Stepside Bed Paint & Assembly Help

[Hair]

I have taken by stepside bed completely apart. I have patched-up all of the rust in the bed sides and fenders and it's all in bare metal. How should I go about doing the body work on it?

Should I try to work each piece separately and paint the bottom and inside of everything and then put it all back together and shoot the outside?

The way the bed sides and fenders are sort of flimsy I thought that I might need to bolt everything together BEFORE I did the body work, because some of that stuff well move and twist around after its bolted together.

I'm really concerned about the outer bed strips that get spot welded to the bedsides. I'm going with stainless ones. It would be best to weld them in before I start my body work, but they don't get painted. If I wait to put them on, when I do spot weld them on, it will mess up my paint. I'd like to get good paint coverage behind them too... so how should I do all of this.

I'm thinking that I will prime everything and paint only the areas that will be hidden. Then bolt it all together. Put it up on some saw horses and do the body work (sanding, bondo, blocking, etc) and paint it all as one piece.

But I still have the issue with the bedside strips. I'd like to put them on as early as possible becasue they will stiffen up the bedside a lot and the spot weld areas will have to be worked too.

Also, my bedsides and fenders were ate up with rust where they were bolted together. Is there some type of gasket that I can put in there to keep that from happening again?... or will that jsut hold water and make it worse?

Anyway, I'm sure you guys have been here many times. What is the best way to go here?