Another job to do

[John Sims]

For those of you that are concerned that they might be running out of jobs to do on their 944 - Yeh, as if!! How about this one?

Those top hats on the brake discs can get all rusty and detract from the over all look of the car, so there is no allternative but to paint them. Gave mine a going over this weekend and, though I say so myself, they look pretty damn fine.

I used Halfords spray calliper paint. A one pack paint at £6 per can and one can does all four brake discs. I don't know how well it will last as it doesn't seem to have hardened completely after 36 hours, but only time will tell. It does say on the can that it can't be retreated fo four or six weeks (can't remember) so I assume it does take a fair time to cure completely.

So far I put it as one of the cheapest, but most effective upgrades to date.

 

[Fen]

I used silver Smoothrite on my Turbo's ones. Looks good though - one of those things that you don't exactly notice but overall makes the car look tidier.

 

[Diver944]

So did I Fen. I did it about three years ago and they are just starting to bubble up now.

John. I presume you had to take the disks off to spray them, or did you just mask everything up in the wheelarch?

 

[John Sims]

John. I presume you had to take the disks off to spray them, or did you just mask everything up in the wheelarch?

Take the discs off? Are you kidding Paul? Do you know what a pain that would be for a job which otherwise takes a couple of hours? []

I just masked up the callipers. If you do light, short bursts of spray you can get in quite close without spraying everything else (assuming it isn't windy []). Do several applications at 10 minute intervals so that the spray doesn't curtain.

The front are easy to do well as you can rotate the disc. The back are more difficult as I had to leave the handbrake on and I don't know if the LSD would allow the back wheel to turn independently anyway. There is a little patch on one back wheel hub which was against the calliper but it still looks significantly better than it did previously.

I guess you should really mask up the disc face. I didn't, but you don't get that much spray on them and they had cleaned off after a five mile drive. They do sound a bit strange for the first few miles though. []

 

[John Sims]

So far I put it as one of the cheapest, but most effective upgrades to date.

Subject to how the top hats stand up I'm considering masking up around the callipers and giving them another going over - but this time with the Halfords spray. It would be a lot easier to do, and cheaper, than the gloopy two pack stuff.

I'm not a cotton bud concourse type and so don't consider these things need to be perfect. You can spend hours and hours getting a cabinet finish but once you get a bit of brake dust over them they look the same anyway. []

 

[Diver944]

Ahhhh, even easier than I thought then. Top tip John []

 

[944Turbo]

I used zinc rich paint, (Z?90), did mine before fitting and masked the disc area it is a nice silver colour, also did the ventilation holes a little around the outside edge.
Prior to this I tried engine enamel this went very rusty very quickly.

Tony

 

[NorthernBloke]

Mine's due a set of discs so I guess I'll do this before putting them on

Top tip

 

[Guest]

[FONT=Arial"]While browsing websites I found www.performancerotors.com who offer this for $29 extra (I would imagine that is per disc) They do clear,red,silver,gold,blue and black. What is interesting is, I quote ' The color coating option will add a double layer of rust proof paint upon the whole rotor This will mostly help avoid rusting of the rotor hat'
Does it mean they just spray the whole disc or what?[:-]
Not even a half hearted attempt to mask even when it is easy?