was a little easier.....
It took me about 6 hours to do...thats with all those coats of paint and clearcoat...lunch......a snack.....and then i cleaned my rims really good before putting them back on....look brand new..not an ounce of dirt on them....

Fun and interesting adventure..and the results were satisfying and i believe they enhance the sporty look of my black Type-S...
and for all you a-holes who say.."how much HP does that give you??" i say..
roughly 4hp.....i could be mistaken.
Pics to come soon.!!

 

Good job. I wouldn't even be able to get the wheels off, so don't feel too bad.

 

I want to see chrome calipers on a black CLS.

 

why did you have so much trouble?

I've painted my calipers 3 different colors on 3 occasions... it never took me long at all... and I never ran into any difficulties.

The only part that took long as allowing the paint to dry... but I found coverage to be incredibly easy.

I used Plasti-Kote Brake Caliper Paint...

 

soop-----
i was actually figuring on 2-3 hours max for this job...
but then i had some difficulty with the coverage.

I think i was a little nervous doing this too.....never doing this before, i was real hesitant at certain points on the process....but if i had to paint it ,say, a different color tomorrow...it certainly wouldnt take that long. The coverage was the biggest problem for me..once the paint was on, it took no time to dry..but it was certain spots on the calipers that did not take too well to the paint that made the process so long and drawn out..

Either way, it is done now and i love the look of it!
Thanks for the pics and advice soopa.

First timers beware when painting your calipers....

 

I wonder why it wouldnt take in spots?

Prolly had some sort of grime or some shit on there?

Coverage has always been easy for me... my calipers are black now.

What did you sand the calipers down with?

 

i sanded it with a sanding block..i think it was "fine". i had no problem with getting the caliper nice and smooth...and i frequently sprayed with caliper cleaner to rinse it of any dirt and grime. i do believe that there was something left on the calipers even after the sanding, cleaning and wiping because only a few spots on the caliper would give me trouble...enough to drive me crazy this afternoon.

 

I had no problem getting coverage on mine. However, I didn't just sand them, Instead I hit them first with brake cleaner, then rinsed, then Simple Green, then rinsed, then I used course steel wool.

Paint went on in three light coats and I was dont in around 3 hours. I think, as Soopa said, you probably left some grease on them unless you hit them with some sort of de-greaser.

 

Sorry to hear you had so much trouble man. I did mine a few weeks ago and just took a wire brush to them, but some wheel cleaner on them, scrubbed, let them sit, and hosed it off. I didnt have any trouble with the paint sticking at all and i had around 179,000 miles on those calipers that i never cleaned (yes they have been in snowy areas too, i lived in NJ up until a year and a half ago). They got very clean too, looked brand new, i was really surprised.
Hey do we need to clear coat them? I couldnt find high temp clear coat so i didnt do them, should I? thanks

 

Just a note, the first time I painted my calipers (red) I didn't even sand them.

I just sprayed some wheel cleaner... washed them off... and sprayed them with Plasti-Kote Brake Caliper paint.

I had complete coverage within 2 passes with the spray can.


Maybe the Hi-Temp paint is thinner or somethign??


Winter is officially here now in the NE... well see how the paint holds up to salt.

 

soopa, pics of the black calipers now. i might do mine black and want to see firts.

(ps. i keep aiming you asking you to just send me a link to the site you got your AVrgb1 from....)

 

Do you guys know of a url to info on painting calipers, the paint type that should be used, etc.

 

Dumb question ! Do you guys do both rear and front or just the front ?

 

Dumber question. Did anyone get a brake upgrade then paint em red or are they stocK?

You know the whole, bigger brakes, or cross-drilled, or slotted, or performance pads or all of the above to actually stop me faster with less fade thing?

 

i painted right over the stock calipers.....

i left them sit over night and they look good today...no problems with the brakes or anything like that once i started driving again.. I did see some red spots on the rotors that i didnt see yesterday...but they will come right off with brake cleaner.
I may just touch up a few areas with a small brush tomorrow....but so far so good

 

While you were at it, you should have cleaned and painted the rotors. That's what I did.

There is rust around the inner ring and on the very outer edge that is clearly visible with the tire on. Rust remover and some black paint will work just fine. You can tell the different but not a whole lot of difference. It's better than looking at plain rust.

 

here is the best pic I have of the black calipers...

their not much to look at, but thats the point.

who would want to draw attention away from that wheel!

 

Wow, I can't see neither the caliper nor the wheel! That's pretty good....

 

 

I used 3 coats of VHT hi temp brake caliper paint. To clean the crud and rust off the calipers, I used a wire wheel on a drill, very fast and thorough. I did use paint tape and covered all the holes and break pad spots before spraying. Only took a few hours, not tough at all. I went with silver, was thinking of blue but could not find a color I liked in hi-temp paint.

 

my fault... photopoint was down.

looks like their back up now.