i posted in the CL of socal forum but no one has responded so far. anyway, does anyone know how much it would cost to powdercoat all 4 calipers as well as where to do it in/near san diego?

i've painted the calipers red then now black, but i am not satisfied with the way it has turned out either way. now i want to powdercoat them black and put the decals on with a clearcoat cover so they don't get dirty and black. suggestions/help anyone? thanks.

 

Just look in the phone book under "powdercoating", shouldn't be too hard to find. You may also try a place that does wheel refinishing/repair, they can usually do powdercoating for you. As for price, I was told a while back that it was $40 dollars per wheel, so with the calipers being significantly smaller I would say no more than $100 for all 4.

 

You may have to rebuild all the calipers after baking them, unless you strip them of all the seals.

Koz

 

tell me how it goes, i'd like to do the same

 

I don't see how to keep the paint powder out of the caliper without complete disassembly. Once baked, only a few powder particles my bind a cup in the caliper bore. The clearances are very close.

This idea may be a little risky unless you are prepared to replace and re-coat any calipers damaged.

 

It cost me around $120 to powdercoated 2 brembo caliper. You have to dis-assemble the whole caliper, such as pistons, seal, etc... because they need to heat the caliper in the process of powdercoating and it will destroy your rubber seals... so you need to get all the new seals again from the dealer to re-assemble it.

 

wow... well my reason was that i wanted to do this a while back but just decided on buying some dupli-color caliper paint and doing it myself. i put decals on that got dirty and can't be cleaned so i wanted to replace the decals. since i was gonna do that i figure i might try the powdercoating thing for a cleaner look and heat resistance.

now that i think about it, caliper paint should do fine. i'll probably just get a new set of decals and put a clearcoat over them this time.

thanks for all the help everyone, i have made my decision. i'm planning on changing my rotors in dec/jan so i'll either get them done then or just get a bbk.

 

Probably a good choice. Most powder is not able to take high temps like the caliper paint.

 

if you want to take the DIY painting route...try high temp. Engine spray paint...the gloss on those are amazing compaired to normal caliper paint. With a little time, and the right Prep job...you can get a facotry finish.

 

What brand of engine spray would you suggest. I was wanting to paint my calipers as well. Glad I found this thread.

Also, jsquared you suggest keeping it a dark color because brake dust gets all over it?

I wanted to paint my yellow, but I guess that is not sounding like a good idea if this is the case.

 

Just a note for anyone else considering powder coating - the IS350 front calipers are monoblock, which means they are made from a single block of metal, not two halves as has been typical in the past. This means they bored the block of metal and installed two plugs on the inside of the caliper to close the bores on the back of the caliper. No doubt there is a seal on those plugs, but it isn't available from Lexus/Toyota. So, if the baking process kills the seals, you can expect you will need to find a couple of new seals for these two plugs on the back. It may or may not be easy. It was not easy to find o-rings for the two halves of the MkIV TT Supra's calipers.