Hi There Folks... Iv'e just popped over from the Racing Puma forum to say hi to Ant and others...
I refurbish the Alcon 4pot caliper for many owners over there, as they need yearly attention and are not so 'road' friendly as your nice Brembo's.... partly because the calipers do not have external 'boots' covering the pistons as the brembo's do and also, the coating on the caliper was STUPIDLY done after assembly..
which means the aluminium behind the pad guides slowly rots away...lol
anyway...
altho i see the brembo's are well coated before assembly, they are not completly rid of this
problem,as the coating does still wear at vunerable places and the aluminium does still rot unfortunatly.... Ant's is not too bad actually, the one in the picture you can make out slightly, the other caliper has a little more....
once this is left to set in the aluminium becomes porous and literally CRUMBLES... I have read of a few RS Focus owners already that have had to put brembo's in the bin and buy new ones, so if your caliper's have not been FULLY dismantled and treated .... then i suggest you do so ASAP... and repeat the process every 18-24 months..
With the caliper properly dismantled you can clean up all the seals and pistons etc etc and make a real tidy job of it... The recoat the calipers completly is quite a big job, as the coating does not come off easily..... i wouldn't recommend shotblasting on aluminium calipers, it's just too harsh, ....glass beads is ok, but not abrasive enough to remove this coating.....
as you can see on this picture, over time, the Laquer just seperates from the coating and looks yellow....not nice.... and the red looks very 'pink'...
I will recoat the caliper using a 2k paint, with a semi-gloss finish..... it's a pretty sturdy coating and cleans up well with a simple wipe when brushed first with an acidic alloy wheel cleaner....
I'll post up some piccies of the finished product soon....
Regards
Chris