Repainting calipers, do I need to sand first?
 

I have an 04' enthusiast with non-brembo brakes. The original owner painted the calipers gold and matched the rotors. My goal is to re-paint the calipers black. I'm not a fan of the "fembo" look. Lol

My question is: Do I need to sand the gold color off first before re-painting black? or just clean the gold calipers with brake cleaner and repaint black over the top?

I was going to use some 2K grit sandpaper, clean with brake cleaner, dry, and paint. Not sure if this is the correct way to go, any paint pro's out there???

Moved to the correct subforum

original calipers were silver

I know they were silver (gray) originally.

Do i need to sand the gold caliper paint off first? Or just clean and paint over?

I want to paint them black, but don't know if leaving the old gold paint on the calipers will make the new black paint fade/wear off faster or unevenly.

I would recommend sanding it sense the gold was probably painted on top of the stock factory gray. i would sand down to prep the surface so that the new paint can better adhere to the metal better. this is all off of what i would do in your situation but more wiser members will probably have better advice than i can give at this moment and time.

you might not be sure how good of a job was done to get it to gold. I would wire brush and sand as much of the gold off as possible and then prime and then your top coat.

This whole job will only take you about two hours with a wire wheel/hand drill and some paint. I've dont this on cars and they have lasted over 3 years so far without priming on a 2008 civic(my z is only a year old so far on my paint...well actually copper head gasket spray :D) I used regular caliper paint at autozone on the and worked well on the civic.

Right on, thanks everybody :thumbup:

Taking before and after pics to document changes and will add to this thread upon completion...

Took driver front tire off today and realized the gold paint seems to "wash" off with just brake cleaner. Gonna wash dirt off first, then use some 40 grit sandpaper to prep the surface better, and finally some brake cleaner to finalize the preparation of the caliper before painting.

Note to all newbs attempting this, DO NOT over-spray and get paint on the bolts, previous owner did and it took me forever to remove bolts and rotors because of this.