Hello all. First post here. I have been a professional painter for a long time, maybe more than 35 years. I have never painted a car. I have a Toyota pickup that I have been thinking of painting for a while now, and am thinking more about it, enough to join this forum. I have a 7.5hp screw compressor with a decent air distribution system, 5 stage filtration, plenty of guns including 3 x LPH400 with 1.2 - 1.8 and such. I love the PPS system and would not go back except for specific reasons I cannot think of. I have a decent spray booth with downdraft Hepa filtered air, and also a couple of supplied air respirators.
I do paint with urethanes and with catalyzed polyester fairly regularly, refinishing vintage turntable chassis, turntables, and cut and polish almost everything I spray. I am pretty good at getting 'glass' out of the gun with paints I know.

I have access to a booth that I can pull the truck into when it is time to paint.

I know almost nothing about painting cars, and especially in doing automotive repaints.

The clearcoat on this truck is failing, it is mostly gone on the roof.

I looked through some of the pages in this forum, and did not see exactly what I was looking for, though I am sure that it is here 'in spades', and as time passes, I will probably find it. For now, I am trying to see if I am really talking myself into this project.

How far down do I need to remove the paint, and what are the best tools for this? I have a Hutchins DA, and a mini polisher, and some other tools. What grits?

If it is stripped to bare metal, what about the 'wraparounds' where the paint wraps, say, under the hood, into the jambs, and in places that are not exposed to the exterior, but can be seen in the regular use and maintenance of the vehicle.

The trim will all be removed. Of course.

I plan on fixing some of the dents, mostly with filler as they are small. This is a good truck, but the paint is past 'eyesore', and the drivers side door was replaced with one that does not match. For this truck to be a daily driver again, it needs paint. Plus, the canopy paint is shot.

For things like the grill right beneath the windshield, that looks really difficult to strip by sanding. How is that prepped?

I am not looking for a show finish. I do want something that will last. I have been painting with the Deltron line, and using DC4000 clear. I can spray nice wet coats with that stuff, with only occasional sags which rub out easily.

Do I have to bring this thing down to bare metal? If so, how?


Thank you all for sharing. I can see that this is an amazing resource.

Well it sounds like you have some good equipment and a good knowledge of paint application. on the prep of your truck here's what I do if someone were to bring it to me for a repaint. you can generally blow a lot of the peeling clear off with a good pressure washer, this will also clean dirt and crud from all the cracks and seams. then I use a 8" disc sander with a 36 to 80 grit pad depending on what I need to remove. the black abrasive pads work real good also but are kinda hard to find in 8". you can use a D/A its just going to take longer. I also use paint stripper any place I can't sand ( aircraft stripper brand ). you can usually do the door jambs with a scotch brite pad and or sand paper depending on condition. when sanding its just as easy to sand to bare metal as to try and save the color coat or even the primer they are so thin that your sand into the next layer very easily. hope some of this helps.
Jay D.

Thanks badsix.

Good idea on the pressure washer. A 4000psi washer would probably strip the clear off the roof, the hood, and the canopy, and maybe more.

This would be a color change, would not be repainting in the same color.

For the disc sander, I am guessing a pneumatic angle disc sander? If so, I just checked prices, that seems reasonable in comparison to time saved over a DA if we are going to bare metal.

What black pads are you speaking of? I just did a search for '3m black abrasive pad' and found some silicone carbide based paint removal pads.

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/ ... 730&rt=rud

What is your 'goto' choice on pads?

In the jambs, with the scotchbrite, by hand, is this going to bare metal? Or just through the clear? To a uniform scuff?

For an average vehicle, like a Toyota truck, how many hours are we talking, ballpark, to strip to bare metal?

https://www.eastwood.com/images/PowderC ... 00x160.jpg

the sander I have is like the one above I think its called a 7" but I put an 8" foam pad that accepts 8" sanding discs. make sure its a sander not a grinder, same unit but different rpms. the 7" abrasive will work good, an 8" is better but like I said hard to find. I just use a rubber backing pad for the abrasive wheels or I have just use a large washer to hold it on the spindle. the ones above are Velcro I believe and come with the backing pad to attach. one word of caution you'll need to be very careful and keep the wheel away from ANY sharp areas they will shred the abrasive wheel. you should be ok for your job to just ruff up the jambs with a scotch brite pad. another thing I have done on economy jobs is to strip just the upper portion of the body. hood, upper half of the fenders, roof and upper tops of the doors. the peeling is usually a problem were the sun hits the body directly. you can usually tell how the paint is when your feathering the edge it should feather out smoothly NOT flake at the edges.

https://uedata.amazon.com/Scotch-BriteT ... VZ2NKJ9BXE

here's another one, this is like the one I use with a large washer its stiff enough to work good on flat surfaces yet flexible to get into different contours of the body I can usually strip most if not all an average car with one disc on an oem paint job, note I said usually. good luck
Jay D.

ya came to a great forum,fatlip. the only thing im gonna mention is when ya go to pressure wash:
blast the crap out of every inch of the truck when doing that. engine bay(may not wanna use the pressure washer for that),undercarraige,wheel wells- anywhere dirt/dust can hide. dirt/dust just LOVES to hide until the trigger on the gun is pulled.
even the weatherstripping everywhere. blast the crap out of them with air from different angles.

Fatlip wrote:...For the disc sander, I am guessing a pneumatic angle disc sander? If so, I just checked prices, that seems reasonable in comparison to time saved over a DA if we are going to bare metal...

Fatlip, do you have an electric polisher? If so, you can use one of those with the proper backing pad and some 80 grit disks. If you don't have one, they aren't too expensive and you will also have a polisher/buffer.

I had a Dewalt DWP849 (?) and a six inch Makita from polishing out the gel coat on my old boat. The polishers work great!

The DA takes a long time.

Jay D.