Boston Driver

Met up with Grapeking and A4AdMan for our "paint-a-palooza” today at Grapeking's house (same location as the sway-bar-a-palooza last month when we installed the H-sports!). We did all 3 cars today, my fronts, Grapeking's fronts (he did his rears a couple of years ago), and A4AdMan's front and rears. I might follow up later and do the rears, but for now, I was focused on the fronts only. I was very tired of looking at those rusty HP2 brake calipers up front, so I decided on gloss black caliper spray paint. I used <a href="http://www.plastikote.com/plastikote/auto/template.jsp?searchcode=RES&product=BrakeCaliper"> Plasti-kote</a> brand brake enamel that I got at my local auto parts store, rated for 900 degrees.

Step one was to jack the car up and set it on jack stands. Wheels came off, and it was time to scrub the rust and debris off the calipers. We used wire brushes and steel wool for this task. Normally, this is a good time to hit it with brake cleaner, but we had access to a BIG compressor and a blower, so we did not bother with the cleaning spray.

This is what it looked like after several minutes of scrubbing and after we blew off the debris. Clean, but still brownish.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v739/hliu55/caliper1.jpg">

Now, time to mask off what I did not want to paint. I decided to only paint the outer portion of the caliper, since everything else was essentially hidden once the wheel is on. Key here is to use copious amounts of tape!

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v739/hliu55/caliper2.jpg">

After a couple of light coats of the gloss black spray, it started to look good.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v739/hliu55/caliper3.jpg">

Once I got five light coats of the gloss black spray, I affixed silver Audi rings decals to the calipers. Got those from eBay. Then I protected them with three light coats of clear enamel. Shiny…and you know how I like shiny things! Grapeking and A4AdMan both used white logo decals on their calipers.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v739/hliu55/caliper4.jpg">

And now, the final product!!!

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v739/hliu55/caliper5.jpg">

Now, I am not so ashamed of the rusty calipers, but the rust on the rotor hats distracts me. Once these OEM rotors need replacing, I will get Zimmerman or Brembo rotors with cadmium coating!!!

Thanks Grapeking and A4AdMan for the help today. Special thanks to Grapeking again for the hospitality! I think we need to get one of those Audi banners to hang up in the official Audi mod garage!!!

ThreeTTwo

Bravo! Looks just right!

Boston Driver

Mahalo!

ThreeTTwo

Closest thing we got to "you're welcome" in the patois!

rc51rydr

Very very nice.....

2.7Twin

Nice work!

A4AdMan

My tinted side markers turned out pretty good. Can't wait for you to see them

Many thanks to GrapeKing for hosting the day and for lunch. We lucked out with the weather guys.

Eric 2.7

the paint on the hats shows some rust spots through. Calipers held up, though.

I'm looking to do the same to improve the looks of things when I replace rotors soon.

Rings look great on black.

jarvis.old

what type of paint did you use

Boston Driver

Did you bother to read the original post? Look again please