Powder Coat or Paint?

[MontanaWDX]

I am replacing brake drums and hubs. I have sandblasted the parts and now trying to decide on paint or powder coat. I thought that powder coat might stand up best.

Anyone else have an opinion on parts finishing?

[Desoto61]

There have been previous discussions on this. Lots of opinions, though generally either will work well if the part is properly prepped, quality materials are used and the finish properly done, which is the hardest part.

I like powder coating but can't speak to it's longevity yet as the parts I've done or had done don't have any real world miles on them.

The biggest downside is that powder coating can't really be touched up. You can paint chipped/damaged areas but you can't really restore the coating.
However, a good powder coat is much tougher than paint to begin with and therefore less likely to chip.

I think my general plan will be to paint items that I may want to touch up, can't prep properly, or need to be consistent with other painted parts (for instance the winch will be painted so it matches body color) and powder coat items I want to be more durable (like my transfer case and linkages).

So for this application I'd vote powder coat, it's more about protection than beauty. Be warned though that powder coat is thicker than paint. The pro-quality stuff can be really heavy. You need to be careful about powder coating mating surfaces that could affect fit or alignment (wheel to hub surface maybe). A few mills of paint might be OK but 1/16" thick of powder coat could cause issues.

[MontanaWDX]

powder coat

thanks for the reply, very helpful.

MontanaWDX

[Kevin Mienke]

In defense of paint...

Brake drums are easy to access for periodic repainting and paint is cheap.

[KLEMM]

If you powder coat your split rims, they will eventually bleed thru with rust because they are a two piece rim design, even though they are sand blasted thoroughly before powder coating. A good coat of wax on both sides of rim will help minimize this or so I am told. It will atleast protect the shine of the powder coat. Also make sure when your rims are finished and you pick them up verify that they have actually powder coated and covered the entire front of the rim especially in between the rim and the hub. Mine were not powder coated all the way into the crevices luckily the company was good on their work and re did the powder coating (re-sand blasted and coated). This is the only proper way to redo a powder coated part.