Painting the Calipers

When I bought the car the previous owner was a complete tard and did the utmost ****ty job on the calipers. He (or she?) first off didn't use heat resistant paint, sprayed it on probably without cleaning the surfaces, and did so with the calipers still attached to the car. They also did a jack-ass job with masking the important parts with tape. My brake bleed valves had paint in the threads. Took probably around 60-ft lbs of torque to get them loose. Mind you those valves are mighty small.

However, they at least made sure to use multiple coats. And for some fcuking reason decided to disconnect the brake lines without taking time to put back the precious copper washers. My theory is they disconnected the brake line, did ****ty masking, painted multiple layers of ****, and then reattached the brake line, finally proceeding to bleed the brakes with the paint still wet. (Would explain why the paint on the threading was so deep, almost covered the entire screw.)

I did wonder why my car's braking was... sub-par. Turns out one of the painted calipers failed and they replaced it. So I have 3 stock flaking calipers, and a replacement. Car moves towards the right when braking and a brake overpowers the other. ABS gets activated earlier because a wheel locks up too quickly on one side.:hang:

I'm so pissed off. Thank god I don't know the previous owner.

Either way, I'm having a hard time cleaning off the previous paint that still remains on the calipers and I'm wondering what you guys did to take off that paint and whatnot. I've read different techniques but what did you guys find the best? Using a wire brush and sanding paper isn't working out too well. Its going too slow and doesn't do a good job in the corners. I'm thinking about using a very powerful solvent to clean the threads. Any tips would be helpful.

Thank you,
Bart K.

P.S. I took off all the calipers and brake brackets, I'm going the whole nine yards. Going to do this **** the right way, but first I'll need to fix what the previous guy did wrong.

P.P.S. I'll attach pictures in a little bit.

I really wanted to do the solvent soaking but I don't want to remove the pistons... money is so tight that getting the paint was a spending.

I'm liking the wire wheel idea... alot.



Something like



would probably do wonders.



Here's some pictures of the project so far...

Overall


Replacement and Stock


Bleed valve screw hole


Typical bleed screw


20 min of work with the wrong tools


Only 1 out of the 4 very important copper washers

The wire wheel did a decent job at removing the paint but it was still hard to get into the corners so I borrowed a sand blaster. Oh my god. What a relief. It still took a while to do but it did a marvelous job. Went through 40 lbs of non abrasive regular multipurpose sand and had absolutely nothing remaining on the calipers and brackets.

Powder-coating is the next best thing to anodizing the metal. As for the tC logo, I'm pretty sure it'll look fantastic. Be sure to upload some pictures when you get it done. Thanks for the help Cadence.

As always, here are some pictures.


After sand blasting.




Cleaned with brake cleaner, notice there isn't much change in color. The sand blasting was key.




Preparing the painting den.




Used 3M blue painters masking tape to cover the threads, rubber pieces, and most importantly the bleed-valve hole and brake hose hole.




Coat 1 Blue




Coat 8 Blue




Coat 8 Blue and Coat 4 of Clear Coat.




Chillin' by the car 5 hours after last coat. Ready to be prepped for attachment.




Brakes installed. System bled and tested for seating.




They look schmecksy.






I used the following for the paint.

I forgot to mention that my tC is dirty because of severe weather occuring in Chicago. I clean it every week normally, so please ignore the brake dust!

Thanks Candence! Prep-work is key for painting.
Yeah the Hankooks are good for the price, I don't pass the 130mph mark often so they're doing me fine. I love their traction in wet conditions too.

Got a car domain for the S-10 too?

wow looks real good.. i just recently painted my calipers too.. will post pic later =)