I love all the snow we have been getting up here, but I only get about an hour of fun after a snowfall. After that it is nothing more than salt EVERYWHERE. My truck looks like a giant salt lick.

So now I have blisters appearing on the cab corners and doors. The blisters are all paint peeling up (all smaller than a dime) with the typical orange rust seeping out. My concern is; Can I get away with sanding the problem areas down, using a rust inhibitor on the bare metal, prime the area with good primer, and having a shop repaint the bottom half of the truck (from the trim strip, down to the bottom)? Or should I replace the metal. The reason I ask this is:

1. The problem areas are scattered all over. The door bottoms, rockers, cab corners, bed bottom and tailgate bottom.
2. The paint peels off and the metal on the tailgate and bed but the metal underneith is still smooth. The tailgate has very slight orange runoff, but the bed does not (I'm assuming the bed is galvinized).
3. The cab corners and doors has smooth unblistered metal underneith too with just some orange haze off the cab corners and not so much the doors.
4. The paint peeling seems to be more of a problem than the rust at the moment.
5. I don't want to replace all that metal (just yet anyway) but I don't want to paint all those areas just to have it break thru again.

Whats my best option here?

 

DUDE...I'M NOT A BODY GUY..AT ALL.

i'm sure you'll get some feedback here though...

 

like i said before you dont have to get down to using rust inhibitor. just sand the area down till its bare metal and i mean bare metal youll be sanding the rust off, if its only surface rust then just primer the bare metal up. then have a shop either paint it or if you decide to do the rhino liner like you were talking about doing.