Went to visit the galvanisers yesterday and ran into a problem. The paint is too tough for their acids to get rid of so I need to do that myself before taking it to them. After doing some research on something cheap to strip paint I found that sodium hydroxide works (aka lye, caustic soda, drain cleaner etc). So I went down the street and bought 5kg for $26. I experimented with a small bit of crossmember in a bucket and found a 5:100 concentration works. Ie 200ml sodium hydroxide to 10 litres of water. This is with the flakes I have obviously different forms will be different ratios. After a few hours in there the paint simply wiped off.
My plan is to plug all the holes up with tape and whatever else and fill it with the solution to eat the inside then maybe sand blast the outside.
Word of warning this stuff is extremely basic and will burn your skin, eyes clothes and most other things except plastic and steel. If you use this method take appropriate safety measures. It will eat through most paints but will not do anything to corrosion.
Here's a picture of the test piece after a quick wipe with a rag:
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