mj951

Stripping the old anodizing off is the challenge, use an aircraft paint remover from your local automotive store. Nasty stuff so be sure and follow the instructions for safety but it gets the job done well.

I started a thread with a write up on the procedure I used, if you do a search for caliper rebuild under my user name you should find it. If you are not replacing your pistons you will want to remove them before stripping the calipers, you do not want them to come in contact with the Aircraft Paint Remover.

Crazy Eddie

You might find these threads helpful ?
In truth, I think if I had to do it all over again, I might have chosen to farm it out. There are a few vendors who do rebuilding ....
It's a lot of work and I think in the end your saving about 200-400 dollars maybe, doing it yourself ? Some here on Rennlist have had had their brakes rebuilt with great results.

https://rennlist.com/forums/944-turb...n-caliper.html

https://rennlist.com/forums/944-turb...ictures-6.html
Good luck
Regards
Ed

Wheel Dynamics

We perform what is referred to as a hard-baked finish, this finishing process will allow the paint to cure properly. It's important to start with a fresh slate so remove all the exterior caliper paint, paint, decal (or polish brush the script), clear-coat, cure and hard-bake finish.

I've attached photos from the 951, here we milled down the script and lines in order to update the look, we were going for more of a modern caliper look so doing so helped us achieve this.

Good Luck to you, if you have any other questions just post them up!

-WD

divil

Thanks all...I'm doing this soon, so just a few more questions - I've read up on all these things but would like to get your thoughts:

* Brush or spray? I'm leaning towards the G2 brush-on paint. I never thought brush on paint would look good, but apparently it's the recommended way for this paint and it comes out well.

* Go back to bare metal or not? Some people seem to do this, some just clean off the old clear coat.

* Paint the inner area around the pistons or not? Some people seem to just mask off the pistons and dust boots and paint evertything else, others mask off the whole inside area and paint only the outside. I'm leaning towards the latter.

Thoughts? Thanks again!

Wheel Dynamics

Painted application will give you a more-even surface in the end and you can get by with a thinner coating over a paint-brush method. Regarding the inside where the dust boots and pistons are it will be difficult to strip this area unless the boots and covers are removed and so you should be fine with just doing a light prep in that area but I certainly thing it's best to take it down on all the exterior areas so that layers upon layers are not added, this way heat can properly dissipate.....

-WD

divil

Well I finally got around to this...much more work that I thought getting everything cleaned and masked, not to mention replacing 16 piston seals.

I decided to go with the G2 paint...but it was a HUGE dissapointment. They look great from a few feet away, but up close they look like an industrial accident. Really nasty finish...it's lumpy and uneven. On some areas you can see the darker shade of the black anodized metal showing through. Brush strokes and beads of paint are visisble almost everywhere. I followed the instructions to the letter but it's nothing like I had hoped for.

Some pics....

The original clear coat was getting a bit tatty:



I had hoped to get the slide plates off but that decided not to happen:



Finally got all the old clear coat off using Zip Strip and Aircraft Remover, plus a *lot* of careful scraping with little screwdrivers. The metal finish doesn't scratch easily which was nice:



Resealing was fun to begin with...for 2 or 3 pistons. After 10 I'd have given anything to be finished lol...good ridance to these guys



Resealed, masked, cleaned and ready to paint



They actually don't look too bad from this distance:



The one nice thing is that it's an incredible colour...really deep glossy yellow. If only I could improve the finish:



The bad news...



They will have to go back on the car now anyway - I can't wait any longer. But would it be possible to clean up the finish a bit later? Maybe sand it down and give it another few coats? I'd have to buy another can of the stuff, but at this point it would be worth it if I could get a decent finish.

Olli Snellman

Why didn't you powder coat calipers ? Powdercoated calipers look much nicer than the ones painted with "caliper paint". Here's few sets i have done.

divil

Wow they look fantastic. I didn't go for powder coating for a few reasons. I researched it a lot and lots of people seemed to get great results doing it themselves for a fraction of the cost. I knew the results would never look quite as good as powder coating but if I would have been happy with the finish that most people seem to get with paint. Also I read that powder coating is not great for heat dissapation - not sure if there is any truth to that but I do track my car and the brakes will be getting hot.

Olli Snellman

Porsche used powder coating with red & yellow calipers. Powder coating is not that expensive. I have restored calipers several years and powder coating looks like a good way to go.

Black51

I have been told that powder coating brakes isn't a very good idea, unless you take the brakes apart, which also isn't a very good idea.

Crazy Eddie

Not true ...
I did mine and the only mistake I made was doing a clear coat after I powder coated them to insure that the the Porsche lettering would not dull. See thread
https://rennlist.com/forums/944-turb...ictures-6.html

These were a PITA to do that is for sure ( As Divil attested to, those slide
plates I a real bitch to get off ... )Porsche used 1/2 the Loctie in the world, to fill those screw holes
I would like to get my hands on the idiot at Porsche that thought it needed that much Loctite

Olli Snellman

Almost all Porsche calipers are powdercoated. Black ones used to be anodized black and then clear coated. Newer Monoblocks are powder coated in various colors, even in black. I was once forced to separate caliper halves. That was because calipers came from a 964 which was badly fire damaged. Also caliper seals were burnt, which caused pistons stuck. Only way to remove them was to put caliper into the parts. Actually it was not a big deal after that to restore caliper. Even i did what is not recommended has that caliper worked fine several years under a 944 race car.

Crazy Eddie

Olli
You are the Brake Maven !!!

divil

I contacted G2 to ask for advice on how I can fix the paint finish. I would have been willing ot buy another kit but they offered to give me a new one for free if I just send them pics of the results. Hopefully I can get them looking decent with that.

Wheel Dynamics

Where did you get that bit of information? It's wrong, we strip calipers down to the core and they are painted.

Also PC "IS" thicker and obviously a thicker layer of PC is equivalent to maybe 3-coats of paint and clear. Use this theory about it when considering this process, radiators and inter-coolers are not usually painted on HP vehicles, why? I think you know why..... Just saying, we've tracked tested PC calipers against those which we have hard-bake finished which essentially is a painted application plus a little heat towards the end just to help the paint harden but not at high heat temperatures that exceed normal to road driving.

There is one process we are currently working with PC products however only as a base coat under very low and controlled temperatures, this will take a while since we need more real-world testing before we would consider offering this service.

As I always tell my customers when they ask about PC on calipers, my reply is "Would you put a sweater on before a marathon, or would you put on a tank-top?".

Feel free to have this conversation with Jamie of Race Technologies, most of what I'm telling you will be mirrored.