Cleaning Parts

I just picked up some stock WRX calipers, caliper brackets, rotors and pads off of a member here on the forum to upgrade my stock 2.5RS brakes up front to larger WRX brakes.

The calipers and bracket have 100k on them, and look it. The pads look almost new, but IDK the brand/quality of them. The rotors look good too from a brake-wear prospective, but are really rusty in the vents and have some heavier surface rust on the disc surface.

In High School we had a big fancy parts cleaner, but I don't have access to one of those. Here are my questions to make this easier:

1. What do you use to clean parts in general?
2. What do you reccommend for cleaning the rust off of the calipers and brackets?
3. Do I try to clean up the rotors, which look virtually new, other than the rust, or do I just buy new ones? What about getting them "turned" at the parts store?
4. Do I trust unkown used pads, or just quit being cheap and buy some?

Thanks all!

 

1. Brake cleaner works great, I've also used engine degreaser on caked on areas

 

1. brake cleaner works, carb cleaner too. even like petra said use engine degreaser.
2. steel wool works pretty good to clean up rust, i like it anyways. or use a wire brush (like a grill cleaning one or a drill mounted guy) but be careful not to wreck anything since they can be pretty harsh on softer metals (but on brake calipers it shouldn't be an issue)
3. spray some brake cleaner on it and it should wipe right off, or just use them a little bit the brake pad is pretty aggressive it should clean them.
4. i would just buy new ones, i know its more expensive but rather safe than sorry.

oh and i just thought of this, if you want to go all out i bet some shop someplace will clean them for you.

 

I have some brake cleaner and steel wool, I think I'll give those a shot on the rotors...

As for the calipers, has anyone here painted/powder-coated their own? What is the prep process for that? Would you fully strip them?

 

yes, fully strip them by media blasting them.

 

I just had to clean my brake calipers before I painted them last week...I used brake cleaner, steel wool and one of those green scrubbing pads. We'll see how long the paint holds up though. I probly shoulda stipped them like he said ^^^^^

 

Make sure you get the extremely flammable brake cleaner the non flammable stuff barely works.

 

good point, the worse the stuff is for you, the environment, hell the more warnings it has on the stuff...the better

 

When I bought the brake cleaner I asked the guy what to get at O'Reillys and he said, "the one with the most warnings"

It has been great so far... I'll post up results once I am done.

Thanks everyone!

 

only use brake cleaner on brake parts... other stuff has detergents that will be absorbed by the pads... as for painting calipers, ive used the stuff that tire rack sells (i think auto parts stores sell the kit too) it worked great!

http://www.tirerack.com/brakes/accessoryDetail.jsp?ID=41