Best way to prep interior for new paint

[lalojamesliz 56]

Still waiting for my convertible rockers and pan but for now I'm cleaning up the sound deadening/glue stuff. Since the original color of my mustang is gold nugget, that's the interior and door jamb color. 

I want to paint the exterior dark grey or dark blue at a later time but I feel like I should do this properly and paint the interior as well but I need to prep it first obviously.   For now I can at least primer the interior. 

To clean the interior and engine bay I was planning on using my gas powered  pressure washer with chemicals and brushing then thoroughly drying the remaining water but what about the paint? 

Sanding by hand, forget it..... too much time

I have a 90 degree die grinder but also too much time. 

What methods are normally used to prep the interior for painting? 

Thanks guys

[Mach1 Driver 596]

I'm also interested in relies.

[lalojamesliz 56]

A guy on another mustang forum told me he had a company come out and dry blast the interior and wet blast the exterior.   That will be hard for me because my driveway is at a angle and I have it on skates.  I'm worried of it getting away from me and rolling into the street. Then ill be SOL  to bring it back in my garage.  

Something to look into though.  He said it wasn't expensive.  

[unilec 57]

Just bare in mind that the interior will mostly be covered with carpet and trim. Basically just clean the area of dirt, oil and paint that is flaky, sand any rust area's and apply a good primer. I hand painter the floor and other parts in my 65 fastback. 

[barnett468 418]

make sure the interior never had armor all or other silicone based product on it.

[JayEstes 173]

When I did my rebuild, I pulled out all carpet, seats, belts - everything I could unbolt.  After vacuuming and just cleaning it with usual stuff, I didn't have a lot of rust to deal with.  But there was a lot of seam sealer (which is like a semi-hardened tar that has body paint on most of it) around.  I didn't want to sand everything off and besides, a lot of the paint was in decent shape - why remove it?

So what I did was the following: I got a 1in putty knife, some really tough PVC gloves, some scotchbrite pads, and a 5 gallon bucket of "clean-up thinner" (Laquer Thinner) from a local paint supply store.  After getting dirt off and isolating areas of rust, I used the putty knife to remove most of the seam sealer (60-70%% of which was either flaking off, or sticking to things it shouldn't be). Then, I used the scotchbrite dipped in a small bowl of thinner, to clean areas where the sealer had been removed and clean and rough up the painted areas.  Laquer thinner will remove the paint if allowed to stay on there very long, so I used it lightly, and would clean the surface, and rough it up with the scotchbrite, and immediately wipe it off with a rag so it didn't wrinkle the remaining paint/primer.  This left a really clean, primer ready surface.  This worked great for getting the remaining seam sealer off, and it got the paint prepped to receive primer over the top, leaving the good original paint/primer in place.  The use of a scotchbrite pad soaked in laquer thinner is the most effective cleaner I have ever seen, it cuts thru everything (oil/ grease, dirt grime, paint).  It is pure hell on gloves and hands, so get a couple pair of gloves as even a pair of PVC gloves will harden after several sessions of use. Obvious caveats go with this process for respirators and fans.  Laquer thinner is a strong chemical.

After that, I just resealed the seams with orderly beads of paintable silicon caulk, and then I used rattle can automotive primer over everything.  Making damn sure not to paint over anything resembling rust or its semi-hidden effects.  I always ground any of that down and put the primer on bare metal once rust was gone.  

I put on at least 2 coats of primer everywhere, then put down dyna-mat for sound deadening everywhere.  This was a fairly long process,  but a lot better than trying to remove everything (remember, in my case most of the floor was in good shape).  The floor looked great after this, and I think it was a nice medium restore option that left good parts of the car in place, but re-did everything else as best I could.   Trying to remove everything with anything less than a full-body dip is a ton more work than it is worth.

Hope this addresses your question, and you find some of these tips helpful.  It wasn't super fast, but I was really happy with the results, and I felt like the effort was focused where it was needed.