Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

As original Elan equipment, do one of you know what finish may have been applied to brake calipers, clutch and MC, etc. at the Girling factory?
Mine have 50+ years of accumulated crud and I was thinking fo sending them out for wet blasting but then, perhaps cleat coat over the clean bare metal??

I have some new old stock rear calipers, they are zinc plated. Just why firms like Classic Car Automotive gold passivate calipers when in for refubishment, is beyond me. Personally I think they look ghastly. However, to clean calipers up properly, they need to be blasted with some form of media, and after that, they will rust, so why not zinc plate.

The master and slave cylinder were just left in their natural form, an alloy or aliuminium, sorry, not big on metals. I have seen them laquered after refurbishment, but this often peels or flakes off with time and then look awful, so leave natural. Cleaning wise, I would either vapour blast or use a powerful ultrasonic cleaner with the correct solutions.

Let us know how you get on and what you do. Preferably with pictures of before and after.

Leslie

If you are not going for a complete restoration of the calipers, a thorough cleaning and then painting them with Rustoleum silver barbecue paint works well. Resists heat very well. I painted a set of headers and the entire exhaust system with this product back in 2012, and they still look like new.

prezoom wrote:If you are not going for a complete restoration of the calipers, a thorough cleaning and then painting them with Rustoleum silver barbecue paint works well. Resists heat very well. I painted a set of headers and the entire exhaust system with this product back in 2012, and they still look like new.

Thanks Rob, that's great info!

The masters and clutch slaves were supplied as cast bare metal.

My Home Depot carries both silver and black. I use the black on the hubs.

I find that aerosol zinc rich primer gives a good finish, just the right amount of texture, once it dulls after a couple of weeks it looks just like aged zinc plating, after a couple of years it looks the same whereas a plated finish would by then be very tarnished/rusty.

I managed to pass off a 10 year old Caterham to a DVLA inspector as (as) new and unused by using the zinc paint, the engine, chassis, body etc were all new but the suspension and steering etc were original and had been very corroded.

I have had good luck (so far) with Eastwood Brake Gray Aerosol:

"Ultra-durable Brake Gray Paint resists brake fluid!

Withstands up to 400 degrees F
Excellent corrosion resistance
Pure stainless steel pigment in an epoxy ester resin
Eastwood Brake Gray is a durable, heavy-duty coating that actually resists DOT 3 brake fluid, so it's perfect for painting master cylinders, disc brake calipers, brake drums, spindles, mounting brackets and hardware"

http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-brake- ... rosol.html

I painted my brake and clutch master cylinders as well as calipers. Looks like clean, cast metal and I found it to be unaffected by brake fluid. What I won't know for some time is its longevity. But claims to be durable.

Originally they would have been cad plated which looks similar to Zinc, and can be indistinguishable until stripping in acid.

The zinc and yellow chrome 3 passivate now used, replaced the yellow chrome 6 passivate which replaced the cad plating due to successive envimental legislation.

Zinc and yellow is a current automotive standard finish and is readily available commercially.

If you don't like the finish etch prime and paint with a heat resistant aluminium paint. Which is very close in appearance to cad plating.