Red Caliper help

[JIMMYC]

So I am planning new wheels in spring for my 01 Boxter S.
Figure this would be a good time to brighten up the red calipers.
Need advice on best practice to get them looking great again and what is the expected cost in having them painted professionally ?

[911monty]

Good God Man......Don't let the attached happen to you! Please use the search function it can truly save your virtual self!

http://986forum.com/forums/general-discussions/64418-eps-ims-bearing-upgrade-kit.html


You're Welcome!

[JIMMYC]

Thanks Monty , new to this forum stuff , guess I will check out the search first before asking in the future. .. appreciate the heads up certainly do not want to get slaughtered

[tommy583]

I used the brush on epoxy kind. It has held up great for about 4 years so far. Just make sure you clean the calipers very very very good before you paint them.

[911monty]

Glad to help! I'd recommend you may want to start your next reply with something like "Lime Green looks really Good" or something like that. Might check Pedro's site also. Happy Hunting.

[particlewave]

I don't think there's ever been a great debate over calipers, haha!

It's easy to DIY. Lots of options for high temp caliper paint. Pro is going to run you between a couple hundred to double that, depending on how much you want to do. If you just take them your car, it's going to be on the high end. If you remove, clean and prep the calipers yourself, it will be on the low end.

Not sure you can do much to "refresh" them as the hot brake dust really embeds itself in the paint.
I did mine myself with the calipers on the car. It involved cleaning really well with brake cleaner and a wire brush, masking everything off, spray with high temp base coat, applying new decals, then high temp clear.

[Boxtaboy]

I just used the brush on G2 caliper paint almost 9 yrs ago, and it still looks good. As others have said, you just need to spend time cleaning all the dust off prior to painting.

[78F350]

Jimmy, are you considering doing it yourself or getting a professional job?
If you are going to have it done professionally, get on the phone and ask some local shops. Just takes a few minutes, and you will get a better answer than our guess.

For DIY:
Buy a specific caliper paint. These things get hot and will ruin nice paint job done with ordinary paint. There are caliper paint kits on Amazon, and lots of customer reviews.
If you haven't flushed your brake system in the last year or so, you might as well take the calipers off. That way you can give them a thorough cleaning and get the paint even. As mentioned, many people have achieved decent results painting them on the car.
I did a set a year ago in silver.
A few tips:
Plug the brake line connection, or put an old brake hose end in to prevent residual brake fluid from messing up the fresh paint.
Let them sit for 24 hours after painting for the paint to set.
Buy decals "PORSCHE" to apply to the caliper afterwards. - I got mine from eBay.
Finish it off with a high temp clear-coat.

Color:
Probably best to stay with red. Red adds about 5 'Brake Horsepower' per caliper.
Silver, orange, or yellow are nice if it matches trim pieces or contrasts well with your car, but performance gains are negligible.
Avoid Green. Green painted calipers are known to cause premature clutch wear.

[Pdwight]

If you want the color Red to pop than paint them white first and let it dry for 24 hours before going to red

[BruceH]

Easy to do yourself:
Painted Calipers

[fanguy]

Depending on age and prior work you might also consider a rebuild kit while you already have them off.

[dghii]

For those of you who paint your calipers off the car, what are you using to cap your brake lines?
I painted mine with brush 8 years ago. Could stand a refresh at this point. I got a good deal on red caliper spray paint last summer, just haven't got around to removing them yet.

[JIMMYC]

Originally Posted by Boxtaboy

I just used the brush on G2 caliper paint almost 9 yrs ago, and it still looks good. As others have said, you just need to spend time cleaning all the dust off prior to painting.

Wow that looks fantastic very impressed

[JIMMYC]

Originally Posted by 78F350

Jimmy, are you considering doing it yourself or getting a professional job?
If you are going to have it done professionally, get on the phone and ask some local shops. Just takes a few minutes, and you will get a better answer than our guess.

For DIY:
Buy a specific caliper paint. These things get hot and will ruin nice paint job done with ordinary paint. There are caliper paint kits on Amazon, and lots of customer reviews.
If you haven't flushed your brake system in the last year or so, you might as well take the calipers off. That way you can give them a thorough cleaning and get the paint even. As mentioned, many people have achieved decent results painting them on the car.
I did a set a year ago in silver.
A few tips:
Plug the brake line connection, or put an old brake hose end in to prevent residual brake fluid from messing up the fresh paint.
Let them sit for 24 hours after painting for the paint to set.
Buy decals "PORSCHE" to apply to the caliper afterwards. - I got mine from eBay.
Finish it off with a high temp clear-coat.

Color:
Probably best to stay with red. Red adds about 5 'Brake Horsepower' per caliper.
Silver, orange, or yellow are nice if it matches trim pieces or contrasts well with your car, but performance gains are negligible.
Avoid Green. Green painted calipers are known to cause premature clutch wear.

I would like to remove and paint myself , the painting part I can handle it's the removing is my concern as this would be a first and I am no mechanic but keen to learn to tinker with this in the spring .
How much paint & clear coat did you go through for 4 calipers ?

[78F350]

Originally Posted by JIMMYC

How much paint & clear coat did you go through for 4 calipers ?

I'd recommend two just to be sure. I bought two spray cans of the caliper paint and used almost all of one of them, and less of the clear-coat. The self-leveling brush on paint may be better and cleaner to work with. I saw some good reviews.

If you are removing the calipers, make sure that you are prepared to bleed the brake system when you reinstall.
Here are two good write ups:
Porsche Boxster Brake Bleeding - 986 / 987 (1997-08) - Pelican Parts Technical Article
Boxster Projects | Brakes | Bleed and Flush

I bought a "Motive Power Bleeder" like the one that Pelican Parts sells. It really made flushing and bleeding brakes a lot easier.

For those of you who paint your calipers off the car, what are you using to cap your brake lines?

I cheated and have a spare set of calipers. I was able to paint them all, then swap them in one at a time. To plug the calipers when I painted them , I had a small piece of plastic rod that fit (scrap from something else). Screwing in an old brake hose works well too to make sure that any fluid that seeps out is away from the caliper.

[Boxtaboy]

Originally Posted by JIMMYC

Wow that looks fantastic very impressed

Thanks...and that's a pic recently (after 9 years), so it's held up nicely. To be honest, unless you need to rebuild the calipers, I'd save the time and effort and just brush paint the calipers without removing them. You can clean the calipers really well, prep em for paint, and then just cut a hole in a garbage bag and stretch it over the rotor assembly to just expose the caliper and then paint away. Good to go for over 9 years, so I'm not complaining. I also pressed in the PORSCHE caliper decals into the paint before the paint fully dried, so they look like they're embedded into the caliper which is kinda cool (instead of just laying on top of the caliper). Then, covered with light coating of clear.