[codyyy]

Originally Posted by 400 4spd.

I would suggest that you visit shops you feel will give you a quality paint job. Then ask them if they will paint a car prepped by yourself. That may be the deal breaker for a few reasons.
Many shops will not shoot an owner prepped car because it might not be prepped to the standards of the shop. Who covers a paint adhesion failure when they did not sand the car?
Then there is the appearance factor. Will it look like a shiny bag of walnuts that the shop gets blamed for?
Owner - "Yeah, I know the body work looks bad. I had it done at A-1 Restoration Shop. They hosed me."
-or-
Owner - "Yeah, I know the body work looks bad. I did it myself."

As a shop owner I've learned that whenever a person asks "Who painted it?", they assume the whole job was done at the same place. You can have a perfect body with bad paint, or a bad body with perfect paint, and the average guy only sees the paint.
I welcome any car owner who wants to have a hand in the process. If the owner removes bumpers and trim to save money, he puts it back on when I give the car back. I've actually had guys tell me they want me to put the trim on because if it gets scratched by them doing it, they have to pay to have it fixed. In other words, how about if I save money pulling parts, but you assume the loss when you find out they don't fit.

That makes sense, I don't mind prep work being done just because I know I won't be as good as a pro. I am planning on taking all the trim off myself to save any confusion. I used to sell classic auto parts and for whatever reason people take their cars down to Mexico for a paint job with the trim still on the car, and came to me wanting to buy it when it got lost.
The prep work I plan on doing is just patching the doors now. After considering where I am, I don't have a good area to sand out two coats of paint with a D.A. anyway. Thanks.