murrayg

Hi everyone,

I want my S2 brakes powder coated red, from there current black. Trying to add just a bit of "bling" to the black car! They are in great shape and don't need rebuilding.

Question 1 - Can I have them powder coated without removing the pistons and seals? Just tape up the inside of the caliper to protect the seals.

Question2 - If answer above is NO!, then can I remove the pistons and seals and reassemble without replacing parts. The rebuild kits (seals and scrapers) are crazy expensive for these calipers.

As always, Thanks

Gord.

Van

To get good adhesion for the powder coating, you'll need to strip the existing coating - so you're down to bare metal. That usually requires sandblasting. I would not sandblast a caliper and not follow up with a complete dissassembly for cleaning - that's asking for trouble down the road in my book. And if you do take them apart, you're a fool to not replace the seals.

If you want to spruce them up without taking them apart and rebuilding them, go with high-temp spray paint.

F40LM

Ditto, it's a great DIY weekend job.

That being said I have seen guys buy the DIY powder coat kit from harbor freight and cook calipers in the kitchen oven. Though I don't advise it unless you do the complete tear down and rebuild like Van suggests.

odurandina

Van for president.....

when i got my new big blacks, i scuffed and cleaned them, then placed them on a cookie sheet and baked them
@ 375 degrees for about 25 minutes.... took them out of the oven and hung them from a wire and slowly sprayed
them with engine paint and about 5 thin coats, baking the paint on over the course of about 15 minutes.... then i
got the heat gun on them got them real good for about an hour.... next, i continued to spray the hot calipers with
engine paint gloss.... after a few thin coats i kept the heat gun going and circled the calipers for about another hour.

i let them dry for about 24 hours, put the porsche stickers on and installed them.

then put some more gloss paint over the stickers.

within a few weeks of normal heat cycling, the engine paint cured hard as a rock. a very satisfying, easy mod. the
brakes have been super-easy to keep clean, and still looking good after 4 years and dozens of thousands of miles.

for my old rear calipers, i just scuffed them with 150 and scrubbed the hard to reach areas with alcohol and steel
wool as best i could... then cleaned them with de-natured alcohol.... taped off the area, around them got the heat
gun and baked on more engine paint and gloss with good results....

powdercoating sounds cool, but i think i found the next best thing.

.

67King

I can attest from experience that Van is spot on. I've twice done this without fully prepping the parts, and both times, the powder coat easily chipped off. I had hoped that baking them would be sufficient, but it wasn't. On the calipers, I couldn't get a couple of pieces apart, so I wouldn't be able to sufficiently acess all the little places where sand would get, so I didn't sand blast them. On the cam tower, I didn't want to chance getting sand in there wihtout the ability to properly clean it out. Was unfortunatley pressed to get the car ready.

f1rocks

If you decide to disassemble, I may have a set of scrapers laying around but need to confirm.

I coated a set of S2 calipers using a special mil spec heat dissipating coating (pulls heat away 30% faster than bare aluminum) but didn't need to use the scrapers when I did it. If I can find them we'll work out a cheap price.

911tracker85

I am about to try powder coating. we just got a new wall over so moved the old one to my shop. I have a blast cabinet, but so far have not bought a powder coat kit. I am considering the dual voltage unit from Eastwood Garage.

regarding blasting. any advice on the kind of blast material to use on calipers? I got some glass bead and about to buy some fine grade walnut shells.

in the past I used high temp caliper paint on the spider intake of my 928. so far it has held up good for several years. it was a bit of a pita to get it clean enough, but worth the effort for good results.

good luck on your project.

Van

Car looks good in blue!


I think you'll find that walnut shells are too light-duty - and they might not work so well in a cabinet with a siphon gun. I use a mix of glass beads and aluminum oxide. That works pretty well.

Ryan_U

I stripped the old finish off my calipers using paint stripper. Then I tapped off the areas I didn't want to paint and did about 6 coats of VHT spray paint. Cured them in the oven in between each coat. Finished it off with three coats of clear. They look pretty good and I give them a 9/10. Problem was I had only tapped off the brake line hole and everytime I would put them in the oven some brake oil would creep out and ruin the paint in some places. Next time I would find a way to plug that hole (heard that a golf tee fits nicely). Final touch, I sanded the Porsche script to a nice shine with 220 grit. They look ten times better then before.... Went from black o red while I was at it. Pics coming up!

Ryan_U

Here are pics of my calipers.

murrayg

Ryan, thats what I'm after!! F1, let me know what you come up with, I'm interested!