Brake calipers - how do you clean yours - sad I know!

[aea730]

Im about to embark on a detailing excercise on the car. The rear calipers are fine but the front ones have a bit of discolouration, it looks like a good doing with a soft wire brush might do the trick but before i do i wondered if anyoneone as sad as me has any miracle treatments to bring the parts up nicely.

[TonyHetherington]

The key to calipers is to wash them every time you clean the wheels. It doesn't take much just to stick a toothbrush through the spokes and go over it.

If you're taking the wheel off it doesn't take very long at all to take the caliper off and paint it (30mins total, perhaps) with halfords high temp paint - dries in 15mins enough that you can put the caliper and wheel and pads back on. Then it's a piece of cake to clean.

Otherwise, just a quick run over with a toothbrush and some detergent (fairy liquid) is enough - you're not going to get it any cleaner.

Hope that helps
Tony (geeky cleaning bloke)

[Mr_C]

You don't actually clean your brakes... do you?!

[TonyHetherington]

The caliper

Takes 30 seconds to do, if that.

[MadProf]

STOP!!!!..don't use a wire brush however soft it might be on your calipers you'll take all the coating off them,as said use a tooth brush or some other soft bristled brush.

[tricky 100]

Drive through a big puddle ... job done .

[aea730]

TonyHetherington said:

The key to calipers is to wash them every time you clean the wheels. It doesn't take much just to stick a toothbrush through the spokes and go over it.

If you're taking the wheel off it doesn't take very long at all to take the caliper off and paint it (30mins total, perhaps) with halfords high temp paint - dries in 15mins enough that you can put the caliper and wheel and pads back on. Then it's a piece of cake to clean.

Otherwise, just a quick run over with a toothbrush and some detergent (fairy liquid) is enough - you're not going to get it any cleaner.

Hope that helps
Tony (geeky cleaning bloke)

Tony, do you have to bleed the brakes when you re assemble

[TonyHetherington]

If you took the caliper away from the brake line, then you would.

But the way I did mine (just this past weekend, actually) is that you remove the caliper from the hub, but keep the brake line still attached - that way you can move it around to paint it properly, but don't need to bleed the brakes because you never take the brake line off.

I'm surprised at how easy it was - 2 bolts on the front, 1 bolt and 1 allen key on the back and the calipers were off. (I think there's a wiki about it in seloc).

[aea730]

Thanks Tony, I might do that just to get to it to clean it properly anyway. I like the gunmetal type coated factory finish on the calipers so Im a bit cautious about lathering them in black hammerite or similar but would like the existing finish to look good, I am obviously cautious though about using anything too abrasive or astringent

[TonyHetherington]

[beez]

I painted mine a nice red with some high temp caliper paint, they look much better and are soooo much easier to clean.

I use one of those hand mits and an old washing up brush to clean them up when i was the car.

As Tony said painting them was easy enough dont bother removing the brake line so you can save yourself having to bleed the system. I actually took the pads and disks off so i could clean it all up nicley and paint them easier. Just dont paint over the bleed valve.

[LivinLaVidaLotus]

I cleaned mine by taking it for a service, I never knew they came up that colour before, lol.

[piooly]

My wheels are painted black and so are the calipers. Vitually never clean them anymore. Even with brake dust on, they have this nice matt look to them........