Refurbing Your Brembos: For Dummies

Disclaimer: try this at own risk, make sure your brakes work after, dont blame me if it goes wrong.
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Thanks to all that contributed on a different thread and inspired me to have a go at mine

so here it is, how to refurb your brembos for dummies

first of all, here is a pic of how bad mine were,
I thought the paint had come off bits, but it was just the air bubbling up the lacquer.




Make sure you have the essentials:
Masking tape
some degreaser (I used car plan brake cleaner - £5 motor world)
Lacquer (Hycote Lacquer Paint)
1200 wet and dry paper (£1.99 Halfords)
approx cost £15





1. take off jack cap on the side skirt (pull and squeeze from bottom)
2. use tool in boot to remove nut caps
3. loosen off bolts on wheel (dont take them off!)
4. Get jack, and jack up the car aligning the ridge on the jack with that under the jack cover.
5. undo the bolts on the wheel, remove it and put the wheel just next to the jack in case it falls, also make sure your hand brake is on tight



6. degrease the brembos with appropriate degreaser.
I didn't want to remove the brake pads so i got some car plan stuff that i could use whilst they were still on, I had to use a cloth the wipe off the dirt as it evaporated quite quickly.

7. try and peel off any lacquer that is flaking, i used the my nail (pushed it away from me to stop it going in between my finger) this method also pushed the air into other areas of the lacquer which made removal of top layer loads easier, this bit can take ages, but the more you do now will mean better results.
should look something like this



8. Use the wet and dry paper to prepare the area ready for spraying, and make sure you clean any dust off it.
9. Mask any areas such as break pads and anything your not spraying




10. Get some newspaper to cover the surrounding areas incase any lacquer gets on any panels, or if your a pikey like me use some rags and christmas napkins that are the only things you can find



11. Use thin coats of lacquer, and do about 5 of them going back every 10-15 mins, or as directed on the can
after the first coat it was looking pretty good



12. once you've finished all the coats remove the masking tape and it should look something like this



it said on the tin to leave for 24 hrs, so i put the wheel back on and left it over night.

here are the before and after shots:






hope this is helpful

Thanks guys, i honestly didn't think they would come that good
I almost took them to a spray shop but for £15 thought what the heck, i'd give it a go.

Took about 3 hrs to do.

lofer said:

Do you know if you can get lacquer that can be applied with a brush as im dangerous with a spray can!!!

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I'd never used a spray can before, and the coats were really thin so there isn't actually that much spraying to do, as long as you mask the surrounding areas well enough i think you'll be ok

Never seen lacquer in a tin......... I think you'll get a cleaner result with a spray can

ArosaRacer said:

im glad it worked and you were able to write the guide, as im not one for typing things out

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Thanks for the advice on the other thread, couldn't have done it without you. cheers dude.
.... yeah so glad i'm a tight ass!!