my alcons look nasty after years and years of dealing with mid west winters. I want to get my alcons and a set of stock s4 rears powder coated black or silver. I'm worried about getting it inside the claper. what should i do to protect them?

will i be able to rebuild the seals in the stock s4 rear calipers?

If so, ALCON doesn't recommend doing anything to them. They are anodized, but even they don't recommend a clean and re-anodize.

They say just clean them up. Not sure what to use.

If it were me, I'd probably mask off the bleed screws, bridge pipe and pistons and take a fine grit sandpaper and clean off the corrosion, then do a heavy scrub down with Brake Cleaner. Then I'd probably finish it off with a coating of clear spray to help minimize future corrosion.

I stress the fine grit sandpaper part...

if i did everything according to manufacture recommendations my car would still be stock :)

when I asked if they do re-anodize. They said no.

The sandpaper and brake cleaner was my idea.

and less effort then to anodize or powder coat them

that said they dont do it but i could have them powder coated at any powder coating shop.


if i do this, should i powder coat then strip and rebuild right? I dont want powder coat all over the inside.

...it's actually going to be a pita.

You'll need to remove the bleed screws and bridge pipe, and screw in some caps to protect the threads.

Then you'll need to remove the pistons and seals and then cap them off. Probably best to mask off the entire inside of the caliper. I'd also remove the pad guides, I believe on the BType they are screwed in.

Also cap the brake line opening with some screw in cap.

I'd probably also mask off the logo.

Have you seen powdercoating process? that stuff will get everywhere. I'm still against it personally.

After the process, I'd pump through some water or something to clear out all the fluid lines.

Tell them not to wash the wheels with acid, the standard Audi procedure.

The first time this happened, the dealer trashed the black anodized centers of a set of HRE's, and the anodized Alcons ended up about two shades lighter. The dealer paid to have HRE refinish the wheels, and in the future, I always reminded the dealer "soap and water only".

The OE Avus wheels (my winter setup) were on the car the 2nd time this happened three years later. With the Avus wheels, I didn't think to give my standard warning, and this time the acid totally trashed the Alcon anodized finish. Suddenly the Alcon's looked 20 years old :-(

I can only imagine what the acid does to the threads of lug nuts and the finish of the caliper's piston bores.

<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/17157/acid2.jpg">

so you can see what a trashed set of alcons look like.

once you see these things you'll understand why i want to refinsih them so bad. they look like they were anodized with an urban camo style or something


anyway, I think i'm going with g2 black all the way around. seems like a soild product nad it will look 100x better then what I have now