Anodizing Brake booster

[Jr. Corvette]

Hey guys. During my engine swap I've decided to insulate the firewall with some lava shield mat. In doing so I'm going to take off the brake booster in order to get a smoother seamless finish. I found someone who can re-anodize my brake booster but I really don't want to take it apart. Can it be safely anodized without disassembly? Any thoughts on this little project?

 

[Jr. Corvette]

Also any thoughts on the lava shield would be helpful. I'm pretty set on it. It's good for constant temperature of 1200 degrees F and intermittent of 2000. I'm mainly doing it for temperature reasons but I also don't want it looking like crap. I also haven't seen anyone using it on their vettes so I can't get any ideas. What do you guys think?

 

[Riley P]

One question about the brake booster as I don't know too much about them, is it made of aluminum? I only ask as you can't anodize steel and usually people get them chromed, but you could also get it nitric coated....

I have zero experience with lava shield. Is it like a spray liner? To insulate from heat, most folks place the material inside the interior of the vehicle so you can't see it, it stays out of the weather and also stays put.

 

[Jr. Corvette]

Thanks for the reply! I was beginning to think no one would. I think it is made of aluminum. At least the outside should be because it still has the original anodize coating on it. What's nitric coating? Does it need to be disassembled?

Ya I've got some double sided jute filled insulation under my carpet when I restored the interior. I just figured it might knock down engine heat. I was also going the wrap my AC box so that it kept the air inside cool.

Ya it's not a coating but a big sheet that has an adhesive back to it. I already ordered a sheet that cost me an arm and a leg. I'll post some pictures once I'm done to show you guys and get some opinions on how it looks. Hopefully it'll come soon.

 

[Riley P]

Sorry for the late reply, it has taken me a long, enjoyable time to chew through all the threads. I'll do some checking to see if you need to disassemble the booster or if covering the holes would be sufficient.
Nitric coatings or I think the proper term is Nitriding is where they infuse Nitrogen into the outer layer of steel case hardening it and increasing the surface wear and adding corrosion resistance. The first time I saw this was on the stanchions on the forks of my friends bike.

 

[Jr. Corvette]

Oh cool. Thank you very much. I just did a little search and if I can't find anyone locally to do that I may try and get my powdercoating guy at Riteway to see if he can match this colour.

 

[Keith Tedford]

Hey guys. During my engine swap I've decided to insulate the firewall with some lava shield mat. In doing so I'm going to take off the brake booster in order to get a smoother seamless finish. I found someone who can re-anodize my brake booster but I really don't want to take it apart. Can it be safely anodized without disassembly? Any thoughts on this little project?

Check with Dale Bertrand in Bracebridge, Ontario. If he can't help, he may know who can. It might be cheaper to buy a new one.
http://www.dalesmusclecarparts.com/

 

[Riley P]

Love that colour! That would look sharp.

 

[Jr. Corvette]

That's what I thought Riley.

Been awhile since I've posted on here. For anyone who cares about this anymore I thought I'd explain what I did and show my results.

I'm getting to the point in the engine build that I'm starting to put things back on the car. After considering taking the brake booster in to get rebuilt and during that time taking the shell to get Powdercoated and putting it all back together without scratching which seemed rather impossible I came up with another idea. I decided to stripe it down to bare metal, 'zero rust' it, and finally coat it with gold paint. VHT makes an engine metalic gold flake paint that is high temp and chemical resistant. I just need to touch up the paint and I'm considering clear coating it with some POR15 for added protection against brake fluid and give it that shine.

 

[Black 03 Z06]

Looks good. Don't forget about us now that you have us hooked on your resto.

 

[buckhorn76]

nice.

 

[Riley P]

Really nice work on the booster. The paint looks great and now I want to see it in the car!

 

[Jr. Corvette]

Hey guys! Earlier I had mentioned about Lava shield and I wanted some opinions on it. Nobody had any opinions but I'm pretty sure that's because nobody has done it before. Well here it is! The first C3 with lava shield! 7 hours of installation (and never again)! More pictures soon to come! Maybe I should start a general thread on this entire project?

 

[Riley P]

I would vote to start a thread on the lava shield. It looks quite interesting! I may have a couple places to install that should I ever get turbos installed on the Vette.

 

[Jr. Corvette]

Ya that would be a cool thread. They have sheets in a variety of sizes and they also have spark plug boots and turbo covers pre-made.

Here's a pic of that brake booster installed with clear por15 for chemical resistance and a nice super smooth gloss finish. It feels like it's been Powdercoated after this stuff.

 

[Black 03 Z06]

Great workmanship. This is going to be very interesting to see how it all comes together.

 

[Jr. Corvette]

Thx Black 03! Thanks everyone for the support on this build. I'll keep posting pictures in this forum as it comes together.

Unfortunately there was a setback on the build. I had equipped my car with ACdelco brake calipers and have had 4 of them fail on me in the past 3 years. This winter another one failed. So I said screw it! These AC Delco seem to be over remanufactured and keep failing. So I bought Wilwood calipers all round. Upgraded to 6 piston in the front with standard 4 in the rear. Also bought some LUK crossdrilled and slotted rotors. So I'll post some pictures of those hopefully in the next week or so.

Also had another setback. I was replacing my body mounts and upgrading to poly while I had the engine out. I learned it was best to do all 8 right now. So I bought some new rear body mount supports and got them Powdercoated and the entire body is lifted off the frame on one side.

 

[Riley P]

Sounds like some good setbacks!
Can't wait to see the brakes! They sounds awesome.

 

[Jr. Corvette]

Ya no kidding!

As promised here are the brakes! Sadly I have to send back the rotors because the flange thickness is wrong. The original thickness is 0.405" and the LUX rotors are 0.282". So they make contact with the dust shield and the calipers won't fit. Luckily the guys at crossdrilledrotors.ca are sending me a return slip to replace the rotors but it's still a pain. (In the picture below I used washers to space it just to show why they will look like).

Also an updated picture of the firewall.

 

[nascar03]

Great work Jr.. Thanx for letting us follow along.

Graham