wander07

I have a question related to this. Aim going to paint my calipers as you advised, but how did you jack up the front and rear to do this? The manuel shows holes in the frame to jack up on. I took a look and they are pretty close to the center of the car, why not jack up the wheel arm? Any advice here would help out,

Thanks

JW Motorsports

Here you go

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...r-dummies.html

You don't have to take the calipers apart if you don't want. I brushed mine on with them on the car. Pick up some paint brushes at walmart if you are using the duplicolor kit. The brush they send is not that good.

wander07

One more question, when you unbolted the calipers, did you disconnect the brake lines?

wander07

Did you disconnect the brake lines when you took the calipers off?

Vetteman Jack

Good info on the paint - makes it nice whejn it is a gooud match to the car's color.

Quick Draw

Great looking wheels, rotors, and calipers!

Man, I love Torch Red.

Patches

I used Foliatec, an epoxy paint caliper painting kit, when I first bought the car in '01 and it matches the TR nicely.







I have also used that same Ford Red engine enamel pictured above on a set of FRC's. On these, it appeared slightly darker than the TR.

IRON MAIDEN

What's going to give the better finish, spraying or brushing? Think I would rather brush so I don't have to mask so much of the car off. Has anything changed in the past few months, is there a better option for Torch Red owners? I just don't want the calipers to not match.

Camjamsdad

No need to remove the brake hoses. Also paint the back of the brake pads black. After a good coat of brake dust I don't notice the darker color. I sprayed because I didn't want brush marks.

j84buick

It's really not that much work to remove the calipers and put a big piece of cardboard behind them to keep the overspray away. Masking it right will probably take you three times as long and in my opinion would never look as nice. Can't think of any more options other than the $400 e-bay ones, getting yours powercoated or painting them.

JaxEagle

At first read I thought you had painted your Fixed Roof Coupe. Anyway, on the Fuel Rail Covers, I assume the black is decal and not paint? Also, how did you get the red to finish so glossy? My stock black/red covers have a matte pitted type finish so I'd think painting them would result the same but I like the look of your covers. Nice!!! Much better than a few hundred bucks for the those things!!

Patches

The black on the frc's are black, acrylic inserts. The process of getting the paint so that it looks like the smoothies you can buy from vnendors is a somewhat laborious one but pretty straightforward.

I sanded mine for a few hours with my pneumatic random orbital sander and got them smooth enough to where the first coat of primer made them smooth as a baby's behind. I primered them and sanded a couple more times after that then gave them a few coats of base color and cleared them with a few more coats. I wet-sanded between coats. Finally, I sanded them with increasingly finer sand paper and finished up with 2000 grit and polish.

Unsanded


One unsanded and one sanded


Both sanded


Primer applied


Color coat


Cleared & Polished before applying the inserts

guido7834

The calipers look great! But talk about splitting hairs! I used the Dupli color brush-on, on my Torch Red, and the color looks fine to me! Maybe not an exact match, but not enough for me to care.

JaxEagle

Thanks for sharing - interesting. Very professional process and awesome results! I want some of those!!! Do you take orders?

RonR80

I did my calipers last night , need one more coat on the fronts, painted on and they look real good , never disconnected them , easy but time consuming to clean them.

waddisme

These are mind after painting with VHT engine enamel spray. They were stock, unpainted C5 calipers when I started.

[IMG][/IMG]

I did the chapstik thing and it worked great. I just used a paint prep cleaner before applying 4 coats. Unfortunately, the engine enamel cannot take the heat from severe braking at the track. Now mine look almost dark purple. Will have to redo sometime as I dd my car. I am assuming the duplicolor can take the higher heat.

Richard@Adams

Thanks guys. I appreciate all the great info.

Richard

guido7834

I used the Dupli color brush on also. If you can tell that much of a difference you're splitting hairs! Or you worry too much!

cor66vette

Yeah, you may think so now, but "someday" is just around the corner.

Robesp

You are not kidding, just sent my oldest to college and "SOMEDAY" came to quickly!