Brake calipers can pile up dust and grease with regular usage. Learning how to clean painted brake calipers is necessary to make them a bit cleaner.
Surprisingly, cleaning out painted brake calipers is easier with a few simple steps. You could have shiny looking calipers, which look great. Just follow our below mentioning process.
With better cleaning, you could increase the longevity and shininess of brake caliper paint. Thus, it would be good for your automobile wheels as well.
So, get into the process and have clean brake calipers that look and work well simultaneously.
How To Clean Painted Brake Calipers – Steps You Should Follow
Cleaning out the painted brake calipers needs a few tricky steps. Yet it might seem a lot easier, getting a better finish takes proper consideration. To help you out a bit, we have created a proper walkthrough that you could follow. Let’s get into it and clean out the brake calipers in the best condition possible.
Step #1 – Start Buying Cleaning Accessories
The first phase of the cleaning is buying brushes and cleaner liquid. Buy some brushes which would help you while cleaning the calipers. To reach into the tricky surfaces of the calipers, you need detailing brushes, an easy-detail brush, and a normal painting brush as well.
After the brushes, you need to choose the cleaners. You would find several types of wheel and calipers cleaner. Choose one which is great at cleaning yet suitable for custom paint. Go for cleaners that don’t damage the painting of brake calipers. Moreover, make sure to have a cleaning mate on hand.
Step #2 – Spray Some Water On The Brake Calipers
Once the equipment and brushes are all set, start spraying water. You could spray water on the brake calipers and then go onto the wheel. While spraying, use any spraying equipment which blows away dirt. In such cases, a pressure washer would do the job fine.
Don’t forget to spray water from the calipers to the wheel within the gap. Further, don’t overdo the spraying as it might create any issues for caliper paint. Thus, it doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes to make the surface wet.
Step #3 – Apply Cleaning Products
Right now, you need to spray cleaning products onto the calipers. As a cleaning spray, you could use wheel cleaners. Most of the time, wheel cleaners would be fine to remove the mild dirt. Follow the user instructions and apply them to get faster cleaning.
On the other hand, if your caliper consists of strong dirt grease, use stronger cleaners. But you must have a high-temperature engine paint and coating over the calipers to apply them out. As an example, go for tar remover solutions such as Gliptone.
Step #4 – Start Rubbing Away Dirt With Brushes
In the following step, gather all the brushes and start brushing over. Make sure to dip the brushes into the water and make them wet beforehand. At first, use the generic paintbrushes to rub away mild dirt and spots. Afterward, go for more tricky places with detail brushes.
Take some time, grab detail brushes and brush up hard to reach places of the brake caliper. Once the tricky places are covered, use easy-detail brushes for cleaning out the space between the wheel and the brake caliper. Plus, it would help you cover the rest of the surfaces.
Step #5 – Remove The Dirt With Water
It’s time to take some clean water and splash it all around the brake calipers. Using a pressure washer would be the best option to wash away the rest of the dirt. Make sure to spread the water into all of the tricky places.
Make sure to rinse other parts of the wheels as well. In short, all parts of the wheels should get proper cleaning with water. Either you use pressure wash or splash the water all around, make sure to clean out the brake caliper properly.
Step #6 – Dry Out the Brake Calipers
Right now, you need to dry out the brake calipers after you wash them out using water. To dry out the wet parts of the wheel, place the car under the sun. Or a better alternative would be using a dryer. Whichever technique you use, ensure that the water doesn’t stay on.
Along with the brake calipers, make sure to dry out the other parts of the wheel as well. Further, you could use soft cloths to rub away the remaining water from the brake caliper surface. As it’s the final step, remove the remaining dirt and make the rim sparkling clean.
What Types Of Brushes To Use For Cleaning Brake Calipers
Brushes can be a lot helpful as you clean out the tricky parts of the caliper. For example, you may have to use detail, easy detail, and a general paintbrush. Hence, the better the brushes you use, the better the cleaning. Brushes can help you clean out tricky surfaces in a much easier process.
For example, you could use special detail brushes to clean if the rim design is clumsy. Either way, make sure to clean out every possible dirt speck using the brush.
Why Cleaning Out Painted Brake Calipers is Essential
With clean-up of painted brake calipers, it provides you with better performance. It results in making the brake caliper surface stay glossy. Further, you could avoid any additional issues as well.
Moreover, when cleaning, you would more likely find out any potential issues faster. This is why painting is a good idea, as well as red brake calipers, which would be matching to a car with a red color body.
FAQs
Below are the most asked questions that would help you better learn the process of cleaning out the brake calipers.
Making a regular checkup and clean-up would make your brake discs shinier. But if you want to know, how do I make my brake calipers look new? You could use any grease remover to make your brake discs the cleanest. Further, running your car regularly would help a lot. Applying brakes while running can help remove all the rust as well.
In case you have rusted your brake calipers, using a wire brush would be best. Further, add an iron remover solution to remove all the rust from the brake calipers. Make sure to rub away all the results and other permanent rusts with precise scrubbing.
Car washes can create trouble for those who have an automatic brake system. As a result, your automatic brake system can get overwhelmed, which is why you should be aware of the following issues with the washing car and automatic brakes.
Painting brake calipers of cars is one of the best options for any car owner. It would help you to make the car look more stylish. It could even make the car look brand new. Your vehicle’s impression would be a lot higher with a shiny and colorful brake caliper.
Conclusion
Once you learn how to clean painted brake calipers, do it at least every two years. On the other hand, you could have a clean-up with intense tours or similar projects.
To be specific, it’s recommended to have a proper clean-up with each passing 23,000 miles. It would be a great safety measure for you.
Nonetheless, make sure to use high-temperature engine paint to have a glossy and shiny texture on the caliper. In fact, it would be better to stay in its place for a long period of time.
Thus, a better cleaning would be enough to maintain your brake caliper on the car and its shininess as well.
