Brakes?!

[Iryoku]

So I was looking at my brakes, rotors, calipers and well they are rusted. Is it possible to clean off the rust and paint over it to make it look nice? I have been looking at brake kits but 2400$ is more then I can spend right now.

Is there a guide on this or anything? I cant seem to find anything haha.

 

[squeak104]

Take the rotors off and tape off the braking surface and media blast them. The tape will protect the braking surface from becoming damaged. As for the calipers, unless you want to completely take them apart and put them back together after media blasting then throughly cleaning them, I'd buy the caliper painting kit from an auto parts store and paint them by hand. Good luck.

 

[Iryoku]

Is it much of a hassle to take them apart? If so ill probably just cover the brake parts.

 

[squeak104]

Do you mean take the caliper apart or the whole brake system as in caliper off, capliper bracket off, and rotor off?

 

[c5chris]

It's easy to clean brake parts but you just gotta see if your rotors are still worth the effort. New rotors are cheap at NAPA and look for zinc coated ones so it gets more resistant to rust.

If you want to work with what you got, take off your calipers and use some sort of brake cleaner/degreaser to clean them. Use hi-temp paint or caliper paint (like Foliatec) and let dry. You can do this while the calipers are still attached to the lines. If you decide to take them off, you gotta remember to bleed them when you reconnect them.

For the rotors, the brake pads will sweep any rust while driving. Its just the hat (center) and the vane/rim that you have to worry. Use sandpaper to get the rust out and use the high temp paint.

Same with the brackets- clean, sand and paint them.

While youre at it, check your brake pads.

 

[talonation777]

I can comment on the calipers. If you decide to paint them by hand, its very very simple, you just have to dedicate some time and alittle bit of paitence. I did mine last weekend, simply:
1. Tape of the rotor and brake lines.
2. Clean the calipers with the supplied cleaner (comes with the kit) or with a bit of soap and water to remove all the brake dust etc.
3. Mix up the paint, and start painting.

If you decide to paint them, give it two or three coats, and wait about 20 mins in between so it can dry. It looks a hell of alot better once your done. If you take off the caliper, your obviously going to get better results, but I left mine on. If your calipers are rusted...maybe you could apply some rust inhibitor and scrub it with a wire brush or a toothbrush? Good Luck man.