Trust me when I say that I would have never tried to do this myself if I had any one of the following traits:

• more money
• more sense
• prior knowledge of how time consuming chemically stripping a Corvette can be

I used KleenStrip for Fiberglass, and was very pleased with how it worked.  It went on really easily with an old nylon bristle 2" paintbrush.  The KleenStrip is a very thick, gel-like consistency, so it clings to the surface much better than a spray-on stripper would.  In all the areas that I stripped, the stripper removed the old paint and didn't even get through the original red oxide factory primer.  I feel comfortable recommending this product to others.  I bought it locally for $19 a gallon, and used about 4.5 gallons on the whole car and door jambs.  It would have taken less, but I was being overly cautious early on and removing the stripper before it had opportunity to work fully.  I used a plastic bondo spreader to scrape the activated stripper/dissolved paint goop off the car and onto newspaper laid down on top of a disposable drop-cloth.  Then when I was done, I just rolled all the paper up in the drop-cloth and tossed it in the trash.  Washed the car down with soap and water afterward to neutralize the stripper.

At the start, I removed all the trim, bumpers, grilles, lenses, and weatherstripping.  You don't want to get the stripper on any rubber weatherstripping, as it will eat it in short order.  Yes, I know this from experience.  I removed the hood, t-tops, wiper door and grilles, headlight bezels, and fuel door from the car too.  I sent the metal parts out to be media-blasted since I didn't trust the stripper getting down into the slots and corners of those small parts.  It cost $75 to have them all blasted, money well spent.  The same fellow that blasted the small parts wanted $800 just to blast the exterior of the car, which is why I did it myself.  He would have taped over all the seams, so I'd have ended up stripping the seams and jambs myself anyway.

I should have taken more photos during the process to show the stripper in action, but here is the end result of the stripper.  You can see the original red oxide primer that the stripper left in place.  The gray areas are where I sanded down to bare glass, and the white is SMC glazing compound that I used to fill the damaged areas.  The taillight panel is black where I shot some cheap primer to use as a guide coat for block sanding.

Notice the wheelwell in the picture above?    See how there's no inner lip above the tire?  Apparently the previous owner ran really wide tires at some point in the cars life, and decided to either cut away the wheelwell lip, or just let the tires rub it away.  I had to figure out a way to fabricate these lips with fiberglass mat and resin.  Here's what I did.

I cut the mat into strips that were about 2.5 inches wide, then applied SMC resin (it hardens much faster than conventional fiberglass resin).  Once the mat was fully saturated with resin, I pressed the top inch  up inside the vertical edge of the wheelwell.  After I got it in place, I used a strip of plexiglass lined with saran wrap to act as a form for the curvature of the wheelwell opening.  I clamped the plexiglass to the existing lip at either end, and propped it into place with pieces of 2x4 along the tire.  Once the resin set up, I removed the form and cut the glass into the proper width.  Then I used some SMC glazing filler to smooth and contour the surface, blending it into the rest of the wheelwell.  Although it isn't 100% perfect, you'd be hard pressed to notice the repair by looking at it from a couple of feet away.

I followed some good advice on  AutoBodyStore.com  on block sanding and working with the body filler.  The discussion board there provided a great resource for a novice like me to learn how to do body work.

Now, onward to see the  Primed Car  just before I took it to the paint shop.