best thing befor paint???

if I am going to completely re-paint my truck would it be a good idea to remove all the paint? like take it down to bare metal? I have seen alot of people doing this lately and was wondering if it was a good idea? i plan to do this possibly and then get a good coat of sealer and primer and drive like that for a little bit befor i finally paint, but just curious of if it's a good idea and how would be the best route to taking ti all off?

why do you want to strip it down.. unless you have paint that is peeling or you just have a really crapy paint job then there is no reason to do that...

if you take it down to bare metal and ride it on primer........and catch rain it,s gone rust after a while under the primer cause water and humidity can get through it.............just so you know.......

well i was goign to put some sealer and primer, not just primer.

my reasoning for this is so the body work would be easier. I have some shaving and some dent removal I have got to do. I have found alot of places with bondo, and I figured if I took it down to bare metal, I would be able to find everything and try to get the whole body back straight as possible with minimal bondo.

not to mention the paint job sucks, it has boat sparkle in it.

I LIKE SOME BASS BOAT FLAKE

boat sparkle take a magnet over the "typical" rust places on your model truck and see how big the bondo patch is...When i say typical, for example if you had an s10 you would check the cab corners, rockers, rear fender edges, things like that. I dunno where mazdas rust

I have stripped a few. Check my luv and mercedes profiles. The best way i have found if you do not want to media blast or sand blast it is to use aircraft paint remover. You can get it at any Oriley auto part store. pour it into a bowl and brush it on with a small 1"- 2" wide brush. Do areas no larger than a couple feet square because when you are removing it you do not want it to have time to harden. Apply it and let it set for about 15-20 minutes then use a razor to scrape it off. in the areas with alot of body filler you will have to do a few seperate coats. Once it is all the way down to metal you will need to use alcohol or something to remove the paint remover because itf not completely removed your sealer/ primer/ bodyfiller/ paint will lift over time.

If you have areas that are hard to get to you can use steel wool to scrub the paint off instead of a razor. You can also use steel wool after finishing a section to remove anything left on the metal.

You can also use a disk made by 3m that attatches to an angle grinder. It has a velcro base that screws onto the grinder and has stick on pads that remove the paint and do not heat up the panels if you do not apply alot of pressure and stay on the same area for long periods of time. They create alot of dust which is alot harder to clean up than using the paint remover.

if ur gona strip it, soda blast it. BUT taht shit is PRICEY, theres a guy in jefferson ga thatll do it for 135 an hour...

if you want to find everything that has been done to it and restraighten everything then it wouldnt be a bad idea to take it down to metal.