My other interest...

    My 1972 Nova that we got in August of 2005. It didn’t have an engine or tranny, and this is how it looked when we brought it home. Someone sprayed it with a decent paint job, but the floor pans were rusted and holey. It had a roll cage, and a holder for a NOS bottle in the trunk. I started by taking out the seats, and floor mats. I thought I could just clean up the underneath and the frame to repaint it and make it just look better.

                                                                                           

                                                                                        

                                                                                               

           

                               

           

       

                                                                                          

We took the hood and fenders off one day for fun, to see if I could get at all the nooks and crannies more easily. Not so pretty now! I don’t have any pictures, unfortunately... but during the summer of 2006, I sandblasted the under carriage, rear wheel wells, the sub frame and the firewall. The frame and was in excellent condition. No bends or buckles.

When we got it home, I started in on taking out the floor pans. It was not so much fun.     

Here is how the front suspension looked before. The bushings are all original rubber and cracked. The shocks looked original, and there were no shocks in the rear when we brought it home. After sandblasting, I took all the front and rear suspension stuff off and scraped and scrubbed and wire brushed the hidden areas so they could be painted.     

Firewall, looking at the new floor pan.

So, here’s the short version of a funny story. I didn’t like my welds when I got done putting in the floor pans. My bright idea was to cut out the tranny tunnel and fab a new one, with better welds since I was getting better at it. Unfortunately, when I did that, the passenger door didn’t quite open and close properly. Huh. Jacking, and blocking and then I created this crossmember that goes from frame rail to frame rail. Nice fit, and helped eliminate the sag from right to left. The car already had subframe connectors, it was not sagging front to back.

All done. Bring on the new suspension!

New Poly-graphite bushings from P-S-T. Lowering springs by Hotchkis. Painted the sub frame and under carriage with POR-15

Original drum spindles, painted with POR-15.

Wilwood disc brakes word with the drum spindles. Cross drilled and slotted rotors, four piston calipers. Looks good.

This is my new shiny jewel. (Well, it will be shiny.) 350 block, roller rockers, Torker intake, Holley carb. I don’t know the specs yet. Bought it out of someone’s Elky, and it ran great. I want to clean it up and eventually put a serpentine system on the front. Still have a lot to do before it can run.

To the right is a picture of the engine bay when we brought it home. I scraped at some loose paint, but didn’t find much rust. Cleaning became a huge pain.

Here’s my honey helping me get the engine in the car. On the right, it’s in. Hooray! Oh, I also painted it orange.

A bunch of random pictures below of other car things I am working on....