Home electro plating - Zinc for brake rotors?

Home electro plating anyone?

Anyone done this? I was looking at a DIY Ferrari thread and saw these images. They guy had sent his used, but still well well within spec rotors out for Zinc plating. They came back looking like this.

Now, my personal standards for car condition and cleanliness are way way below many people, I think I’ve polished a car three times in the last 20 years. But dirt and rust drives me nuts, especially on things like brakes, plus living in Michigan means salt is a permanent part of our road surface as they throw a billion metric E36 M3 tones of the stuff down every winter. Last year I put new rotors all round on the Volvo and despite the fact it’s been in the garage for 6 months while I drive the Porsche in nice weather, they are grotty as hell. Since I’m in the middle of a cam belt swap and I’ve notices the inner CV Joint boots have split both sides, the brakes are coming off anyway. So I was thinking of at least cleaning the hell out of them and shooting them with some paint inside and outside of the hats and down what I can reach in the vents. Seeing the Ferrari above I wondered if I could zinc coat them instead?

I found this video: https://youtu.be/gxq4rmzfxac

It sounds like they add sugar and vinegar to the bath

And there’s plenty of Zinc on ebay for $3-5 per lb which should last for ever. Zinc on ebay

Thoughts?

I should have added he had the friction surface re-turned when done. Is that necessary?

Seems like zinc would be too soft to be an effective braking material.

BTW, getting zinc plating kits is easy- I have a simple battery operated one.

alfadriver wrote: Seems like zinc would be too soft to be an effective braking material. BTW, getting zinc plating kits is easy- I have a simple battery operated one.

I was assuming it would just wear off the contact area in the first stop. I want it as a rust preventative on the unswept areas

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

You mean like the various paints that can be used on brake parts... I would imagine that changing the surface to a reflecting one would be similar in the heat loss change as the thin layer of paint.

I found that zinc plating is really easy, so give it a shot.

In reply to alfadriver:

What did/do you use for the solution? white vinegar and sugar or something else?

It was a kit I got from Eastwood. The solution was in it. Not sure what it was- other than being able to pass a charge....

Go look up plating in your college text books- we had classes on it.

Pics don't work for me.

I do a LOT of zinc plating of fastners and other smaller objects. I've never tried something as large as a brake rotor.

I followed the directions on this website and bought the chemicals and the power source off eBay. In my experience, the adjustable power source is crucial. If you use too much voltage it will "burn" the surface or if you try to put too much coating on it will just peel off.

The Karo as a brightener is probably unnecessary for what you're doing. I never use it.

http://www.southsandia.com/forum/website/zincplating.html

Our FM brake rotors are zinc plated. Works pretty well.

Me, if I don't want rusty hats on normal rotors, I hit the rotors with high temp BBQ paint and use some brake clean to wipe down the friction surface. Takes just minutes.

The size of power supply to zinc plate a rotor would be HUGE. I use a 260 amp plating power supply that cost over $200.

http://www.caswellplating.com/surface.html . Every bit of thread, the vents, the hat all goes into the surface area calculation. You would be shocked at how much surface area there is in a handful of fine thread bolts.

8.9 Amps per square foot of surface area. Current control is really important. Too little and you get uneven deposits, too much and it will burn and discolor. This isn't a situation where your old battery charger will do an acceptable job.

The good news is that most plating shops (industrial, not chrome) will run a batch of clear zinc for $50-$75. The shop I use is $65 for up to 75lbs of clean steel. The 5 gallon plating kit I bought from Caswell was over $200 and I have never got really satisfactory results from it.

I sprayed the unswept parts of my miata rotors with some galvanizing rust-oleum spray paint. They started rusting almost immediately after I bought the car and they were fairly visible through the wheel spokes.

In reply to Jumper K. Balls:

See, this is why I love this place. Actual tech to disprove my day dreaming.

BAck to high temp paint then :)

I finally got a chance to watch that video. I have no idea what is going on there. With our zinc plating setup it will not plate rust. It also will not remove it. That seems to be some combination of electrolytic rust removal and plating while using sugar and vinegar for the electrolyte.

Perhaps chelation while plating? I am lost.