Painting The Rotor Hat

[Polygon]

Disclaimer: I know about zinc coated rotors. Mine are not and I have no need for new ones.

I've been searching Google about this for about an hour now and I've seen some interesting, and some stupid assed things on the subject. The problem is that a lot of pads don't contact the entire surface of the rotor. Otherwise this would be easy. So I've been trying to find a uniform, easy way, to make sure I don't see any rust ever again. I have an idea what I can do but there are a couple of things that had me thinking.

1. I've see a few people say not to paint the top of the hat that mates to the wheel and it has to be metal to metal contact. Now, I've seen wheels where that part is painted and I don't see how some paint is going to effect anything anyhow once you've torqued the wheels.

2. A very interesting methood I've seen is from a company that makes brakes for bikes:

Old Britts, NORTON, Rotor, Disc Brake

If you have painted your rotor or received a brake rotor from us that has been painted on the surface where the brake pads rub against the rotor (the friction surface), that paint needs to be removed for maximum braking efficiency. Andover Norton paints new rotors and we sometimes will paint rotors that have been blanchard ground and lightened, if requested by the customer or are in inventory for a period of time. The reason for painting the friction surface of the rotor is to keep the rotor from rusting before that rotor is put into service.

The best way to remove this paint is to mount an old set of brake pads in your caliper and VERY CAREFULLY ride your bike, applying the brakes to burn off the paint. Once the paint has been removed, replace the old pads with new pads and you should be good to go.

So, they paint everything including the braking surface and use old pads to wear it off. Sounds logical I suppose but I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks about this.

[j cAT]

coating the rotors will aid in reducing not eliminating rust,,,,I have for many years screwed with this ,,,,the rotors made today are pure junk...they rust from the inside out....no way to protect from that failure..

my 1996 has the originals and they are still good....the 2000 has rotors that need replacing as the pad area is now blistering crators...

coating the rotor where the rim contacts is no problem....when steel and alloy wheels contact, you get a bad corrosion ,,,sometimes can't get the wheel off...coating the rotor prevents this///also a small coating of antiseize will allow rotor /wheel removal with out the need for the big hammer...

as long as the wheel studs do not get a coating of paint or antiseize ,,with proper torque, and after 25-50mi , re-torque this has worked for me ....never had any problems removing wheels/rotors...rotate tires and service brakes as needed every 10-15 k mi...