Powder Coated Goodness

[gsodonis]

Originally Posted by Tim

I think it's my slider pin, as the noise goes away when i hold onto the brakes over a bump.

It may not be the pin. Both front and rear calipers slide on two different pins: one upper pin that is fixed to the caliper bracket (upper) and one that is a stainless steel sleeve (lower) that gets bolted to the caliper bracket. This is done to provide the caliper a way to pivot up and out of the way to allow for easy pad access during a brake service.

The upper pin rides inside a matching smooth bored part of the caliper. If the caliper is rattling, it may simply be that this pin is dry and needs lubrication. Try removing the caliper and lubing this pin liberally to see of the knocking goes away.

The lower pin is actually a hollow sleeve. A bolt secures this to the caliper mounting bracket, effectively making it a solid pin. The difference between the two is the lower 'pin' rides inside a rubber sleeve with integrated dust boots. This sleeve acts as a noise isolator. If this sleeve were to deteriorate, there would be metal to metal contact and sufficient clearance to knock, but I have yet to see that sleeve come apart, even after 16 rough Chicago years.

The pin is likely harder than its mating cast iron bore, so if it's been too dry, too long, the bore may have wallowed out. If this is the case, a new pin won't cure things, you'll need another caliper. My bet is that the upper pin is dry.

Unbolt the lower caliper mounting bolt, pivot the caliper up enough to clear the pads, then slide it off the upper pin. Wipe the pin down and then apply some good caliper pin grease. Then clean the pin's mating bore on the caliper. Brake clean with the small nozzle will do the trick. Put the caliper back on the pin, swing it down and reattache the bottom bolt. This should do the trick.

When calipers 'stick', it's usually one or both of these pins getting dry and losing the ability to slide.

[Johnybeas]

Ok,
So if we don't have a machine shop, or a powder coater... is it better to just outsource the whole job to say someone like you, or someone locally??

If so how much would I be looking at? My problem is, I had my car sitting for so long for all the issues and setbacks I had for my 5 spd swap that my calipers are rusty as hell, yes they work just fine, but when I put my new nice wheels on next month, they are going to look like trash and stand out, even more than they do right now.

I don't have a ton of money, so if I can do it myself and it won't take a ridiculous amount of time I'd love to do it. I just don't know what I would do for the machining or powder coating. let me know.

[Crazy_pilot]

Whenever I do get around to mine I'll be doing something very similar, except with high temp baked caliper paint instead of powder. I'm also going to try to keep the edges sharper for a more defined look. Black with red pinstripes is what I'm thinking right now.

Questions though, when you coated them, was it done dissassembled, or assembled and masked? I'm wondering that myself. Obviously paint in the piston bores is a bad idea, so perhaps disassembled and carefully masked is the answer? The paint I use is baked at 200F for 60 minutes to get to full hardness, which shouldn't bother any of the seals. 200 isn't even boiling temp.

[Hondasucks]

One of these lip seal installation tools might help with the piston seal:

http://www.cornwelltools.com/onlinec...8/page277.html

They're actually for transmission seals, but I'm pretty sure they'd work well with the caliper seals.

[redlightningsvx]

You could just use a paper clip.

[Freeman]

So total cost of the work is really at the mercy of the mechanic doing the work? At 35 dollars per hour with 7 hours of work and 48 dollars total in parts the work would cost around 300 dollars?! That's a lot of money for something so small. Is it all really worth it? I really wanted to have this done when I got my ss lines, brakes, rotors and especially my new wheels but had no clue of the process so now that it's up it's peaked my interest!

[longassname]

must be nice..around here normal shop rates are $85 to $125 an hour. That would be for taking them off and cleaning them up. Then you'd have to have a machine shop cook them cleaner. Then take them to a powder coating shop which would cost about $150.

