Removing rust

[Modo]

Please except my apology for the simple nature of this topic

After a hard winter my bike looks unhappy, the bodywork is fine but most of the bolts and screws are now rusty along with the rear brake caliper. Can anyone give me some hints to the best way of cleaning and removing the rust? Is painting the rear caliper an option I can do?

Thanks for any help

Modo
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[KevTM]

for all your bolts and things you should really take them out, either wirebrush them or sandblast them, the latter preferably.

rear caliper.. can't imagine it actually rusting? maybe a light brush up and once you get the rust off you can paint them with caliper paint.

[Modo]

Cheers Kev
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[B10Hazard]

Be sure to then protect everything after you have removed rust, because it could come back again and it will keep it well through next winter. And jusst general rain in the summer
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[Itchy]

Just replace the bolts I found fascimilies at a local engineering suppliers and changed many bolts to stainless ones (mainly the non load bearing ones) for about 5p a bolt.

Calipers , mine have never rusted though they get speckled by white marks from riding in the winter. I do spray FS365 on them though (carefully onto a cloth then wipe over it).

Calipers are paintable though , Andy a guy I know painted his gold with high temp paint , he washed it used some brake fluid (the paint on calipers is brake fluid safe) and some brake cleaner which he nicked off me, then sprayed it with high temp paint. Alot of chavs do this to their cars and paint their calipers red or gold and the rear drum the same too.
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[BanditsHigh]

If your are going to replace any bolts with stainless steel bolts then make sure you put plenty of copper grease on them before installation ... otherwise you'll get corrosion between the alloy casings and the stainless steel.

With regards your brake caliper ... it's alloy, it won't rust, it will however corrode ... as mentioned above give it a good clean using some sort of proper solvent, one that doesn't leave any residue behind (brake fluid would tend to make the bond between a new coat of paint and the old weak) and then paint it.

Smoothrite has been used by a lot of mates on the GSX1400 forum, but they advise painting and then baking in the oven for a few hours and then leaving overnight (in the oven) to cool down naturally to cure the paint properly ... if you do this then strip the caliper and remove pistons/seals.

Another thing you could do with your bolts is (once cleaned) replate them, you can buy nickel (etc) plating kits, which will plate the entire bolt and protect it. There are various forms of kits available, some use electricity to plate, others use a form where all you need to do is gently heat the solution to promote plating.

All the best ... Barry