So the chassis survived the night on my drive, and it was (and still is) a glorious day, it was time to press on with the chassis. So after the sun had been on it the chassis for about hour or so to burn off any dew, I got the brushes out and started slapping on stage 3 of the POR-15 system - the Rust Preventive paint. I somewhat un-wisely got glass black (as I was planning to top coat in black as well) but wisely boought my supply as a six pack - this was six small 113.6 ml / 4 US ounce cans. I used four on the chassis; the paint went on easily and covered well and it took me about 1 1/2 hours to do it all and then I left it to go off for three hours.
I had bought a 1 l (well 946 ml) tin of top coat. also in Gloss Black, and so decanted about 1/3 into a plastic pot and started painting. This paint seemed to cover slightly less well than the previous stuff, and I ended up using virtually all the litre can, but this may have been compensating for not realising how well it was covering the Rust Preventative coat. Again it took about 1 1/2 hours to get the paint on, and now the chassis is sitting on the drive looking good and waiting for the paint to go off. Then it can be consigned to the shed so its out of the way while I finish ALD!
The only hard parts were getting the paint into the centre box, doing the insides of the turrets and having to flip the chassis over single handedly to get to the bottom. In the centre section the the cutouts in the side and the holes in each end meant it was it is achievable using a brush (although one of my arms is also nicely painted as well). The insides of the front turrets needed car as the inner edges are folded in on themselves and it needed some dextrous brush work to get the paint into the fold, and all the way down the inside the front and rear faces inside the turret.