They look much better. I was torn between painting them Red, Black, or a custom mirage color. I decided against the mirage color because I just didn't want to risk screwing it up. It was tough work and I didn't want to have to worry about busting out the dremmel next week to do it again. Red was going to be too flashy for what I wanted to accomplish so Black it was. The stock calipers were a train wreck. They just don't look that great. I just put a lot of money into these rims so I didn't want them to be cheapened by bad looking calipers. Click the little pics for larger ones.
Pretty nasty looking, eh? Anyways, I don't have any jack stands so I just did one side at a time. I whipped out the floor jack and raised the driver front and started masking stuff off.
I was going to paint them with a brush but I got impatient. That has always been my downfall. I am just too damned impatient.
Don't spray paint them. I'll tell you why in a second.
I waited for it to pretty much dry and then put on another coat. I did like 3 coats on each caliper. I have a floor fan that I put in front of it to help it dry a little. Once it was dry I put on 2 coats of clear. I used engine paint on these because I doubt that they will get hotter than 500* which is what the paint is rated at. Its tough to get pictures of it because they are black and shadows and everything get in the way. Here are some of the better shots I could get. They definatly look better than the crappy things they were before.
That picture of the side of my car is after I got all the overspray off and got the Klasse and Platinum on. Raise your hand if you have ever seen a white car reflect like that in direct sunlight with no shade.
They would have shown up better if I did red but I wanted the muted look. I didn't feel that stock calipers were anything to show off. Maybe next year when I upgrade my rotors and calipers I'll get red ones, but for now I just want them to take a back seat to the rims.
The reason that I say don't spray paint them is because I got lazy. I just wanted to get it over with so I masked the rotors off and just figured if I was careful then I wouldn't get any on the paint. I was very careful and didn't get any on the area of the car around the wheel well. I thought I did a great job. I got them all done and put the wheels back on and stood back to admire my work. I cleaned up all my crap I used to do the job and just as I was about to turn off the light and go back in the house I patted the hood of the car one last time. ...the hell?? Why the hell did my car feel all rough? I felt all over the car... *** DID I DOOOOO!? Overspray everywhere. I may not have directly sprayed my car but the overspray (aka the fumes of the paint) sure as hell did find my car. I had the garage door open and everything. I should have done it out in the driveway I guess. I couldn't believe what I had done. Little itty bitty black dots all over my car. I made a mad dash to my clay and lube and went straight to work. Whew!! It was coming off just fine!! What a relief!
I pulled the car out to the driveway and gave the whole thing a dawn wash. I thought that might help. It didn't. Oh well. I always like to clay a clean car anyway. I started claying before the car was even dry. That clay turned black in like half a panel. It picked up the paint just fine. After the clay I got out my PC and put a coat of
Klasse AIO on for good measure. Then one coat of Platinum and a top coat of Liquid
Souveran. I had been meaning to do that anyway. Let me just add that LS smells just like a Vanilla Milkshake when you are applying it. I was starving when I got done. lol
It took me like 3 or 4 hours to paint the calipers and 4 hours to fix the damage of the overspray. What a screw up. At least it wasn't permenant. I even had to clay the windows!!! lol I felt kinda dumb but at least it was something I could fix. The project turned out just fine though. The paint seems to be holding up fine and I'm not hearing any funny noises or anything when I turn or brake so I must not have ruined anything else. What a relief! lol Feel free to flame me for my screw up. I deserve it.
I finished painting the calipers...
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