What would YOU do with this car?

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

The final verdict is black. Wayne, Tommy K, and I were talking about it when I went to Waynes to go over your car with him. Even the low mile cars look 'gray' because the brake fluid 'seeps' over time. We all know what DOT 3 fluid does to paint, so sometimes it's hard to find any remnants of black paint on even a low mile car.

If my memory serves me correctly, this orange car was not cheap. I know when Dave and I were interested in it, the asking price was around $14.5k. It's a true case where you gotta have it, but can't drive it!

Wayne was going to sell me the orange car for 11k. He wanted to put a 502/502hp in it with a turbo 400 and 12 bolt rear in it, then sell it to me. I couldn't commit!

[JoeC]

I am not 100% sure on this but from what I read, the master cyl was painted black prior to machining so the machined surfaces have no paint on them.

[SS427]

Joe, that is correct. A flash coat of black was painted on these and was just enough to keep them from rusting. They were then machined. A combination of the machining oil and brake fluid would leave very little paint intact. When I restore them, I use a cast colored paint and then air brush a very fine 'mist' of black paint. What you end up with is a black part with a lot of bleed through of the cast paint.

[tom406]

This is a tough one. We'd all love to see these cars be preserved as benchmarks, but honestly, who's putting 6-cylinder Novas in their collections? The world's supply of Nice Novas is drying up, so the guy is looking at finding a decent one, painting it a fun color (as the one he finds will probably be dark gold, or white), restoring the interior, and generally spending a lot more time and money than just starting with this car.

If someone preserves it, that's great, but if this fellow does a tasteful upgrade of this car, I won't hold it against him.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Tom;
With 500,000 gen. II Novas built, there is no logical reason to modify this particular car. The money raised by selling it would more than offset the purchase and repainting of another Nova. I'm not against having fun with a hot rod either, but just not with a 5k mile orig. car [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Lowmile;
As an afterthought, why not install a stout big block in the '72 Yenko clone Nova that you have on Ebay?? That car is a flashy color, it's in nice shape, has relatively low miles, and already has the big block yenko stripes on it!

Just a thought, [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[Kurt S]

All original masters cylinders where black. But it's a different paint and isn't very thick or adhesive. So it comes off pretty quick, esp since it's on cast iron.
A flatter black, btw.
Look for original Corvairs, since the master is in the trunk and is protected.

Kurt

[tom406]

That's a good tip. There's more 5K original mile Corvairs out there than you can shake a stick at. Probably two for each posting member of this board, so that you can have a reference one AND a modified one.

And Marlin, I totally respect your opinion. And there were a TON of Gen 2 Novas built, they used to be everywhere. But our Auto Traders are getting pretty thin on them here on the North West Coast, so I KNOW things aren't much better in the rust belt. Its been 30 years - attrition is finally taking its toll, IMHO.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

69ssrs;
Dude, take a chill.

It's very difficult to compare these two Novas, I've only seen one of them in person and only one picture of the other. Let's face it, with 85k miles on any car things have been changed - hoses, belts, carb, radiators, brakes, brake drums, etc... things have been worn out. After putting 80k+ miles of dirt, grunge and grime on a car it is hard to see the details that we are looking for. Things like overspray patterns, paint daubs, crayon markings, little tags and stickers, that kind of stuff. I'm not trashin your Nova, if it has some reference capability, take some pictures before you make your mods and share them with the class.