Paint you Tahoe's Brake Calipers - EZ How-2 Project

[Kenneth L Nielsen]

Wife's Tahoe had a brake issue anyway to repair so might as well give it a Brake Caliper makeover at the same time. She likes it and I had fun putting this How 2 Video together at the same time.

Cheers!

 

[Kenneth L Nielsen]

The weekend is young! Get out there and do some WORK to you TAHOE!

 

[HiHoeSilver]

Take them things apart and do it right!

 

[Kenneth L Nielsen]

The Law of diminishing returns.

The older I get the more I look at something and say, how good does it need to be to get me 90% of what I am after? Often times the last 10% between good enough and perfect takes 3 times the work.....then you have to ask is it really worth it to you.




At any rate, your caliper looks very nice!

 

[Rocket Man]

I couldn’t do that, I’m too ocd. At least the front edges should be painted, instead of just the face, and around the backside edges too. The rust is gonna form on those front edges and eat the paint up pretty quick imo or at the least you’ll see rust. It’s not that hard to pull them off and bleed the brakes after. But great video either way.

 

[Bandit-66]

I also want it to be done properly.
On our blazer we sandblasted them first and then painted them and put new gaskets on them.
Otherwise you won't have fun for long.

 

[Kenneth L Nielsen]

Nice work! You were the guy I was referring to at 2.05 in the video.

For the benefit of those that read this thread, approximately how many hours would you say it took to:
*Disassemble
*Mask off the bores and all areas that would be damaged by blasting
*Blast
*Clean
*Re- mask for painting
*Painting
*install new piston seals
*install back on the truck
*bleed calipers?

Just want people to be informed on the front end as to what they are getting themselves into and make an informed decision about how far they want to take their brake caliper painting project.

 

[Rocket Man]

You don’t need to disassemble them in order to do a good paint job. I used electrical tape to mask off things that masking tape didn’t work well on like the pistons and seals so that was maybe 20 minutes per caliper over your method, plus the bleeding which takes me 10 minutes with my Motive pressure bleeder. A good cleaning like you did was all I have done. Mine lasted for years and still looked great when I replaced them. So there’s different amounts of time depending on how far you want to go but I would say the way I did it which ended up with calipers completely painted took me maybe an hour longer.

 

[Kenneth L Nielsen]

Excellent info

 

[HiHoeSilver]

I was a little different, as I was using all new calipers, adding ss lines, etc. The only pieces I reused were the rear brackets, which i sandblasted prior to painting. I also rebuilt the parking brake with all new stuff while I was in there.

Not really an apples to apples comparison, time wise. The paint also comes into play. I used 3 coats of POR15 caliper paint. Took about 3 hours dry time per coat with a 24 hour cure at the end. Brushed on, which takes time. I will say it was well worth it. It is very thick and glossy with a good hard finish. I can tell that it will wash clean easily and last for a good while.