Backing Plate and Drum Refinishing August 08

Since I had completed the body underside work pretty much, I moved on to the rear brakes. These were original and untouched, while functional, they looked pretty nasty! Definitely not good enough to hang on that beautifully powder coated frame and trailing arms. I used the same chemical paint remover, a wire wheel and lots of effort. For the finish coat I used a two part epoxy paint, the same stuff that's made for painting your calipers.

This is a before shot of the backing plate. Here we're in the process of removing the wheel cylinders, always loads of fun!

Both of the plates together disassembled and ready for paint stripping. This is a shot of the inside.

And the outside, pretty grungy, eh?

This is after stripping the paint using some steel wool and Jasco paint stripper. This is the inside.

And the outside view.

This is after the final cleaning, I couldn't get all of the rust but I got most of it!

And the flip side.

This is after applying 2 coats of the brush on epoxy paint, I decided to use black to break up the red of the trailing arms and the red of the drums. This is a shot of the outside.

And finally the inside.

A closer look, hard to make out any details as the camera didn't like all the gloss black. But I was very happy with the results!

This is a shot of the brake drums after prep work was complete, for some reason I forgot to take some before pictures!

Here you can see the inside of the drums.

This close up show that the drums were in very good shape, nice and clean.

Didn't take any after shots either! This is months later after the brakes were reinstalled, looks good! The color difference between the trailing arm and the drum is not as noticeable as the camera shows here. I think the contrasting black of the backing plate really sets off the drum. Next up is the front suspension...