Originally Posted by Freeman

So total cost of the work is really at the mercy of the mechanic doing the work? At 35 dollars per hour with 7 hours of work and 48 dollars total in parts the work would cost around 300 dollars?! That's a lot of money for something so small. Is it all really worth it? I really wanted to have this done when I got my ss lines, brakes, rotors and especially my new wheels but had no clue of the process so now that it's up it's peaked my interest!

[Freeman]

Originally Posted by longassname

must be nice..around here normal shop rates are $85 to $125 an hour. That would be for taking them off and cleaning them up. Then you'd have to have a machine shop cook them cleaner. Then take them to a powder coating shop which would cost about $150.

Sweet Banana Jesus! There are some things I just can't afford and these happen to be one of them. I can get a fiberglass hood for around 400 dollars and would MUCH rather spend it on that than the calipurs. I'm still wondering if it's really worth it though? Should I have all that work done and increase both looks and performance or is there a way I can just make them look pretty now and worry about the performance later? Mine look like something that fell out of a 1950's fridge..

[Johnybeas]

Originally Posted by longassname

must be nice..around here normal shop rates are $85 to $125 an hour. That would be for taking them off and cleaning them up. Then you'd have to have a machine shop cook them cleaner. Then take them to a powder coating shop which would cost about $150.

Say I take them off myself, disassemble them, and do most the cleaning then just take them to get machined and coated. How much you think it would run me? In Utah the labor rates I get are around 75 an hr... And that's only because I have a hookup at the dealer, other than that in order to get that rate I have to go to burt bro's tires (a good year store) where I have a hook up.

[gsodonis]

Consider the following: remanufactured 'unloaded' rear calipers (no pads, no pad clips, no mounting brackets, usually little to no hardware) cost around $55 - $100 ea. depending on (re)manufacturer with around $50 core charge. Unloaded calipers that include caliper brackets and some of the mounting bolts (caliper to bracket) - not bracket to hub) are around $70 - $120 ea. for the rears.

The fronts, unloaded cost around $65 - $120 each (again, no pads, no brackets, no hardware) and unloaded with brackets around $80 - $135 each including a bracket and some additional bolts. (FYI, loaded calipers include pads and all necessary pad clips, but your choice opf pads becomes very limited). There's even a semi-loaded caliper that comes with everything EXCEPT pads. So many choices!!!

The top of the line BeckArnley loaded calipers with decent pads are $170 EACH! These might be painted or plated, but they're not powder coated.

Add up the lot and assuming you go with the least expensive calipers and you want the clean brackets to match the calipers, you're looking at $310 - at a minimum. You'll get clean, rebuilt calipers, but no coating of any kind and you can expect these to surface corrode like the originals over time. You'll pay around $200 for a core charge, which you'll get back when you return them (you pay the freight).

Keeping in mind that most SVX owners are on limited budgets, if I were to do more of these, I had envisioned a $300 - $350 price point for coated, rebuilt calipers and brackets, not including the hand grinder smoothing work - that bit of extra work I reserved for my personal set of calipers and Bobby's daily driver from a previous agreement.

You may think you'd rather spend $300 - $400 on a carbon hood or other bling, but good tires and brakes are probably the most important investment you'll make in your car. If I had a sufficient stock of cores, I could save significant time and get these batched, but getting enough cores at one time is a challenge. I'm working with only set. Two more would really open up some options.

Knowledge is power and now you know more about powder coating brakes than you thought you'd ever want or need to know.

[Freeman]

I've understood that the power coated would me much better than just rebuilt and painted but again my current financial situation limits me, as well as many others, to only the bare essentials. I'd love to have both performance and looks as I stated above but unfortunatly can only afford the cheaper route and fix up the looks. Is there any way I could just take the ones I have now and paint clean them up and paint them or would it be much more bennificial to buy machined, rebuilt, powder coated ones? Bare in mind that I just got ss brake lines, ceramic break pads, new rotors and new wheels from OT..

[sicksubie]

I will be getting these shortly after christmas.. I will post pics of them then....