| Well, after getting the nice new rims and tires, those stock calipers caught my attention. I also remembered that about 1.5 years ago, someone on Audizine.com sold vinyl decals - at the time I thought, "Get some now, you may want 'em later". Later it is.
Based on research, I went ahead with the G2 paint system (you can get it from tirerack.com.) Knowing that the decals would go on there also, I bought some engine enamel, color = clear, to spray over the decals. I went with the Dupli-color enamel (good up to 500 degrees F) from Pepboys.
Next ensued 24 hours of fun, starting on Thanksgiving day. My wife is an artist, so I actually don't get to use our 2 car garage at all very often (it's her studio) but when I really need it, I get to butt in and steal the real estate for a day or so ;-)
Here are some before pictures to give you a sense of how nasty they looked:
Serious rust below:
So I started with all the tools I had: wire brush and sandpaper. That got me this far:
Then I remembered my dremel. Check out how much of a difference it made on the upper left corner of the caliper below.
Even with the dremel, though, I didn't get it anywhere near perfect. Lots of dimpels remained, and the perfectionist in me got a bit worn out after a while...I decided to just go ahead and paint.
Two coats total, as per instructions. 15 minutes in between coats. It says it cures in 2 hours; I waited 5 before going ahead with the decals and clear coat. Clear coat ended up being a bit tricky (3 coats, wait 10 minutes in between, supposed to finish all coats in 1 hour, or wait 7 days to do it all again...no idea why, but whatever). On my last coat, I got aggressive and tried to do a 'wet' coat as prescribed. Well - it led to some running which you may be able to pick out as yellowish spots on a couple of pictures. The good news: as time passes, it gets better and better. Also, next week I'm doing my coilover install, and I'll see if I need to sand down and redo a clear coat or two then.
And finally, some finished shots. All in all, I'm very happy with it. Going from the completely rusted caliper to this is a big improvement.
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