I think the additional prep work you did for powder coating (sand blasting all the dirt and rust away, etc.) made all the difference. Better preparation always means a better paint job.
You need to factor in the brake dust is corrosive in it’s own right particularly on painted surfaces. Increase your car cleaning frequency I expect would seriously help and extend the lifetime of these.
Selling yourself short on the powder coated calipers dude, I thought they looked GREAT for being on a daily driver car. They are going to get dirty and FAR better than having nothing as rust would have taken over. Those rotors also would benefit from some love.
So prep is key, but also, after spraying the color coat, several layers of clear coat shpuld also be applied. This results in a long lasting nice finish that is easily cleanable.
Painting the calipers red increases your acceleration. Painting "Brembo" on them will make your car go even faster!!! j/k, Good video, showing the wear after a year or 2 of actual use!!!
I work in the medical industry and we have very high standards for powder coating, it's quite standard in the powder coating industry to use iron phosphate pretreatment prior to powder coating, so I think you are on the right track with a pretreatment/conversion coating. Good Video!
Many may not be aware of a step to consider. I coat raw metal with a phosphate solution. It changes metal surface composition and seals out oxygen. NOW it can coated as on pleases. I do this on all farm equipment and have little corrosion issues. I use farm implement paint and they hold up well. Just another data point for your consideration.
Sounds like a good idea in theory, but does it hold up against high heat without burning? I'm talking 650°F to 990°F intermittently as wheels and calipers tend to get hot under normal to hard braking applications.
I am about to paint mine. I will be sanding, cleaning, and degreasing. Then taping, applying 3 coats primer, 3 coats base coat, and 3 coats clear coat. All topped off with a ceramic coating left over from when I coated the body of my car.
The wire wheel after sand blasting is counter productive, it will polish the surface reducing the porosity reqd for surface coat adhesion. I suggest painting directly on sand blasted surface.
any paint job is always better than the rusty look of the calipers :) I used a primer, waited 24 hours and then painted it with paint. The effect is very good and durable, and can always be improved with a brush after two years. It's better to enjoy a refreshed brake caliper for 2 years than to drive with a rusty one
I thought its just me going mad about youtubers painting calipers on the brakes, or using non high temp paint at all. I'm glad i'm not alone. Looking forward to your rebuild
I painted mine with the same paint and mine look the same after 2 years ...Preparation is the key cleaned properly and primed with a few coats no issues
The powder coating looks great. The choice of red paint shows the baked in brake dust so that goes with the territory. Painting the calipers black or gray would keep a cleaner look I believe. Nice video.
Thanks! very helpful. It’s convinced me to use a professional refurb service rather than go the diy route. Here in the U.K. we also have loads of road salt in winter so the powder coat method is a must. BCS Automotive offer a lifetime warranty on their refurbs and that seems like a good deal to me.
Good thing I ended up on your video! Very good work, I was in montreal last week to see my father, I could've stopped by to see how your calipers shine! I gotta do this whole process on my new calipers soon, recieved front setup from ebay, any advice? What should I do if they're new out of the box? Preps, anti rust paint, color paint and clear?
As I said in the video, will do some kind of rust treatment before painting next time. Sandblasting alone didn't reach small rusty pinholes. Good luck!
I used G2 Caliper Kit on my car and it lasted for 6 YEARS, only recently has it started to chip. I never even knew about Por 15 and now I wonder if their caliper paint kit is the same as the G2 or if in fact G2 IS por 15 relabelled... interesting tho..
Great video... I've been doing some research into this subject to decide how to go about restoring calipers. I think the issue that you have is that not only are you dealing with a part that has to live in super harsh conditions in the best of environments, you're also throwing a lot of salt at them over the course of a year. I'm honestly surprised and pleased to see that yours have held up as well as they have. From reading I've found that blasting these down to bare metal might not be the way to go. Brembo in particular anodizes their calipers inside and out and only recommends cleaning and sanding to scuff up the paint before spraying them and strongly advises against powder coating as that can impact the integrity of the metal. I guess it all just comes down to how much work you put into the prep, as long as the surface is clean it should accept paint rather well.
400 degrees better not have any effects on metal in a braking system. If it does they are shit brakes. I honestly don’t buy it. I’ve been powder coating stuff for people in my garage for years, and brake calipers are almost always on my to do list. I’ve not had one customer comeback with any complaints.
@@poysunivey man I’m just telling you what Brembo recommends. You’re right if you’re only looking at street use pads that probably never see over 400 degrees, but if you’re doing track days with racing pads you’re seeing temperatures in the 1000 to 1500 range. So for your street car customers do what looks good and lasts.
