Thanks Black Mariah for your comments on brush application of Rustoleum.

The reasons I want to brush apply are:

1. I am not up to 6-8 coats with wet sanding in between.
2. I can not remove the roof rack on the top of my suburban because the screws were epoxyied in at installation, which makes it fairly difficult to spray with rack on.
3. My vehicle is 25 years old and I am just doing an inexpensive refurb.
4. The top is really not visible too much.

Here is my plan.

1. I have bondoed all the screw holes that had rusted out from the roof protective runners.

2. I have applied one coat of automotive primer by Rustoleum.

3. I have sanded primer with a fine sponge sanding block that I had laying around.

4. I have applied a second coat of primer tinted to near the final color.

5. I plan to wet sand the primer and apply one coat of Rustoleum enamel with a good bristle brush. I plan to thin the Rustoleum with 20% by volume mineral spirits and a dash of Flotrol in order to keep a wet edge for a decent amount of time; I do not want the paint to dry too fast. I want the paint to flow. Rustoleum recommends no more than 25% thinning or the paint characteristics tend to be lost.

I am having a bit of a problem matching my existing color. I have the paint code, but the one store I went using a computer did not do a good job matching. I only purchased an 8 ounce sample and it was too dark. I may go with a stock Rustoleum color.

It should be interesting to see how this comes out. I plan to implement the old time procedures you talked about.

Thanks again for your quick reply.

Henre