I sanded my truck with a paint stripping wheel on a power drill. I left all these lines down to the metal with scuffed paint in between. I know if I start painted now, every imperfection is going to show. What is my best option to move forward? Should I use a high fill primer, a paint stripping, or continue sanding with an orbital sander?

Thanks for the help!

I was at this point very early on in my project. Trust me all those areas of varying paint / metal will haunt you as you go forward. Get out the orbital and sand it all down to an even surface. It is more work now and less work / better results later.

Do you think an auto paint stripper would speed up the process? And do I have to take everything down to bare metal or will it blend in okay if I sand off most of the paint so it's "feathered" into the bare metal?

evidently you don't have a D/A or orbital or you would have used it. but that's what you need, and either try and feather it out or sand to bare metal. you have quite a mess there if you don't take it to bare metal then you'll need to apply a couple wet coats of hi build primer guide coat and block.
Jay D.

Thanks for the advice.

I took an orbital sander to one side. How do you think it would look if I sprayed a few coats of high build primer on it at this stage?

put a couple WET coats on then guide coat it and block with a hard block then you'll see how it looks. may need a couple more primer coats.
Jay D.

Okay, here goes nothing! I'll sand the whole **** thing to my heart's content and report back with finishing results this weekend.

This is the high build primer I bought:

http://www.martinsenour-autopaint.com/p ... ild-primer

Do I need to sand between coats? If so, orbital or block sand?

looks ok, the primer sounds like its not a true direct to metal primer but it does say small bare metal areas are ok. in your case your going to want to use a firm block and guide coat. what you trying to do here is level the panels out with the primer a da doesn't do this very well but the block will. it will take primer off the high spots and leave it in the low spots eventually making a flat panel.
Jay D.

Thanks a lot for the advice. I'm very happy with the way it turned out considering the rough start to the project. Now onto the next step. I tested an area with wet/dry sand paper in the following process:
1) Clean with soapy water
2) Sand in circular motions with 1000 and 1500 grit wet/dry sand paper that was soaked in soapy water.
3) Wipe the area clean and dry.

The result knocks down a lot of the rougher looking texture I have on the paint job but gives it a duller sheen. Do you think this process sounds correct or should I change something? Once everything is sanded down to a flatter, smoother texture and I wax it will it return the brighter sheen?