I think the first spray painted calipers were not well prepared for paint, the part with less paint it got on the back shows much more wear but not on the upper part where it recieved probably more paint than other parts. Secondly I think using a clear coat will help alot in paint protection.
I bought some ceramic red paint kit for calipers at auto parts store for less then 50 bucks. Lasted 4 years before I sold the car. Still looked like new
Wow ! Very informative video. I'm in Quebec city and I just did sandblast and repaint my 2008 impreza calipers with the same VHT Real Red Caliper paint (3 coats). I also used degreased multiple times before painting base coat. Did you also use Clear Coat ?? I did an additionnal 3 coats of VHT caliper clear coat. I hope they will hold up to the salt. I spent a great deal of time on them (rebuilt them with new seals, pistons and rubber boats and used all OEM lubricants... Renolit Rubber grease Japan for square seals, Niglube RX-2 for cylinder dust boots and caliper pins and caliper pin boots, Molygrease for pad shims...)
I did just two coats of paint, no primer no clear coat. I think that the problem is pinhole rust. They have to be treated with something after sandblasting to kill the rust that the media cannot get to. For my brake rebuild, I documented the process here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GdyJf2PzlHU.html&ab_channel=RobertDeptula
Hi there!!! Another m8 from Quebec city Lévis! I did paint the calipers on my 2009 tsx. Kept them on the car, buffed them a bit and 3 coats of vht green spray paint for engine bay haha. After 6 months, calipers are full of rust, salty conditions man... I'll buy a full set of rear and front calipers rotors pads and prime, paint and clear coat before putting those on my car
I'm about to paint mines but I am not expecting it to last years and years because I live in the north of the UK and roads during winter have loads of grit/salt. Unless I clean it every day it won't last years. Same goes with my coil springs and everything under the car lol
You can spray/protect springs and under the car with rust proofing, but not calipers. Rustproofing oil or wax creeps and spreads (at least it should), and you don't want it on your brakes. Cheers.
So do you think if you put a thicker coat on using the spray paint method that it would have held up better? I'm about to paint mine black and I have a full 16 Oz can for each of the 4 calipers. How ever many coats you put on I feel like I should double it.
I think that the problem is rust I couldn't reach with sandblasting. This is why I will treat it with a rust converter next time. More coats will not help to stop the rust to resurface.
Looks like you need to clean your car and brake calipers more often. You can't just let that dust sit on them, plus add heat and the elements, it will rust any metal.
Although sandblasting and powder coating is for sure better than a rattle can, 2 years for a can of paint is no problem for me. I would repaint every 2 years if I had to, to avoid completely rusty brake calipers
after 30 years of Experience .... just Spraypaint / just Powdercoating does the Job but the Parts need a regular yearly cleaning (What you obviously didn't do My Solution: - take the Calipers apart - get an Overhauling Set - Sandblast them - get them Zinc / Nickel coated - Spraypaint them - another Layer of Clearcoat - re-assemble the Calipers with all new Piston, Gaskets, Seals DONE for years. Don't forget to rinse the Brakes regularly with clear Water (NO High Pressure! or even when changing Winter / Summer Tires clean them thoroughly ....
@@robertdeptula2003 yeah the stickers themselves haha, not the calipers tho XD poor paint job. I'll listen to your advice and prep them with rust treatment. I might also neglect primer and go for POR 15 first and then apply 2 or 3 layers of base coat with a piceau, what do you think?
Sadly you live in a place where rust lives on every car snow can’t be good on metal parts . I’m sure they would look better on other locations where it doesn’t snow or rain too much.
What I did so far will surely not last: 1. Cleaned with drill brush and brake cleaner 2. Painted without a primer 3. No clear coat From my experience, a primer always helps with adhesion. Even if just spray-painted. Often, just a primer is enough if you like gray. Obviously a high-temp clear coat helps. Note there is no significant difference between painting plastic body of car and steel. I have to clean the brake system every month and do some brake fluid bleeding more often.
Sorry I didn’t have the option of taking them off and cleaning and then spray paint them and stick in my wife’s gas oven, she would have a cow 🐄 if she knew I put them in her oven, lol , a happy wife is a happy life , I don’t get much of that as it is, why I don’t want to be in the dog house 🏡
Ok so the first set you just painted over the existing rust, and the next set you sand blasted the rust away first. Neither set had any sort of rust treatment. Neither set looks like they were cleaned at all since they went on the car. Of course they won't look great.
Goes to the trouble of painting brake calipers, and doesn't clean your wheels for 1 or 2 years , WTF really ? Yah know brake dust his highly corrosive so never even trying to wash it off isn't too good regardless if you paint or powdercoat them.
After 2 years that’s a long time most of us would have changed cars already. While I use my car I just want it to look decent and that was much better than rusted calipers
