painting calipers

[predator]

Well I thought i'd post a couple of pics of my calipers which i sprayed cherry red the other week. Not greatest quality photos (and ignore the slightly flat looking tyre ), but you get the idea.

Basically how i did it was:

1) Remove wheel

2) Put some newspaper behind and on the ground so you are not overspraying your wheel arch and/or suspension..

3). Mask up over the side piece where the brake pad springs sit

4) Apply about 2 coats of undercoat

5) Apply high-temp engine enamel paint (seems to work well for me and i did mine about 3 weeks ago) to calipers. Don't worry too much about getting spray over the discs themselves, as normal brake action will soon get rid of all the overspray. About 3 coats is required to get a nice gloss finish and get the true colour of the paint.

6) Leave dry for about an hour.

7) Use some 240 grade or so sandpaper to sand off the paint on the "Nissan" text. As it is raised, and you're careful, all that should be removed is the paint on the raised "nissan" logo, leaving everything else. The sandpaper will also clean up any grime on it and make it appear shiney again.

6) put wheel back on and continue to drive, and note people looking at your wheels as you pull up at the lights

I still have to do the other 2 so i will post a bit of a tutorial when i do those as I go step by step.

Hopefully it motivates you to do the same. Its a nice little visual mod which only takes a few hours of work.

[predator]

the rear one.. note the rear is a lot smaller, so hence isn't as "visible" but its still worth doing..

[skylineakt]

Good job Predator.

They look great, I was thinking of spraying mine gold or red but though you have take the whole caliper off to spray it. I might give it a go when I have an hour to spare haha

So basically you just cover everything behind the disk and the caliper??

Cheers

[nav12c]

I did the same colour and it turned out pretty good. if i was to do it again thought, i'd use gold. one of my mates did his 300zx in gold and it loos wild.

my 2 c

[benm]

I have a heap of gold left over from when i did my engine bay and i too thought u had to take off the caliper to do this so i might look at giving it a go.

[predator]

nope.. calipers do not have to be removed.. you can pretty much get it all sprayed while on the car.. the only part you'll miss will be the back which nobody will ever see anyway - except maybe you or a mechanic while changing the brake pads or something.

[hippy]

can u get pics of how u put the newspaper behind it so u didn't spray everything ?? looking forward to your tutorial .. nice job!!

[Evil]

Thats a nice visual mod... I might do it to my 33 now that I have new wheels...

[DCIEVE]

very nice they look like brembo big reds

[MM2death]

I did mine quite a while ago....sure looks alot better. Here's before and after pics:

b e f o r e :

[MM2death]

a f t e r :

[surreal]

Another option is to mask over the 'Nissan', paint and then peel. This was slow (to trim the mask) but came up a million bucks - and maintains that ripple effect on the 'Nissan'.

[akeenan]

i painted mine yellow ages ago!

it looks rad

[predator]

Another option is to mask over the 'Nissan', paint and then peel. This was slow (to trim the mask) but came up a million bucks - and maintains that ripple effect on the 'Nissan'.

ripple feel maintained on the nissan if done carefully via sanding. Just use courser paper and the grains will get into the ridges as well. But u can mask if u are very patient

"rad" ..hehe

[Brody]

I bought "black satin" paint today with the intention of doing tomorrow if it warms up just abit...

Quick question,

every1 has said they've left sprayed the calliper while still on,

did you remove the pads or anything else before spraying?

If so did you have any problems getting it back together?

[surreal]

I actually covered my discs with newspaper while I doing the wheel arch. This sort of protects the pads.

LOL...rad! Thats a narly word dude!!

[Doctor]

Did you leave your wheels on when you did it.

Joking

[Nizmo]

been meaning to do mine for a while - even had the paint for about 3 months haha - thanks for the tutorial - now i know the caliper doesnt have to come off i should get it done

[Guest RedLineGTR]

looks really nice

[skysaresilver]

Hey Predator666,

looks great - have now got the inspiration to do mine as well as soon as the weather warms up. Thanks for putting the quick tutorial as well, as I probably would have stuffed around pulling the calipers and all off - now i don't have too... a few more hours to do something else... ahh a cold beer and some sunday arvo motorsport action on channel 10, can't be beaten - unless driving the sky around of course!!!!