Just throwing out an idea here guys,
but as soon as i put my 22s on when the weather gets better, the first thing im doing is taking my die grinder to the calipers before i bolt the wheels on.

if im not mistaken they are aluminum.. ( i havent really checked yet) but it looks like it from the pics posted

polished aluminum calipers will look hella sick.

ill post pics when i do them.

 

is that how u polish *****.. is by doin that?

 

ype, polished aluminum is basically very very finely sanded aluminum.

I will use the die to get it semi smooth, as it has a rough texture. then swap out to a fexible sander disc.

then just progressively sand till you hit the 1200+ grits
then a nice metal polish ( i use mothers) to polish the hell out of it.

Since these are calipers im going to polish the crap out of them then hit them with clear coat wheel/caliper paint to keep them "blingy" and protected. A nice wax coat will help too.

looks just like chrome, works real well when billet grilles get grungy and dirty too. ive done mine once already, and i also bought a "brushed" billet for my sisters ranger and polished it myself, hell i saved the extra 60 bucks they wanted for the polished grille.

 

nice

 

My calipers:


I have also added Stainless Steel braided brake lines on it (right side, seems like there is a difference on abs/no abs truck.... )

BTW: Salty roads here in Norway!

 

I bought the high temp engine block paint and brake kleen last summer... it was too hot... so I waited until fall... I was too busy... now it is too cold and wet... maybe I'll get to it this spring... lol

Btw- mine will be white to match my primary color.

 

You should turn your rotors around... They dissipate the heat better. Just a little FYI.

 

ONE04FX4, I think red looks good. post some pictures with wheels on.

 

Cast Aluminum???? I don't think so. I've never even heard of aluminum calipers. I believe ALL calipers are cast iron.

 

Yea our trucks dont have aluminum calipers, i just saw one of the pics and it seemed they may be aluminum. After i installed my wheels i noticed they were iron.

And not ALL calipers are cast iron, third gen camaros had rear cast aluminum calipers and there are plenty of billet aluminum higher end performance calipers

 

As i said, i polished one side today. Cast Iron polishes too just as most metals will. Took about 2 hours start to finish,
Heres some pics.
Here is the rotor and caliper with my favorite tool at about 5:45 when i got home from work. Die grinders make scuffing down ugly sand casting marks a breeze.


Here it is after about 5 min of quick grinds using a heaver stone. notice the shine is already visible.



another shot, the pits are still visible here, we got a bit to go


and a bit more after i changed out to a softer smoother stone

 

did a little more detailing with the soft stone


then i knocked it smooth with 220 grit on a small sander
The shine is really starting to be evident, you can see the reflection here


But there is still some pitting left.


I went a few more rounds with 220 then switch up to 400
you can really see how great it looks here.

 

it gets dark here at about 620 or so, thats why the pics start getting darker, i had to keep holding somthing up to the surface to get the reflection on camera. heres a pic of one of my chrome lugs that was sitting there.



Here is a full shot of the caliper pretty much ready to go.


I then took some high heat engine paint (ford dark blue) and painted the surrounding areas


I then sprayed a quick coat of some clear i had laying around. this is just to seal the shine till this weekend when i get some high heat clear. you can see how it resembles chrome in this shot

 

heres a nice shot of the wheel spinning, you can clearly see the shining caliper inside, and this was taken with no flash and no droplights, just our halogen overhead light a few yards away.



Not bad for 4 bucks worth of paint and some elbow grease huh?

The calipers damn near resemble chrome plating, and they are OEM and i did it all (including removal and reinstall of wheel) in about 2hrs.

i am going to mention that this was mainly to see what results i got, and it is my daily so i couldnt put it out of comission by taking the caliper off and doing the whole thing. I only got to 400 girt, and i really did the die grinding to quick and left too many scuffs with it. I will do them right this weekend and get to a higher grit, and use the metal polish.

I used some krylon clear just to keep if from getting surface rust till this weekend when i can really take everything apart and polished/painted up real nice. Oh i also threw a little metalflake so the rotors matched my truck a little better.

 

All I've got to say is WOW! Nice find that they are aluminum. Looks like an easy enough project that yields excellent looks.