Before you buy anything for your project, start with tearing it down. Now is the best time to find out that you're going to throw good money on top of bad. You had damn well better be honest with yourself STARTING RIGHT NOW!! What do you want this project to be? How much do you have to spend? How involved do you want to get? Do you want to make this a frame off, frame on, or maybe just a basic repaint. The further you dig the more bad stuff you're going to find. You need to ask yourself exactly how much this car means to you. If you just picked it up your road will be easier. This will mean that a rotted frame or lots of concealed cancer just means another shell with a good frame and combine them to make a good one.

Once you've got a battle plan in your head it's as easy as following your own plan. HAHAHA yeah right, well maybe not that easy. Now that you know how involved you wish to get it's time to break out the tools and start breaking it down.

If you're going resto you'll be pulling panels and crying as bolts break. Examine all the panels as you remove them. More than likely you find rust in the bottom of the fenders, lower quarter panels, rockers, and more than likely at least one of the mounts or mount surfaces on the frame will have some rot as well. This is why you want to tear down everything first. You'll have less money tied up in your project so you'll need to get less if you decide it is a losing battle. Be honest about your budget and your ability when you ponder this mess you've just stepped into. Your pride can dig you a very big hole.

If you're just doing a respray your life will be a little easier. However you'll end up finding some rust lurking beneath all that trim. Since GM still hadn't learned their lesson about steel + aluminum + moisture = RUST. Also, remember that everything you leave on the car will trap dust and dirt and that will end up in your new paint job. This is also a good time to think about new weather stripping, window sweeps, and even replacing all your light bulbs since you'll have all this stuff pulled apart.

Now is also the time to look for flaking paint that may indicate a crappy paint job was already put on your car. Make sure there is nothing peeling around edges and also take notice of the quality of the paint that it has on it. Is it cheap paint like Earl Scheib or Maaco? If so, just plan on stripping it. Remember a paint job will only look as good as what it is laid on top of. If your car seems to have many layers of paint it might be good to invest in a mil gauge. This will determine how thick the paint is on the car. Generally speaking you don't want more than 3 layers of paint under the paint you're getting ready to apply. Look closely at the finish to see if it is cracking up (it will look like dried out desert mud). If your car still has the original paint chances are good that it will be cracking up.

The worse off your current finish is the greater the chance that you'll be stripping your car. Mechanical (sanding) stripping will be the easiest way to go for you. You'll need a compressor and a D.A. (dual action sander). Using either 80 or 180 grit sandpaper you can begin to remove the bad stuff. If you're careful you won't make it too lumpy. You can also opt for chemical stripping. You can buy a variety of strippers to use. These are VERY DANGEROUS!!! DON'T EVEN CONSIDER THIS IF YOUR GARAGE IS ATTACHED. The bad thing is that you'll remove any old body filler so any dents you couldn't see are now going to need to be dealt with. Ideally you would take the whole thing down to bare metal and start fresh with an epoxy primer before you do any body work. This will create a moisture barrier that will guarantee you won't have rust issues again. Then you can seal the body filler with another layer of epoxy primer on top.

Well at this point your wheels are turning and you've made a new friend in the guy at the paint supplier who's going put his kids through college on what you're about to spend. This is also the time to decide how many patches you want versus new panels. Again it all comes down to your preferences. I know that this is a ton of info to digest but I’m going make your head EXPOLDE by the time we're done this whole deal.