Brembo refinish - DIY style!

[Dr.Strangepork]

So the Brembos on my '01 Boxster S were completely shot finish wise...each caliper was faded, had pretty much no gloss (most of the clear had peeled off leaving a beat looking flat red) and had copious amounts of dirt to complement the terrible looking finish.

I used to powdercoat stuff for people on the side a while ago so I decided why not break out my equipment again and take a crack at refinishing these myself. I'd refinished several sets of VW calipers before but never done a set of big brakes.

I apologize in advance for the mix of digital camera/cellphone pictures. I used whichever one happened to be handy while I was working :beer:

First, this is what I started with...this doesn't show how bad a condition the finish is in very well...if you look at the one in the back and how the face of it is completely dull and unshiny, that's a pretty good indication of what most of them looked like:

So I dropped them off at the local sandblaster to blast the old finish off. I left the pistons/dust boots in to protect the bores from blasting. Blaster doesn't hurt the pistons/boots, but it would make the caliper unusable if it got to the bores.

Got them back, rinsed off the sand:

Now the fun part! Time to start disassembling them. Disassembly is a tricky little game. You first have to push the pistons out a little with a compressor, then carefully use two screw drivers to pry out the piston...and do that four times for each caliper. Then you have to reach into the bore with a teeny tiny screwdriver and carefully pry the rubber seal out without scratching the bore.

Here's one done:

After a while, all four are done:

I didn't bother taking pictures of the rest of the masking/prep process, but you have to make sure to mask off the bores/bleeders/holes for the lines etc to make sure no powder gets in.

So I threw them in the oven for a prebake to burn off any remaining grease/dirt, pulled them out, powdercoated them, back in the oven, pulled them out, let em cool off and voila:

Fresh out the oven, haven't bothered taking the masking tape etc off completely yet as you can see.

Next comes a lot of masking tape removal (not fun, the tape becomes extremely brittle after being heated), then some Porsche decals and reassembling the pads etc back in...then you have the finished product :)

(the droplets are rain, not surface defects ;) )

Now back on the car:

When I finish the other stuff I'm working on I'll take some pics of the car on the ground with them and the wheels on etc.

Cheers :beer:

[por986]

That is pretty darn impressive!! Are you thinking of doing this as a service?

[sikest]

Excellent job. Nice to see someone take the time to do it right.

T.

[Dr.Strangepork]

That is pretty darn impressive!! Are you thinking of doing this as a service?

I asked Loren about it, looks like I might set something up in the "special offers" section at some point :)

[phillipj]

Great work. Really impressive :clapping:

[996driver]

These look better than new. Will you tell me about the powder coating process? Is this doen at home or did you send thees out.

Thanks,

Scott

[Dr.Strangepork]

These look better than new. Will you tell me about the powder coating process? Is this doen at home or did you send thees out.

Thanks,

Scott

It's not really a do at home thing...you'd normally send these out...thing is I used to be the guy that people would send their stuff out to so I had the equipment laying around to do it myself ;)

[seafeye]

They fit great in a little toaster oven, you can find one at a garage sale cheap.

The powder gun you can get at china freight for $70. Blasting you can do yourself or send it out.

Here is mine with a slight mod....

[Dr.Strangepork]

I like the Boxster decal, never seen that on the brakes!

Pics back on the car: