Paint prep work questions. big ones.

[cactusjacks1]

Read the recent posts "gas filler door smoothing" & "why you shouldn't wet sand in cold temps". While these don't fully relate to your situation, they do talk about the time & quality (or lack of in the case of rolling on paint) you get when you start the painting project. The gas door has 12 hours labor in it alone. At that rate, you would have 6 weeks in only the gas door.

Maybe you could take it to a local high school or JC that has an autoshop class & offer it as a project car they could use for car painting class. You might have to pay for the paint & materials but you would be able to get the job done at a minimum cost & a lot quicker (vs. the 2 hrs./week you can put towards it).

[trent]

Because that's where I'm at right now....And what would happen if I were to just thin ALL the paint off untill bare metal, and just primer that?..would that worK? (I know it seems im looking for a shortcut, and I understand that short cuts lead to problems, but...I really like shortcuts, and am pressed to about 2 hours per week on time.).

going down to bare metal is another challenge, as you need a specific type of primer to seal the metal, then you will need the "filler" primer unless your panel is already perfect. It also depends on some systems, the bare metal primers (generally epoxy) want to be topcoated with a primer and a certain window of time. You need go do more research on your own.

[mrsleeve]

Stay away from stripping it to bare, unless the car has been painted 3 or 4 times it's not needed. As you are pressed for time just skuff up the current paint with 220 on a DA then put a good heavy coat of epoxy filler primer (I like PPG's K36). Wet sand till flat like I told you in the other thread wipe it down with a tack rag an squirt 1 more coat of K36 wet sand it down with 500 agin an you are ready for color.

This is how I have done several cars and have always had very good results others have other ways that are just as good but the devil is always in the details so take you time an dont cheap out or resort to short cuts, you wont like the results.