I posted this a while back on another great Jaguar forum website and thought I'd repost it here for everyone to see and have a read.

Rob

Hi Folks,

I finally decided to jump into sprucing up my rotors and calipers. Both were looking pretty dingy. It also gave me the opportunity to have a look in around the wheel well area. I decided to go outside my comfort zone and painted the calipers red. They look pretty good when you're looking at the car in person, but I'm not sold quite yet looking at the car in the last two photos below.

I purchased the Dupli-Color caliper paint kit from Canadian Tire. It came with the paint, caliper cleaner, stir stick, paint brush and instructions. The first bit of business was to clean the caliper with the cleaner spray bomb. It worked fairly well. I used a steel brush, toothbrush and a dish brush to get in all the nook and crannies.

Here's some pics I took as I progressed through the project :

Here's a pic of the tires as they appear at the start of the project.


After removing the tire and cleaning the caliper, I taped up the outer surface of the rotor using some painters tape. After putting on the tape, I carefully cut around the outer and inner perimeter of the rotor, making sure to expose the thin rim of rust on each. Here's a pic of how everything looked prior to paint.


Here's a face on shot of the rotor :


I sprayed the rotor edge, hub and guard first, covering each with 3 successive layers of paint. I was surprised at how nicely the spray bomb paint covered each! I covered the rotor with a plastic grocery bag while doing this :


After that dried, I painted the caliper. The brush on caliper paint is quite thick and dries EXTREMELY fast. Don't hesitate to put on medium thickness coats to cover the calipers. I did all four calipers on my car and I still have half a can of paint left! I'm not a brake guy, so I painted the calipers while still on the car. While not ideal, if you take the time to mask areas you don't want to paint, you'll get pretty good results. My brother-in-law is coming over next week when I get my new ceramic pads. I'll do some touch ups then when I have the calipers right off the car. Here's a set of shots of the completed job :






And a shot with the tire back on. While I had the tire off, I took the time to clean the inside of the rims - were they dirty! I don't think they've ever been cleaned before I bought the car.


Here's a closer shot so you can see the caliper, guard, rotor edge and hub all painted and looking good!


A quartering shot after my first caliper done. 2 afternoons later, I had all four done!


Here's a shot of the rear caliper painted. It's quite a bit smaller than the front, so it's a bit subtler of a look.


Now it's these last two pics that give me pause on the red calipers. Like I said before, in person, the red looks pretty sharp. The first shot was taken earlier in the day, and the red is certainly more subdued on the car. The second shot was taken as the sun was low on the horizon and it lit the calipers up like Christmas trees. I'm not too taken with the second shot.




What's everyone's thoughts? Unfortunately I can't have everyone show up to have a look in person, so I have to rely on these last two shots to get your opinions. I might take another pic today as it's overcast which may make them look different yet again!

Regardless, I hope everyone enjoys the pics!