Steve, what prep would you recommend for painting the metal of the actual car, for example around where the strut brace fixes to the car?
Its the same process really, metal primer (will prevent rust), base coat, top coat, laquer. Ensure that the primer and base coat are a similar colour to the finished colour so that you dont have to apply lots of coats to block out the primer. For example when having black as the finished colour, use a grey primer and base coat and not white otherwise it will take more coats to cover. Clean the area before hand with some wire wool and methylated spirits or brake cleaner and a cloth. Wire wool will help to etch the surface slightly. Use plenty of masking tape and paper to cover the areas you dont want to paint, a low tack clean edge tape will help give a good finish. Also worth buying some tack cloths to wipe over the area to be painted after sanding to pick up any tiny particles of dust. (the cloths have a small amount of a sticky wax on them which pulls the dust off, whilst not interfering with the surface) Sand down inbetween coats apart from when you come to apply the laquer.