Hi all,

For a while now I’ve been planning to paint the calipers during the next brake job. I do not want to disassemble the calipers, so I am somewhat antsy about the whole thing (with the possibility of messing up the pistons etc.). That said I am also looking around for paint to use. I want to keep the calipers black and my bank account relatively undamaged. So far, caliper paint offered by automotion.com seems to be the ticket but it’s pricey ($60) and I am not sure if one can would be enough…

I was whining about all this on a different forum and somebody suggested that I should look at “hard anodizing” – a chemical process, during which an aluminum part (and our calipers are made of aluminum, right?) is dipped into electrolyte and essentially used as an anode. Due to the resulting oxidation a layer of aluminum oxide film forms on the surface. Depending on how it’s done, the film is rather sick (50-100 micron) and very hard/durable/scratch-resistant. On the outside aluminum oxide is usually very smooth dark gray, almost black in color… I hear it’s frequently used to reinforce decorative paint.

Do you think it would be a good idea to try this on the calipers? Has anyone here had any experience with hard anodizing? Thank you.

 

Not sure if this helps, but my Mountain Bike is anodized. Problem is, I'm pretty sure you'll have to disassemble the calipers for the process.

 

Shmurzik,

I painted my calipers using high-temp red spray paint and high-temp clear coat that I picked up from Auto Zone (WAY less than $60.) The trick was cleaning off 12 years of gunk to prep them for the paint. Four years later they still look great (they just need a GOOD cleaning.)

Randy
87 S4 Auto
Supercharged

 

I used the caliper paint (brush-on) offered by Tweeks (www.tweeks.com). One can was enough for two coats on 4 calipers with about enough left for 4 more. A year later and dozens of washes and the paint is still perfect. Price was less than $50.

 

If you don't disassemble the calipers and leave any steel on them at all, they may actually explode during the sulfuric acid dip. Not like a stick of dynamite, but with enough force to render the caliper useless--i.e. cracked. Paint should be just fine as the other have mentioned. Just make sure to put plenty of scratches on the old caliper coating and clean them many times prior to painting.

Good luck

 

Well.... I've been thinking about it and probably it's not a good idea unless one is dealing with a very good plating shop. Because when done wrong the caliper will actually lose volume after anodizing (as opposed to the oxide film actually replacing the lost volume). And I figure that it will be necessary to machine and re-fit the pistons - and how complicated is that going to be?

As for painting - I think that it will be fairly straightforward

 

Its all in the prep work. I did mine over 2 yrs ago, and they still look great. THe Caliper paint is VERY thin when sprayed on so do it in many light coats and besure to use the light grey primer first. If you shoot it over the black it will take ages to cover and the red will be darker.

Once you get them red, order the little PORSCHE stickers.


PREP...PREP...PREP!!

Heres a link to some pics on my website.
http://members.rennlist.com/v1uhoh/brakerf.htm
HTH

 

Thank you, Tony and everybody

I will be painting black on black (essentially restoring the original finish). The big issue for me is not to mess up pistons and rubber parts

 

I've done some anodizing here at home. Paintball parts mostly. All you need is some battery acid, and a battery charger to prep the part, then a dye bath (rit works fine) to dye the part whatever color you want. You can only put aluminum in the acid bath. Anything else will be ruined. Painting would be much easier!
Anyone tried the high heat "BBQ" paint on their calipers?

 

Newberry - What kind of paint do you use? I'm thinking of anodizing a spare 16V intake. The shade of red my bike parts are in is awesome and I doubt easily copied with paint. The type of shine you get with anodizing is awesome.

 

Hey Hacker,

What kind of MTB bike do you have? I have a Trek fuel 100. My girl's brother and my good friend is a pro. Every year he's get's top end Trek bikes, so he gives me his bike and we sell the one he gave me from the previous year. I'm sure my bike is worth more than my car.

 

I have a GT Zaskar (from when GT was still GT and not the horse sh*t they make now) I have a limited edition Has Rey Anodized Blue frame, most accessories on the bike are anodized red.

I also have a Cannondale 1996 Team Olympic MT.Bike. Owner of the shop didn't want it anymore and made me a hell of a deal.

Riding used to be mylife, past 3-4 years I haven't ridden much and gaind a ton of weight. I'm on a program started in January to get back where I used to be.

 

Boy me too. I used to race expert here, 170 lbs, now 200 and gaining, ouch.

I met Hans during that time. The bike shop I used to ride for carried GT (agreed on the product now). He showed up at the shop and did a demo. Rode off the roof and all. It was sweet. Got a pic with him. My girl and her bro are from Okonomowak. I know I butchered it, but next time I'm up there, I'll shout ya.

 

You need to prep well. Clean with carb or brake cleaner. Scrape or scrape with razor blade the factory clear coat. Then wet sand with 320. The better job you do, the better it will hold. I painted several with black engine paint, (universal black) and it matches factory, and have been going for 4 yrs. Block sand the porsche letters, and stripes to make them stand out silver color.

 

I used regular RIT dye. The hard part is getting the colors the same for different sized parts.
There are some special dyes available that are supposed to work much better.
Here are some links I found useful:

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~chrish/t-anodis.htm

http://www.wcc.net/~jkmccoy/shop/anodiz.htm

Just be sure to plug up any threaded. The etching removes material and the anodizing slightly adds. It can mess up the tolerances in threads.

HTH!