Martin,
I'll try to give an inside to what I've read and what was published in NNN about the restoration of their 1970 L78 Nova. I don't know if things are different for a Nova produced in Canada though.
According to an article published in the July 1997 issue of Nova times that dealt with the rear end assembly, this is what they found. There was a black substance found all over the rear end. The factory assembled the rears with the drums and pigtails without the brake lines and then painted the rear black to preserve it. This black substance was not paint but a sticky tar like material that washed off rather quickly. When they removed the drum off the rear of a 5,600 mile 70, everthing inside the brake area is bare steel except for the springs. The inside of the backing plate would be bare steel, the outside would be black. The axles shafts were described this way. The ends of the axles shafts were bare steel but the center circle of the axle shaft was cast iron. I also had light blue inspection paint on the inside of my axle shaft. The wheel cylinders should be cast iron. Each brake spring also had different colors. Brown, red, dark green, light blue, dark blue, pink, gray, and orange. Some of the other brake parts were bare steel, black or yellow cadium plated. One of my brake parts had a number stamped in white paint on it. The number was 239. (Does anybody here know what that is? People I've talked to are stumped!)
The rears drums were unique how they were painted. Apparantly, there should be no paint past the main lip of the drum. A good way to describe it and how to paint it is to place a 9" paper plate over the drum and then spray the rest black. This leaves the center with the cast iron look. If you're still confused and want to see what I'm talking about in color, I made a video of my restoration. Not to say that what we did is 100 percent correct for every car but it is what is believed is correct. I painted my rear end assembly semi gloss black.
The gas tank straps would be black. I believe mine were painted semi gloss black. I left my tank unpainted and so did NNN when they restored the L78 and also the article of Belk's yenko showed it was left bare. I did see a thread on this site talking about half the tank being black? NNN never talked about it. Maybe it also got sprayed with that tar like substance to preserve it?
If you are using the spiral shocks, they wouldn't be black but a gray color. I bought the gray shock paint from Ground Up.
www.ss396.com
The leaf springs they never really described other than being black. I would say the same color as the subframe so a semi gloss black. Both the L78 car and Belk's car were sprayed black. Other questions, e-mail me or contact Wayne at NNN.
www.nnnova.com
Ron [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]