Brake advice

[gost]

I am about to re-build and paint all of my calipers on an 85 and am wondering if it is safe to clean them up in a parts washer with the standard solvent. I have a buddy in a shop that will let me use his and would save me a ton of time cleaning. The manual say's that only alcohol is permissible. The pistons I will clean by hand with alcohol easy enough. Can the parts washer be used on the calipers.
While I have the brakes apart I am debating wether or not to remove the dust shields. Street use only so is the gain for cooling outweigh the gain of dust? Is it an item that is just removed while "in there" sort of thing?
Finally can I get some input on the pic of my front pads. Is this slight gap normal?


Does it indicate rotor problems or basically indicate nothing!

Thanks for your inputs,

Gost