I was interested in knowing how you guys clean, degrease, scrape off all the crap that accumulates on the calipers, wheel wheel area as depicted below:

FRONT



REAR



What kinda of brushes do you use to clean the crap off the caliper to prepare it for paint.

THanks

Jason NYC

 

Interesting that you ask since I just did this very thing last weekend in preparation for a complete brake overhaul.
The wheelwells were pretty easy...a very stiff bristled brush and soap removed 90% of the accumulated crud.
After a liberal dousing with a hose the remaining spots were hit with Purple Power and rescrubbed.
I wouldn't recommend any serious scraping (especially with anything sharp/metal) for fear of exposing bare metal.

Brake calipers were cleaned with a stiff stainless steel brush and then brake cleaner followed by soapy, hot water.

My FC now has pretty clean armpits.

 

nice , thanks for the quick reply you got pics. Right now im doing my suspension and in a few weeks ima do my brakes and whatn ot when i get the $$ for the rotors and my SPeedbleeders. So purple power and soap and water.

I seen a post about a kid that bead blasted his calipers, ***** came out sweet. I would like to do this before i paint them myself, make em look nice and clean. I guess since my parts for the shocks/struts assembly are on there way i will clean up the wheel wells and what not.

Thanks

Jason NYC

 

Sorry, no pics...the process didn't seem sexy enough to document.
I was mainly prepping for work I'll be doing next week- checking to make sure no bolts were frozen, bits were missing, etc.

Bead blasting would be a great way to prep the calipers, just make sure you're masking is good...don't want any residue in the piston bores or hose fittings.