There are many ways to strip paint from the car. I don't only use just one method, since different methods work better for different parts of the car. Paint stripper is better for a car that has been repainted, so the paint is newer and thicker than old worn out paint. Use the strongest paint stripper you can find. Kleenstrip Aircraft Stripper from an automotive paint supply store is what I like. Hardware stores would have paint stripper too, but might not have Aircraft Stripper. But they should have some that is a strong "paste" or "cling" formula, that removes urethane paint, which is what you want. You'd need at least a gallon, probably more, because it takes several coats of the stripper to get all the paint off. You need heavy rubber gloves, a paint brush, a bowl, a putty knife or scraper, and some coarse steel wool. Keep some water nearby and some towels, because if you splash any stripper on you, you will want to rinse and dry it off of you as fast as possible. You might even want to wear a face-shield. Cover the floor around the car with some newspaper, masking paper or plastic sheeting to catch the mess. Paint the stripper on, give it time to work, scrape off what you can get off, then brush on more stripper and scrape some more. Brush on some more, and use the coarse steel wool to scrub off the rest of the paint and primer down to the metal. Then rinse and clean the metal with water and dry it. Then I'd use some lacquer thinner and wipe the metal down to clean off any residue that might remain. It's not ready for paint yet though. Sand the metal with some 80 to 180 grit dry sandpaper. Use some acid metal cleaner and conditioner from the auto paint store. They are used to further clean and etch the metal in preparation for paint. Follow the instructions. Once the metal is prepared like that, if you keep the car indoors, you don't have to paint it immediately. But, the sooner the better. I'd prime it within several days. Use epoxy primer from the auto paint store. Once painted with epoxy, the metal is well protected from rusting from then on. You can wait to paint it as long as you wish after that. You can do any future work over the epoxy primer.
Sanding the paint off is another good method of paint removal. If the paint is old and thin, sanding would be better than paint stripper. And if there's serious rust, some sandblasting may be needed. It's still a good idea to use acid metal treatments after sanding. No need for acid after sandblastinng though. Again, use epoxy primer. Here's a previous post I wrote about sanding and blasting. "I would sand off the paint. That way you don't have to do as much sandblasting, so there's less cleanup. You could sand it with 80 grit discs. But, it takes alot of discs to sand a car. So, there's something I like better than sandpaper. If you have a sander/polisher machine, I'd use this 7 inch diameter "cleaning disc" kit from Eastwood Company. It has a backing pad to put on your sander and the cleaning disc attaches to it like velcro. Use it to sand off the paint. It lasts a long time, works great and doesn't raise alot of dust, which keeps the mess down. I'd get 1 extra "cleaning disc", since it would probably take 2 discs to sand the whole car down. The red "stripping" disc comes with the kit, but is not for stripping off the paint, and I don't use it for much. Here's the link:
http://www.eastwood.com/7-inch-cleaning-stripping-disc-system.htmlIf you don't have a sander/polisher machine, you can get one for not much money at Harbor Freight.
For the rust, you'll need to use sand, since that's the ony thing that will effectively remove the rust. If you don't like the coarseness of regular sand, there's a sand called Starblast that is very fine and cleans the metal nicely. It's brown colored, so looks like dirt on the ground. It costs more though.
Try to avoid blasting the large body panels, especially the hood and trunklid, since blasting can warp them.
Also for the tight areas, nooks, and crannies, where you can't get into them to sand the paint off, you can blast the paint off. Sand will ruin your glass, so you better remove the glass or cover it up really well if it's worth saving. And the sand gets everywhere, so you will have a big cleanup job. Sweeping the sand out, blowing it out with air, and vacuuming it, will be the way. Where you have bad rust, you may blast through the metal, and there's no avoiding that if the metal is that rusted. That means the metal was basically rusted through anyway. To fix rust holes right, you would cut the rusted metal out, back to good metal and weld in a repair patch. It could be patched up temporarily with some fiberglass, but it wouldn't last over the long haul."
