Brake Disc Rust

[graham harvey]

My discs have rust rounds the centre (not on braking surface). Anyone know of a paint (non spray) that can be painted on the disc to make them look nicer?

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Graham,

I've been there and done that. You'll need to wire brush the "hats" to remove any unwanted stuff before attempting to paint them.. There is no point in painting over the rust. You can use something like Hammerite Smooth if you really want to brush it on but I gave up that idea and used a spray paint from Frosts called T/Coat (click here). As long as you mask off the bulk of the rotor and caliper (I used a cardboard cut-out) you can avoid getting the paint on the important bits and the finish is a 1000 times better than you'll get with the Smoothrite. You can get Smoothrite in a spray can mind you and that would be just as good.

Mine have survived a couple of years now and they seem fine.

In the next week or so I'm going to have a go at "sand" blasting the discs and calipers on my Golf with some baking soda. All the residue is water soluble so it shouldn't raise any issues of contamination before painting them.

Regards

Dave

 

[graham harvey]

thanks alot Dave. I've decided this year to tackle all the 'little' things that need sorting and this was one of them. I'm not great with a spray can though so will try the Hammerite smooth. Although if I ask my mechanic nicely he may paint them when fitting the pads and braided brake lines next month.
I've also noticed that one of the 18mm spacers on the rear has cracked which suprised and concerned me - have you heard of this happening before?

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

ORIGINAL: graham harvey
I've also noticed that one of the 18mm spacers on the rear has cracked which suprised and concerned me - have you heard of this happening before?

Curiously, there was mention of this on Rennlist only in the last week or so. Apparently it has been known for the "thinner" varieties of spacers with the embedded studs to suffer this type of damage. It seems that the thickness of the material isn't really man enough to support the studs (and the obvious stressses of the wheel) and this type of stress damage occurs. It seems as if this is limited to spacers in the 15mm-18mm range - the ones over 20mm seem to be able to cope much better. I imagine it's also quite dependent on the material the spacer is made from - and that may differ from amnufacturer to manufacturer. I haven't seen any mention of a particular manufacturer regarding the failures so keeping an eye on them is the only real protection.

I can't help be curious about why you've got 18mm spacers on Cup 1 wheels?? For a regular narrow bodied car I'd guess that the Cup 1s should have the right offset anyway. Unless you know different...........

Regards

Dave

 

[graham harvey]

they were on the car when I bought it. Would they be affecting handling in any way and should they be removed then?

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Graham,

Without knowing the dimensions of the wheels (width & ET) it's impossible to say. It will also partly depend on what tyre size you have on the rear too. It may be that you have 8J rears and the PO may have put the spacers on to fill out the arches a little more. If they are 9J I'd be surprised if there were enough room to get an 18mm spacer in there without the tyre fouling the arch. I'm on a little flaky ground here since my own car is very odd with it's wide arches and NB suspension so my judgement might be flawed.

Regards

Dave

 

[graham harvey]

I have 255/40/17 on the rear. No fouling experienced and there is a fair bit of clearance. Certainly more than my 'slammed' Fiesta had when I was 17!!