Auto body repair & detailing: Paint prep on a 49 Packard, grit paper, lacquer paint

Question
Ernie,  

Thanks for volunteering your time for this.

I have a four-door '49 Packard I'm prepping for painting. I don't trust myself on the paint, so I'm taking it to Scheib.

I want to do all the prep work in advance. It has old lacquer-based paint on it now, with many small rusted areas and lots of checking. I have spot-sanded all these down with 240 grit paper, and put primer on them to keep them from rusting.

Here's where I get way out of my league (I write software for a living)... my plan is to use body filler on all those areas I took down, and a longboard sander to smooth them out with 320 grit paper. There are fifty or sixty spots like this.

Am I on the right track here?

Jay in Indiana

Answer
Unfortunatly I think you may be in over your head here.When you are going to do a project like this,especially with lacquer  paint on the car already,this needs to be completly stripped to bare metal and then the dents and rust can be addressed.The whole car really needs to be dismanteled so all of the rust etc. can be fixed.The rusted areas can be either sandblasted or cut out and good metal welded in.As far as the dents they need to be pounded out somewhat and then filled and sanded starting with 36 grit ,then moving up to 80 grit, and finishing with 180 grit.Then they are ready for primer, a two part catalized primer,is what you need,when the whole car is primed it can be re-sanded with 320 grit and then 800 to remove any block marks.The parts can then be edged and then reassembled for paint,followed by final assembly of all the trim etc.This is just a brief overview of some of the steps of the restoration process.I dont want to discourage you I just want you to know what you are getting into.Eastwood restoration supply should have some books to help you out.