Brakes

The paint retains all of the original markings

This is a picture of my Triumph Spitfire's Calipers, and as you can see, they're in pieces. I took them off the other day because they needed a general tidy up. I have never been able to test these brakes on the car before because the Master Cylinder was seized, but I have un-jammed that now and there is no problem with the Master Cylinder. This is what I did to refurbish my brakes.

Firstly I bought a relatively cheap seal set from eBay, for around the £14 mark, as the seals had perished and split. The kit came with all of the rubber seals and their metal rings, and some paste to bind them. Then I took the calipers off, wire brushed them and gave them a good clean and prime them for painting. The paint I bought was a rust prevention paint called Hammerite, which you can purchase from your local store, most place's sell it and its a good price at £7.95 for 250ml from Wilkos. I then applied this carefully staying away from the main holes and covering up where you would seal them, with masking tape. The colour I bought was called 'Smooth Gold', as it was the closest thing to all the calipers I had seen on everybody's Spitfires, and it really surprised me as the paint was not as garish as I first thought it would be. Once it had dried it looked spot on! With the calipers looking good, I needed to check out the pads and to be honest they were in good condition, because like the Disc's, they'd been recently replaced by one of the previous owners and still had lots of meat on them. The cylinders in the calipers were in OK condition, they were a tad pitted meaning I would have to replace two out of the four, but they're a good price and a pittance in relation to buying a whole caliper new from Rimmer Bros for £90.

So, I would recommend buying these things and doing them yourself as it bring's greater satisfaction at the end, as you will find most things if you do them yourself, but remember, if the caliper is completely shot, get a new one, its brakes, they're pretty important. You would be jeopardizing the safety of yourself and others by riding around with no front brakes...

The Caliper kit I purchased:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251309602003?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649