Paint on Oklahoma Joe's Highlander

[Big Grouch]

Passing my 18.5 WSM to my son in law. Considering an Oklahoma Joe's Highlander reverse flow to give stick burners a try. I see the main complaint is the paint burns off in the first few cooks. Considering sanding and painting with high temp engine paint before the first fire up. Anyone tried this? The problem I feel is sanding the whole thing down to bare metal first. It seems going over it with a DA sander to rough up the factory paint would just make good paint stick to bad paint and it might burn off anyways. Opinions? Thank you in advance.

 

[Gonna Smoke]

My first stick burner was a forward flow Highland and I still use it some. The only place that rusts is the fire box, the cook chamber on mine does not, and I was constantly painting it with high temp paint which may last for 2-3 cooks. But I wasn't taking it down to bare metal each time, just wire brushing the rust off. That was over 3 years ago and now I don't worry about it anymore. When it cools down I clean out the ashes and cover it, that's it...