Sandblasting calipers questions

[1bad95]

Just picked upa set of cobra calipers and all to go with it. while starting to clean them with brake clean and scrubbing them with a stiff brush i am finding out they were painted white at some point and someone resprayed them black over it. it will take forever to scrub these things so i am thinking of sandblasting them. what precautions should i take doing this? i am going to put all new seals and stuff in them so should i just pull them completely apart and start shooting sand and then thouroughly wash them when finished to be sure all sand it out of caliper?

thanks everyone

 

[95PGTTech]

I would prevent sand from getting into the insides as much as possible by taping off the seals/piston area. If sand scratches up the piston bore you're going to have one hell of a leak you'll go crazy finding (and the fluid will ruin your new color).

These pictures I took of my dis assembly may help.

 

[1bad95]

Cool thanks so much man! you dont happen to have a dissasembly sheet for the cobra calipers do you? doesnt seem like much to dissasemble. Pull the pistion and the rubber dust boot and maybe a seal down in there? Ive never pulled one apart before so i dont know what im gettin into

 

[95PGTTech]

Give me one second I don't have a scanner but I can photo the FSM.

 

[95PGTTech]

Here are all the related pages. Pretty simple. Bleeder, seal, piston, inner seal. Times two.

 

[1bad95]

cool thanks again man! I got em taken apart yesterday and blasted and cleaned up! Now just gotta decide what color. Have you gotten yours back from powdercoat yet? My cars yellow also, and keep thinkin of maybe doing the cobras in yellow

 

[95PGTTech]

I am going to go pick them up in a few minutes. I had him do generic red that he had left over. I should have some pics up tonight I will try to remember here but you know where my thread is if you don't see them here.

 

[BraMas]

95PGTTech how did you get the parking brake spring back on? I have a set I disassembled and i cant get that stupid spring back on
Tim

 

[95PGTTech]

Clamp the caliper in the vice with a real thick rag like a dish towel or a terry cloth to protect the paint/powdercoat. Mount the one end, use a big vicegrip on the other pliers slide off. Pull real hard and slip it over the retaining bolt.

Some things to consider when picking a sandblast/powdercoat...tape off not only the obvious piston boot and the parking brake hole in the backside, but the inside of the two bolt holes for the caliper mounting bracket, the bleeder valve, the parking brake retainer pin, and the inside of where the emergency brake cable slips through...getting powdercoat in any of those will cause you some trouble. I went with the powdercoater I used previously because I just have to drop off the disassembled stuff (sometimes I don't even do that) and he does all the rest from sandblasting to taping off to powdercoat, clear and buffing if necessary, and reassembly where needed. I didn't have to tell him to tape off anywhere I just dropped it off and was on with my day knowing he knows cars and would do it correctly. He did and I'm glad because I often forget how stuff goes back together and I'll miss a hole or two and end up having to clean holes out and retap threads.

 

[1bad95]

Looks great man! I just inqured on getting my cobras done by a very reputable shop here and they want in the area of $130-170 do coat them both. 130 all one color, 170 if i want the cobra lettering done a different color

 

[BraMas]

Holy balls I need to start charging more to do Powder Coating! That's alot

 

[1bad95]

yeah def. i mean i only paid $70 for the calipers and brackets! Im payin double to color them then what i paid! maybe i will just be Getting the nice high temp paint or caliper paint and do them myself

 

[95PGTTech]

I paid $250 for sandblasting, masking, coating, demasking two rear calipers, six brackets, two fuel tank straps, and two driveshaft pieces (two colors total).

 

[BraMas]

i guess that's the difference between me and the big shops. I do it to help car people out making their cars look nice. It's a good feeling knowing that someone is getting a good deal on something I did for them. I guess there overhead is pretty bad

 

[95PGTTech]

I looked into opening a shop once figuring how bad it could be. For some already built two bay garage and small office was like $5000/month and it was on some backroad and to have a sign out front on the main road was another $500/month. I don't understand how some places stay open.

For the quality of work he turns out I am all too happy to pay. When I buy a house and build my own garage I can put in 230V lines and have stuff like an oven to powdercoat and do some small projects in it, but the big stuff I'd still bring to someone who does it on a professional level.