Chemical stripper, good or bad?

[brokentroy]

Hello,

I let a friend of mine talk me into painting my 83 300D by hand with black tractor paint. Not spraying, but brush and roller. He did a neighbors truck like this and it didn't look to bad, so I thought, what the heck, anything is better than how it looks now. Wrong. It looked great the night I did it. Then next day, in the sunlight, it looked like hell. I took it to a body shop and they said I need to sand it or strip it. The original paint was cracked but not pealing. It was probably the clear coat that was cracked, but it showed through to the new paint. duh. So, I decided to start stripping it.

It was going very well and then my friend showed up and started flipping out. He was telling me that stripping it this way was a bad idea because the stripper "comes back to haunt you". Ok, I thought, well, I'll just have to do a really good job of getting it out of all the nooks and crannies. I now have the trunk and the entire passenger side stripped. I think it looks darn good, but he still thinks it's a bad idea. I took off all of the trim so that there is no hidden stripper, but I'm sure there are going to be spots, like the seams, that are harder to reach. I will try though.

I guess after all that, my question is, who's right, him or me? Should I just sand the remaining paint and then get a spray job, or should I strip it and try my best to be sure that all the stripper is gone. By the way, i washed all the panels I stripped with lacquer thinner and then washed with soap and water and dried them.

I'm really not sure what to do. If I do decide to continue stripping, what do I need to look out for? Or, should I just do what he says and sand the rest? Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your advice.