Sorry for the hijack. Back to this beautiful Chevy II.

Jamess113-Jay Thank you for sharing the 66 Nova SS L79
 

Jay thanks for sharing this stunning car. The details you have shown and time you spent providing countless pictures and responses to our questions is very much appreciated.

Very exciting news!! This car will be attending MCACN 2023, and will be Vintage Certified. Another reason to attend MCACN and see this iconic car in person. :3gears:

Gas tank cleaning
 

Jay, congratulations on your purchase of this amazing Chevy II.

Can you explain the tank cleaning process? Who is doing it? Will the patina on the outside of the tank be affected at all?

Thanks, Marty

Thanks Steve, Very excited about attending MCACN as I've always wanted to attend
and now I'm not only going but we're bringing a pretty cool car to boot.

No problem on sharing the pictures and info I enjoy it and if it helps others with their projects all the better. Hoping to share more as we slowly clean it up.

Thanks Marty! We've sent them out in the past but in most cases we have just replaced them but, that's not an option here though. So we're doing the tank in house ourselves as I don't want lose any of the originality of the tank. We do want the outside clean of dirt and grim but we don't want to lose any of the factory undercoating that's on it and to be honest this is the first one I've ever done one and it has gone very well.

Basically we drained the gas, removed the tank, dried the inside and then I just used some of the the metal cleaner (PPG SX579) we use to clean lightly rusted parts here in the shop. I just pored a gallon in and sloshed it around throughout the a day and let it sit over night then flushed it out with water the next morning. To dry the inside I then stuck an air hose inside the tank and then vacuumed out any leftovers with small hose taped to my vacuum with my bore-scope attached so I could see what I was doing. The tank actually looks pretty good in side now but I'll most like do another round just to make sure we're good to go. This time I'll dilute the mixture with water, 1 part SX579 to 2 parts of water. The biggest thing here is to make sure you don't get any cleaner on the the outside of the tank as it will stain it. Hope that help.

Tank cleaning
 

Jay, thank you for the response and detailed process. I would be very appreciative if you would share before and after photos. If it is even possible to get inside the tank photos. I’m in the same situation with my survivor tank and I’m not sure if I want to tackle it or not.
Thanks again, Marty

Great to have you joining us at MCACN!

This is sure to be a hit and of course, another reason for everyone to join us in November. Can't wait to see this one up close and in person in our Vintage Certification area.

Bashton

Thank you! We're very excited to attend MCACN this year. I know this is going to be a lot of fun and can't wait.

We can’t wait either to lay eyes on such a significant car. So cool that you are bringing it to MCACN!:worship:

I just wanted to throw in this little trivia tidbit, since my brain is a treasury of useless information. The "THX" license plate belonged to George Lucas before he became famous.
That's the reason his unique sound system was called THX1138, and was the name of a robot in Star Wars before it went into production. He also produced American Graffiti.
Now back to your regular program....

Actually THX 1138 is goes way farther back in time than that.

THX-1138 was a futuristic science fiction prison movie by George Lucas, filmed in 1969 but released in 1971. It was his first movie made as a school project while a film student at USC

It is renowned for the Lola T70s used in the chase scenes (and their destruction)

https://forums.hemmings.com/stories/...8-real-or-fake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5nm...nel=Movieclips

Lucas used the THX and 1138 monikers in pretty much all of his movies since them, like the license plate on Milner's coupe and various Star Wars references.

I didn't know that our 66 Chevy II had a George Lucus THX1138 connection? Lol. The read on the Lola t70s was pretty neat though even if it's way off topic. Lol.

Well we finally fired up the Chevy II yesterday afternoon. This is the first time this car has been started since 2016.

It been a long road to get it all cleaned up and running. We had rebuild the original water pump as the front seal was leaking pretty bad. We were very careful not to disturb any of the water pumps original patina. As I mentioned before we flushed out the fuel tank as it looked like a swamp inside, it was pretty nasty. We took the fuel pump off and apart to inspect it and flushed out all the fuel lines. The fuel lines were full sludge and after taking the fuel pump apart it was good we did as the upper part of the housing was starting to corrode. The diaphragm seamed to be in good shaped so the pump only needed a good internal cleaning. We rebuilt the carburetor which was done back in 2016 but we thought it was a good idea to go through it again just to make sure it was all in good shape with all new gaskets and we also flush out the cooling system. After a fresh oil change and filling the float bowls, she fired right up and sounded great.

There are still a few things to button it all up, but we're getting close. Were waiting for a correct style battery and once we have that we can put the battery hold down all back in place It been pretty amazing carefully cleaning the car up. Things that were cover over with dirt and grim can now been seen.

Here's a quick video of it running yesterday and a few pictures of it outside in the sun. Its probably since 2016since this car has seen the sunlight.


https://flic.kr/p/2oyK7KJ

Pictures from yesterday outside.

Wow...

Now can I have it ? :-)

I have to admit I admire your persistence Charlie.

Looks amazing!!:headbang:

Most excellent!!

Awesome!!

That paint is absolutely stunning, unreal

Exactly!

----What a Nova! Just the best color that year and then L79 makes this car an absolute home run.....Bill S

That car is Sick!

Magnificent specimen.

What a fantastic find … Was the 3607 carb used in place of the 3245 when smog was installed ? Where is the amplifier for the transistor ignition , also does it have its own harness aswell ?

This is the location of the T.I. amplifier on the early GTO’s.

They get warm so this location helps the cooling of the amplifier.

Thanks, We feel pretty lucky to have been able to purchase it and help preserve it.

Yes, the 3607 is the correct for the K19 A.I.R option in 66. I've attached some pictures. All the emission hose's have part numbers which you could barely see before I cleaned them all.

The TI Box is mounted below the wiper reservoir and above the horns, it does have it own harness as well. I've attached some pictures

Compared to total 66 L79 Chevy II production, I can't imagine there were too many produced with smog. The tooling amortization costs for all those extra formed hoses, brackets, tubing, etc. has got to be pretty high. Thanks for doing such an amazing job of preservation and documentation on this incredible car :worship:

Hi Jay,

Excellent photos of more engine bay components!
Love the part numbers inked on the hoses.

When you have time could we see both decals on the valve covers.

Since I’ll never be able to view this car in person, I’ve made a folder of all your pics to scrutinize at my leisure.

Thank you, Chris.

Awesome car, and great caretaking. And a Beautiful assembly line air filter, with correct 65-E68 large outlined-font embossed number and diagonal soldered mesh!!

L79, Smog, and TI - gets to be a pretty small number I bet.

Amazing car - great job cleaning it up. Thanks for sharing.

This group of pix takes my breath away...

Looking at this car never gets old!

Thanks! Yeah, Pretty amazing its survived this long.

I've taken so many pictures (2500 or so) but feel like I still haven't taken enough.

So many parts that are just specific to these cars in general. I've lean a lot from another member here that has really taken the time to help verify everything on the car is indeed correct and original. (clnovaparts ,Doug Mattew) Doug has been beyond helpful. You talk about tooling up for specific emissions parts and then you have 1st and 2nd design parts that they had to re-tool for also. Parts on early built cars are different from later built cars which make some of these parts very rare.

We've tried very hard not to lose any of the cars originality or patina. It was very nerve racking rebuilding the water pump as I had never done one before but it went well and I think anyone would be hard pressed to really notice we R&I it. I documented rebuilding it also if anyone wants to see pictures. Same with the fuel pump I was very careful in removing it to the point I was able to save the original fuel pump mounting plate gasket in one piece.

Hard to believe that it still all intact. Thanks!

HI Chris, Thank you. I'll post up some pictures a little later

Here you go Chris.