After reading all the other threads here about how to paint my own calipers, I decided to do mine. I ordered the G2 kit in red. I also had to paint my hats as my recently installed front rotors had badly rusted hats. the rears were not rusted but the coating had faded and it didn't look very good. So I picked up some silver high temp paint to paint the rotors. Since I wanted to do the whole job with the rotors on the car - and I was afraid if I sprayed the rotors, I'd get overspray on something - I opted to paint the hats. It turned out fine.
I got the car off the ground, took off the wheels, and did a thorough cleaning job on the calipers. I went through four cans of brake cleaer. I sprayed, scrubbed, and used a lot of rags to wipe off all the brake dust. even when you think they were clean - the crud just kept coming off. Once they were all clean, I painted my hats, then the next day did the calipers.
The G2 kit works pretty nicely. If I had it to do over again, I think I could do it even better. My best advice to anyone who tries this themselves, is to paint it in sections and get one nice even coat down and then once you get it - leave it to dry and then recoat after waiting to let it fully dry. I goofed a bit on one by painting it, then deciding to add more paint to get it more fully covered, but the section I painted was basically 1/2 dry, so when I hit it again, the brush smudged the paint a little - the stuff spreads nice when you first apply it, but as it starts to dry it gets gummy - so if you hit the gummy part with the brush - it will smear. i fixed it but on one of the calipers one one spot it has a "rough" texture to it if you get on your hands and knees and inspect it up close. if you are a perfectionist like me, that stuff drives you nuts. but as my wife said - once the wheels are back on, the decals are on, and you look at it as you stand next to the car - they look beautiful, glossy, and almost like they were an OEM caliper. For a DIY project they turned out great.
I highly recommend this for those of you with a base model car. If you don't need to paint the hats like I did - and just need to pull the wheels, clean them, paint, and then add decals, you can do this in a day.
I added the decals by usuing blue painters tape to mark the "edge" where I wanted the letters to line up and then cut out my decal so that I could line up the edge of the letters along the blue painters tape - i marked off center and applied them. putting the decals on took literally 15 minutes and they turned out great. the calipers looked cool with just the red paint - but addin the white decals is a must - it makes them look very very nice.
I never took any "befor" pics, but jut imagine rusty rotor hats and dull black calipers. Yuck!
AFTER
up close with the wheel on
nice new look
Linear Mode
