I have a slight problem with my rotors on my car. I have polished aluminum wheels, and the rotors are rusting terribly and getting rust on my rims. I want to paint the rotors black but i want it to last a long time and stand up to the heat of normal highway use. I read about baked on paint, and that wouldnt be a problem for me. I did want to paint my calipers as well. Probably Red. I would like to paint the calipers on the car instead of removing them unless i have no choice. I would rather not bleed my brake system if i dont have to. So my question is does anyone know where i can get some high quality, heat resistant paint.

Thanks

Please tell me you are only trying to paint the inside vent channels and not the braking surface. I have found that the high temp grill paint you can find at any hardware store or DIY place works good to protect exhaust systems and should work fine on the inside of the brakes. But unfortunately this probably will not solve your problem. The rusty dust is actually from the wear on the surface of the rotor and will continue even if you paint the air channels. Actually, most of the rust in the air channels is probably dust that has collected over time. I don't know of anything to keep it from sticking but you could try a graphite paint. ETA:The calipers really do not suffer from a lot of heat. I would reccomend Majic brand Diamond Hard Enamel. It is a water base paint with really good qualities and available in a bunch of colors including red. Avaiable as a spray in a non-water base also but I have limited experience with it. Either way degrease well and paint in place.

This post has been edited by MontanaLon: October 1st 2009 4:58 AM

There is a spray paint out there for painting your BBQ. Works well, but I don't know about brakes. If you are going to paint your calipers, you need to take them off and bead blast them. You cannot paint over all that shat, grime and rust. Also, you cannot paint rotors. Maybe the hubs, but not the rotor surface. if you do=epic fail. If you are serious about painting the calipers, go to a Carquest or napa and they will hook you up with the right stuff. You need a heat resistant primer and paint for engines or calipers(like Duplicolor) Do not take shortcuts from the prep work. Parts cleaner or paint thinner then bead blast. Prime and paint.

For the rotors, use some of that high temp BBQ paint. For the calipers I use some caliper paint that comes in a small can. I forget the brand. But Ive used it on the brakes that came on my Mustang GT, and the bigger Cobra brakes I got for it. On the standard brakes, it started to peel, but I attributed that to them being so old and I didnt clean them good enough. I would reccomend taking them off and cleaning them very well if you can. If not then clean them very good with a wirebrush and brake cleaner. The red paint I used goes on pretty thin, so about 4 coats are needed to cover well.

And that rust on your wheels is probably brake dust and actually not rust. Cant really do anything about that except get higher quality pads. They wont make as much dust.

I used the Dupla-color caliper paint on my calipers a long time ago. I assume you are talking about them and not your rotors. If you want to paint your rotors you have to have them turned after, but I have shot them and then just carefully let the pads wear away the paint on the braking surface, but that was back in my young retarded days.

With Calipers, take your time and don't get any paint between where things bolt together. I did..... and I have a squeal that I cant get rid of now.

Ive painted rotors before and just taped off the braking area. You will probably get a little on it if you use straight pieces of tape and cover all the non-braking area, but the first time you hit the brakes, that will be gone.

You will ATLEAST need to take the calipers off the rotors to do all this, cause you cant really paint the rotors while the calipers are on them. Id take the calipers off, but not un hook the hoses, and take the rotors off.

This post has been edited by AnonymousD: October 1st 2009 5:47 AM

Um Yeah right. This is a joke post correct?
First of all the rust is like some people have said dust from the pads as the wear while in contact with the rotars.
Two if you really must go ahead paint the calipers. The normal heating and cooling will cause paint problems.
Three I used to do about 6 (If I was having a good day) brake jobs a day. Nothing except some goo they used to put on pads to reduce squeaking should go on the rotars or pads. With the Ceramic and Metal pads no GOO.
Nothing should be applied to any of the contact surfaces. E.I. THE PADS OR ROTARS!
When installing these part I would a make a skim cut on the rotars to make sure they were parallel. Then clean them thoroughly with brake cleaner then install the pads.
Nothing like grease, oil or paint on the contact surfaces. That way I'd know if I was driving the vehicle it would stop.

I should have mentioned I'm not going to paint the braking surface, i guess i just assumed everybody knew that. By removing the calipers i meant removing the hoses. That's why i said so i don't have to bleed the system. About the brake dust, i really have no idea if it is from the rotors or the brake pads. All i know is the rotors have rust on every square inch of them, except for the braking surface, and i want to get rid of the rust and paint them black. here is a pic of the rust on the rotors, and rims.


And its not a joke post A hole!

The brake dust is from the pads.

Get Ceramic pads and you won't have that problem...aboutr $50

Caliper paint at local Car place for about $6/can in all color.

