Nice day today so I decided to paint my calipers :D.

 

When I took the back wheel off I notice this !!!!!:eek:

 

A little on the worn side wouldn't you say.

May as well show you my painted Calipers while I'm here :D

Originally posted by smw1

May as well show you my painted Calipers while I'm here :D

 

nice pink caliper Stu!!! :D

Might have known :rolleyes: you would start bowling boy !!!

Dust covers made by ..... Durex lol.

Stuart the condition of the dust covers are a good way of guessing the age of the shocks themselves, the rubber takes a good few years to deteriate so it follows that the shocks are most likely to be tired by then.

 

As a guide here is a pic that have been fitted 2 years ago and the rubber looks fine.

 

Jeff TT

At least the shocks were still working, when I got mine one was flopping around like a gooden. The Z center sorted it for around £35 each (stock)

smw1, can we have a pic with the wheel on & a bit more of the car?

Stuart how did you manage not to paint over the NISSAN on the caliper?

Steady hand or did you mask it off?:confused:

Cheers,

F.T.

About to paint mine once I have replaced seals. Off the car at the moment!!

 

smw1-Where did you get the paint from, I understand it has to be proper caliper paint as the VHT stuff won't adhere and runs like mad. What cost mate!!!!!

 

Fat tony-I think its done by painting the whole caliper including lettering and then running some wet & dry over the raised lettering when all is dry. Could be wrong though!!!!

Stu,If you fit proper brakes;) they come ready painted mate:D:p

 

Nice one!!:D :D and nice brakes as well!!;)

Looks to me like it's done by painting the whole lot red and then the raised letters white to me ....

 

 

Originally posted by andrewwarren

About to paint mine once I have replaced seals. Off the car at the moment!!

 

smw1-Where did you get the paint from, I understand it has to be proper caliper paint as the VHT stuff won't adhere and runs like mad. What cost mate!!!!!

 

Fat tony-I think its done by painting the whole caliper including lettering and then running some wet & dry over the raised lettering when all is dry. Could be wrong though!!!!

I'll put some pictures on the my web site this evening. I didn't get time to do it last night.

It will include with the stock wheels on as well. I imagine it would look better with after market wheels, but I'll be changing the entire brake set-up when I eventually get new wheels. So I'll have to wait until (I have a spare £3k or so :( ).

 

The callipers were painted using some special calliper paint from Halfords. (£9.99 a tin) you should be able to do about 3 cars with this. Each Calliper was given two coats, leaving about 30 mins between coats to dry. Halfords sell this in three colours Silver, Blue and Red. I only painted the calliper itself and took great care not to get any on the disks or pads.

The Nissan logo was done after I painted the entire calliper. The easiest way I found to do this was use aluminium silver radiator paint (which is also able to cope with high temps). Instead of using a brush of this I found that a highlighter pen worked best as it's the exact thickness of the lettering.

Dip the tip of the pen in the paint, wipe off the excess and leave to dry for about 20 mins before you start to use it to apply paint to the logo. If you don't do this the silver will start to look like a blue or green etc. (depending on what colour pen you used)

 

HTH

Here's a blue one..........(from Andys site)

 

http://www.300zx.org.uk/brake_caliper_paint.htm

Hi Stuart

 

Wow this is quite freaky as I did my calipers on Saturday too and noticed that exact same things on my shocks too - in fact for a moment I thought I was reading my own post - that I didn't post ha ha ha :D

I think i will paint mine soon!

Originally posted by Markyb300

Hi Stuart

 

Wow this is quite freaky as I did my calipers on Saturday too and noticed that exact same things on my shocks too - in fact for a moment I thought I was reading my own post - that I didn't post ha ha ha :D

 

:eek: . You doing yours blue by any chance Mark ? :D

I did mine ages ago with Foliatec Caliper Lacquer and it does look superb. It is much thicker than normal paint and gives a really smooth finish.

Just used a normal silver touch up pen to go over the lettering afterwards and it's never come off.

Interesting one about the dust cover on the shock - well a month or two back I was getting a new rear tyre and I noticed that the shock dust cover was like your pic. the guy told me that it didn't really matter.

But anyway my Zed is due a service in May so I'll talk to my mechanic an maybe order new rear shocks.

Anyway - on the paint job - I've thought about doing that, but I think black maybe better looking as I don't fancy the Nissan callipers as a feature.

Geoff.

Originally posted by tanzx

Interesting one about the dust cover on the shock - well a month or two back I was getting a new rear tyre and I noticed that the shock dust cover was like your pic. the guy told me that it didn't really matter.

But anyway my Zed is due a service in May so I'll talk to my mechanic an maybe order new rear shocks.

Anyway - on the paint job - I've thought about doing that, but I think black maybe better looking as I don't fancy the Nissan callipers as a feature.

Geoff.

 

Just because the boot is knackered doesn't nesecarily mean the shocks are knackered? The boot is simply a dust cover...

Just because the boot is knackered doesn't nesecarily mean the shocks are knackered? The boot is simply a dust cover

 

Andy is right, however it is a good age indicator.

 

Jeff TT

I would imagine that if the dust cover is knackerd then the debris will start to accumulate around the shock, thus shortening it's life and leading to leaky seals.

I would imagine that if the dust cover is knackerd then the debris will start to accumulate around the shock, thus shortening it's life and leading to leaky seals.

 

Very well said.

 

Jeff TT

This just says one thing though - save yourself cash by replacing the rubbers BEFORE the shocks get damaged ;) If you see a broken rubber, replace it!

You have to take the shock out to replace the rubber right ?