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So I finally decided to restore my set of callipers that came with the car (thank you comedywizzard) to the previous glory. Here’s a quick summary including tips and conclusions about how and what to do when using por15 products. Firstly let me say that I like all my projects done perfectly and when it comes to mechanical stuff I can be very anal how its done. I love the feeling of my car to be like new and working like a charm so I took the callipers apart treating even the bolts with love. Gee, I’m sick This is the example of the state of the front ones; kinda like “before†picture. The rear ones were much worse. After finding a cheap company doing sandblasting I called up a guy, dropped them off and after 2 days and £50 quid I picked my babies up (hope my daughter won’t ever see this ) One thing I noticed (sorry for lack of pic), not all rust can be removed from badly rusted metal. Very tiny crevices can’t apparently be reached by soda powder. That’s not a problem since por15 can be applied on rust. Yay! Por15 recommend using all 4 products to achieve desired effect . They are: Por15 degreaser as a first action, Metal prep as a second one, the Rust preventive paint as a third one and of course the final coat – Caliper Paint. Even though I was pretty sure you dont need to degrease sandbasted metal I though lets just follow the procedure just in case; you never know... Down to business. I sprayed the b****rs with almost boiling mixture of the degreaser and water, rinsed it off and dried right away. Its pretty good stuff btw; I used it on a dish after roasting some chicken and the effect was impressive. Good my woman didnt see that, ...using industrial strenght cleaner on dishes... Unthinkable!!! Obviously I kept the pistons in along the way. I didnt want any agressive s**t to get inside the precious chambers and I blocked the brake liquid inlet with a bolt. Next thing to do was to prepare the surface with the metal prep. Its quite difficult to keep the object wet all the time as the label says, especially on callipers. I just sat there with the bottle spraying them for about 30 min. I kinda had to reapply the prep after contacting Por15 having asked them about uneveness of the colour and some white residue. They said that it's normal however I wasn’t happy with the answer and did it again. I came up with an idea I thought at the time was pretty good. I applied the stuff and put the calliper in a plastic bag wraping it tightly hoping I won’t have to keep spraying it. You cant just immerse say two callipers in a litre of liquid can you? It didn't work as I expected as you see in the pic. Some of the areas got dried a bit faster or received less of the prep. After rinsing them thoroughly and drying with a hair drier they looked like this And now the crucial step – the rust prevention. They give lifetime warranty on this paint and I must say they have a reason for that. Its a quite tough stuff. It seems like it reacts with metal and sticks to it forever. It reminds me of a paint my dad painted cast iron radiators back in the 80s (they are still alive btw). Who knows, it may be the same kind of paint. The one thing I have to add about the paint is that you can’t just dip your brush in the can. You have to put some of it to a separate container and since you never know how much will be used there will be some waste. On top of that you mustn’t close the can without puting some plastic bag between the lid and the can. Otherwise you may never be able to open it. The paint is not that easy to apply; you need to balance the amount of paint to cover and not to get runs. I applied one and two coats only because I did one caliper later. First set received one coat the remaining one – two. As far as the application is concerned the tricky part is not only the actual brushing (unless you spraying) but applying second coat; you can’t let the paint dry as the every subsequent coat needs the previous one to be still tacky to stick. If you let it dry you will suffer trying to scuff a very hard and slightly flexible surface; trust me, been there, hated myself, you’ve been warned. Doing two sets of application was dictated by time because the final coat paint requiers the same procedure. It would have taken about 24h to finish the job. Maybe longer. First word of advise: try using sable brush and not wider than an inch. Easier to get to awkward areas and better coverage possible. First coat should not be too thick - less chances for runs, less time waiting to apply second one and good thing about applying two coats is that when the second one goes on there is almost no chance for runs as the paint stick very well to the still tacky surface and blends with it. Same thing applies to Caliper Paint. They looked so sexy in silver... So, after some swearing and expelling pints of sweat during scuffing those b****rs with a red scotch brite (probbaly the best thing for the job) I was ready for the final job - the colour. The caliper paint is in my opinion fantastic due to the ability to even out (excuse my english, I hope you know what I mean). The surface becomes very smooth and even; the paint just fills the holes and cracks and doesn’t build up where it shouldn’t. The good thing about any paint as I was told is the long drying time. The longer it takes for it to dry the better the paint is. Well, after a week I was still able to mark the surface with my finger nail. As I mentioned before the second coat needs to be applied before the first one is dry. The label says to wait 3 to 4 hrs but as most of us know it depends on the thickness of the paint and the drying conditions. I waited 4 hrs and still didn’t get smooth finish in some areas; the first coat was too wet for the the second one to properly even out and in some places I could see where the paint brush left the surfaceL Fortunately it happened to my last calliper where the first coat was thicker and it was f... 11:30 in the f... evening btw!!! As for the level of tackyness you just need to use your own judgment. I can’t take a picture of it;) Well, the best thing for me was the assembly line. Putting the grease, fresh seals and the feel of of the sliding pins moving in and out... Sorry, I got carried away. It just can’t often be beaten. Final product... still to come, sorry. Here I come again. Here is an example of the worst of 4 before the treatment. It was badly rusted therefore uneven surface but look t it now: ...and two of the rest of the bunch The car will die but the brakes will live on. Amen I will be completely proud and happy when they are on, obviously.