Clean well first, the key to a good paint job is in the preparation, not the paint

The only way it will work is if you get new rotors and completely degrease them ( a can of brake cleaner will work) and then prime and paint them with a high temp paint that is readily available at your local parts store. Let them completely dry before installing them.
You will also be better served to remove the calipers and do the same with them as the rotors. Bleeding the hydraulic system is not all that difficult with a minutes help from a friend. If you need help with that let me know I will walk you right through it, no problem.
In any event it realy does not last very long, at least not in Ohio where they use salt for winter driving.

Sarge made a good point about the brake dust, ceramic pads help with that quite a bit but if your vehicle is not designed for ceramic components from the factory you will have to hit them a few times to generate a little bit of heat before you have a firm brake pedal, especialy when the temperature drops or if the vehicle has been sitting fow any period of time.
The downside to cermaic pads is that they are hard on rotors, buy GOOD rotors, not the cheaper China crap.

Another option is to look into aftermarket dust shields that slip over the wheel hub or studs in between the rotor and the wheel assembly. They are available for some makes and models.

By the way what color were you thinking of using? Something to accent the suspension or body color or just flat black to conceal them a little?

To eliminate your brake squeel you need to apply a synthetic grease or a moly brake lubricant on the caliper itself at any place the caliper contacts the brake pads. Any parts store will have it available in small tubes.
It is a common miss-belief that brake squeel is caused by the mating surface between the pads and the rotor. In most cases it is not.
Brake squeel 99.9% of the time is created by micro friction inbetween the brake pad and the brake caliper.There are teflon shims that come standard on most new pads that address this problem but even if the pads that come with shims you still need to lube the caliper at any place it touches the pad or it will eventualy make noise, mostly after the brakes have a little heat in them and components start to shift and swell.
The only exception to this that I am aware of is a newer brake pad designed by Wagner.
Most of the premium Wagner pads have no 'stick on' shims, they have a raised portion built into the metal side of the pad and then the whole thing is painted with a special gray paint. You cannot lube them at all becasue the lube will deteriorate the paint and cause major malfunctions along with voiding the warranty.

I should add that I have used about every concieveable make and model of brake component available for a regular every day driving vehicle to 1500hp 1/4 mile drag cars and the new Wagner pads pretty much suck. If they are on all four wheels of a front and rear disc brake system 9 times out of 10 the brake pedal is very low and and the stopping power is not as good as it would be if you were to use premium Bendix or Raybestos brake products.

I hope this helps.

This post has been edited by KENNYOHIOHUNTER: October 7th 2009 2:00 AM

You have rust on your wheels because the coating on the wheels is going bad. NORMAL. That rust on your wheels ISN'T created by the brake rotor/cailper. I had rusted rotors (I mean bad along the edges), and my calipers are so rusted, they look like a chunk of rock dug from the ground. My wheels only get brake dust with no rust what so ever except on one wheel, where the paint got chipped and it's starting to rust.

Use common sense when it comes to issues like this.. if it's "rust dust", it's not going to stick onto yoru wheel like shown in the photos.

Also, if your car comes with semi-metalic pads, probably stick with semi-metalic. The brake booster is designed for that type of bad. Depending on the vehicle, sometimes braking will be even more sensitve or less. But in my experince, I find semi-metalic have better braking power than ceramics. Ceramics however last longer and create almost no brake dust - but you loose braking power.

A good cleaning and some serious rubbing with Mother's Polish should remove most of the oxidation from the corners of your rims and leaves a light film of protection.
From the picture it looks like your rims are polished aluminum and not clear coated so the Mother's should do you justice with some elbow grease.
Any wheel should only be cleaned when it is cool. If the rims are hot from driving as soon as you hit it with a hose the brake dust and rust will be a permanant fixture to the outside of the wheel.

I used mothers aluminum and mag polish on my front wheels on the Bronco..as the brake dust was baked onto them (didn't wash the truck for about 8 months).. one coat and it took the brake dust off that water and a toothbrush couldn't get.

Also works great on yellow/glazed over headlights. Used the stuff on my girlfriends ford car..made her headlights look brand new again instead of crappy glazed yellow

Hey Waka, thats a good idea for composite headlamps. I will be trying that for sure!

Those look like some serious grooves in your rotors, may just be the image not sure. You might want to check and see if you need to resurface/replace them.

I thought this thread was going to end up like this thread http://my.is/forums/f87/crashed-my-baby-147582/

But since we now know that only the non braking surfaces are going to be painted I will add that I painted the "hat" portion of some new Zimmerman rotors a few years ago. The factory Porsche rotors were twice the price and the only difference was the paint on the hat. The factory rotors were manufactured by Zimmerman. I user brake clean to clean them, taped off the braking area and then painted with rustoleum high temp paint.

Kenny would have a better idea about this, but could his rotors be put on a lathe and a very small amount of material be removed from the area to be painted?

If not a wire brush on a drill or grinder would do a good job of prepping for paint.

Now from the pics it is just brake dust and the Ford F-150 is the worlds worst for this issue.