1970 L-78 Nova Restoration; Saga of The Green Bastard

[Zman1969]

I love L78 Nova's I like this one just browsed whole tread and when I saw you fixing the jacking point I remembered 11-12 years ago I bought a 69 nova 4 door subframe at pick N pull (actually got alot of stuff off that) because it was a 6 cyl it had never been jacked up there - it was beautiful and I had no need for it but it needed saved! little Nova trivia is 6 cyl cars did not have sway bars the mount holes were pierced but not threaded.
I recently bought my blue golf ball - a 69 Elcamino that needs a roof and right quarter from a little Texas hail and reading through this gives me some confidence of tackling it myself as I've never done much bodywork but why not try? thanks for sharing your car

[L78_Nova]

That is some Nasty Hail !! Texas sized for sure.

Time and patience is key, and I have some friends in the industry to help with answers when I'm stumped. Good luck with the Camino.
Gary

[RPOLS3]

Originally Posted by Zman1969

I recently bought my blue golf ball - a 69 Elcamino that needs a roof and right quarter from a little Texas hail and reading through this gives me some confidence of tackling it myself as I've never done much bodywork but why not try? thanks for sharing your car

You might try looking for a paintless dent removal (PDR) guy to look at repairing that. It is truly amazing what they can do with damage that appears to be only repairable by panel replacement or filler. You can save what is presumably the original sheet metal along with being faster and less expensive.

[Zman1969]

sorry double posted

[L78_Nova]

As the wire wheel stripping continued a few not-surprising pinholes were found along the lower Windshield flange. This is after picking at it pretty aggressively to find any soft spots.





Repaired this in two sections using patch pieces with a 90 degree break along the upper edge (trimmed to about 3.32" deep) to help minimize distortion (from welding) along the leading edge of the dash.





If you look closely at the top edge you can see the radius where the patch panel was bent inward.



Fitting the second patch





And the finished repair

[NorCam]

Nice work.

And as GM called the foam that's under that top dash...it was referred to as planned obsolescence.

Hard to find a 50 year old car now days that doesn't have this issue.

[Ryan1969Chevelle]

Originally Posted by NorCam

Nice work.

And as GM called the foam that's under that top dash...it was referred to as planned obsolescence.

Hard to find a 50 year old car now days that doesn't have this issue.

I recently learned in the VW world they call it “death foam” Beetles have it above the rear wheels and now every non restored Beetle I see has bubbles right where the “death foam” is located.

PS: I am loving the metal work in this build thread. One question, why not dip or blast the shell before doing all this amazing work? Wouldn’t it make it a hundred time easier?

Certainly not criticizing, you are kicking ass!!

Ryan W31

[L78_Nova]

Originally Posted by Ryan1969Chevelle

I recently learned in the VW world they call it “death foam” Beetles have it above the rear wheels and now every non restored Beetle I see has bubbles right where the “death foam” is located.

PS: I am loving the metal work in this build thread. One question, why not dip or blast the shell before doing all this amazing work? Wouldn’t it make it a hundred time easier?

Certainly not criticizing, you are kicking ass!!

Ryan W31

Agree it would have been awesome to start with chemical dip but closest shop would be about 400 miles away and no local shops I would trust blasting the panels.
Blasting the underbody is coming up shortly.
Both quarters, front fenders and rear panel were NOS so easy to strip sand those.
I guess just working on it in winters a little at a time over a couple years.. the stripping was not as bad.

Yes the Novas also had the death foam in the rear wheel lips. They rusted out in only a few years when winter driven up here.

[L78_Nova]

While on the subject of stripping... A few photos of continued cleanup of the window channels.











Also continued cleanup of the underbody

[L78_Nova]

Sometime around end of March 2020 (as we were into the full Covid lockdown) a friend Dereck Glesby helped me drag the body out to Ken Kiernicki's shop to sandblast and prime the underside.
Car dropped off into Ken's blasting tent.



Suiting up



And away we go... This is very tough and dirty work !! I have a new appreciation for the industry. First off you can't see much out of that helmet never mind the weight and difficulty getting in and out of it. Once you start blasting there is also the dust cloud and having to drag around the hose.

Many stops, gear downs, inspections, suit-ups and re-starts !!

Complaining aside it was an awesome day with a few friends giving the project a nice kick forward ! And it turned out quite nice.

Ken owns a Carnival business called Wonder Shows. They typically fully rebuild and refinish a ride or two each year. the blasting equipment is very HD... The distance in the photo is pretty much the closest I dare got.







This is an example of Ken's Wonder Shows crew refinishing work. BIG job, stripped cab and all exterior down, lots of repairs/refreshing/upgrades and refinishing !!



Back around and into Ken's shop the following weekend for DP90 epoxy. First order of business blow gun, vacuum, roll over, repeat, repeat repeat.

Weld up a few little spot repairs and wipe down the underside and firewall with degreaser, repeat repeat, repeat until clean!





As Skee Lo would say "I wish I was a little bit taller....."