Time to give it up?

[Jeff]

we have already started pealing stripes and razor-blading the old paint off.

Holy crap dude. Go to Advance and pick up a bucket of paint stripper. We used it on a friend's truck back in high school and it made removing the old paint a breeze, just wear long clothes and a respirator. It dissolved our brushes, I'm afraid to think of what it could do to my insides.
Lay a coat of that shit down on the old paint, go inside and grab a beer, come out and listen to it sizzle as it eats the old paint. Probably even etches the metal for better paint adhesion :-).

TAL-STRIP is what you are talking about. Thats some mean shit. I have a few cans of it laying around. This paint is so thin and poorly adhered that you can scrape it off in big strips with razorblades. Then you just wetsand and prime areas you fix, do a final sand, prep, and paint!