Stripping Mad Max

Hopefully you car won't have a badly painted Mad Max style mat black paint job like mine, so you won't have to go through this part.

Before painting your car, you have to consider how far back to sand it's previous paint job/s. If you car has one paint job, you can sand it back (without going through to bare metal) and essentially use it as a base primer. If you car has had numerous paint jobs, you should really sand back as close to bare metal as possible. This is because lots of different paint layers can interact with each other affecting how they adhere to each other and they also causes a think buildup of paint which increases the chances of the top layers cracking.

I can see my car's original factory paint underneath areas where the black paint has peeled off, and I need to get back to this original paint. Fortunately the black top coat is Acrylic (not 2-Pack) and badly applied, so I was able to use General Purpose Thinners to get rid of it.

At this point I will say this once and once only; use all appropriate safety equipment when using chemicals, including skin, eye and breathing protective devices. Check the warnings on the containers and/or read the MSDS, and follow them! Don't be a douche, painting you car is not worth risking your health over!

Now, back to it... I found the best way to get the Acrylic paint off my car was to:

1. Rub General Purpose Thinners on the paint, one section at a time.
2. Leave it for a few minutes to bite into the paint
3. Rub Turps on top of the Thinners and continue to rub until the paint smears
4. Allow the Turps/Thinners to evaporate (5-10mins) and then spray it with Degreaser
5. Wash the Degreaser off with water and a rag

I use rags and kitchen scourers to rub the Thinners and Turps into the paint as well as for removing the Degreaser. Have separate rags/scourers for each step of the process, especially for washing off the Degreaser otherwise you will just be smearing the chemicals and paint instead of getting them off the car.

You can do this entire process with just Thinners and not use the Turps at all, but as Thinners are much more expensive than Turps, so it makes sense to use the combination.

While I was doing this, I also began to remove parts off the car, such as mirrors, lights, grills etc. I have done this is done in preparation for the sanding and painting.

Below are some pictures of the progress: