🔧 BUILD 1971 Nova - Work in Progress

[cap42]

1/8inch plate mock up

Need to make a close out panel here that connects the inner tub and the trunk drop off pan

Still some tweaking to do before it all gets burned in. I need a second hand to verify everything, just getting it dry mocked single handed was a royal pain.

The outer wheelhouse needs to go in first then the inner deep tub. Once those are both in I can do final fitment of the fender.

 

[cap42]

Passenger wheel tubs are in! Still some stitch welding and more grinding to do to finish it 100%.

 

[RICH17]

Wowsers that's a lot of work

 

[cap42]

Finished dressing up the spot welds, holding off on the stitch welds in the trunk area since I need to weld in the crossmember back there and replace the floor pan.

I then moved on to final fitment of the quarterpanel, I didn't take many pics but I spent hours tweaking one spot in particular.

Lots of massaging to get the same uniform gap, the silver marks are where the gap was too tight.

I cut this corner section on purpose as there is a backing plate I wanted to leverage for rigidity.

I'm still not ready to burn it in yet as the lower style line doesn't match up with the doors lower style line. I could fix that but the style line by the window is also off but in the opposite direction. The door is a weld in hinge so adjustment is limited.

I will post more pics of my conundrum when I get back to it.

 

[billzrx7]

Cap... Lol. That's all I can say.

 

[cap42]

Adjusted the door so the style lines match up on the factory panels. Had to tweak the bottom of the door so it followed the rocker, found some more crusty metal that I will have to replace when I get to the doors.

Pics of the door lined up.

Once that was done I finished dry fitting the fender and then started welding it in. This took forever doing tach welds. I used an air gun to cool off the welds to prevent warping. I didn't so such a great job as there are 2 spots that warped. It's not bad, but it will require some hammer/dolly work.

There is still some welding to be done on the door jamb and on the trunk drop off pan. Then I will go over the welds again as I didn't finish dressing them 100%. I will also dress them inside the trunk so you can't tell where the panel was welded in. I should get this all done next go round. Then if the trunk floor pan is in I will start on that and then onto the drivers side tub.

 

[Terminator-Fux]

Soooo much work. Doing a good job Chris :bigok:

 

[cap42]

Finished the welding in the passenger side, didn't get any pics.

Next up is the driver side, like before I cut both the new fender and the old fender at the same time. I used a body saw this time so forgive the non strait lines.


The result

The driver side wasn't as bad so I left much more of the original fender in place.

Had to get a few pics of this quality craftsmanship

I was hoping I wouldn't have to replace the wheelhouse but it looks like it is too far gone and would be more work to graph good steel in.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

By the time you're done with this ride it will have better than factory body lines.

 

[cap42]

Disclaimer lots o pics

So I stopped by Pratt's (aka Pressureratio) work to grab the trunk pan, I needed this to see approximately where my cuts would be as this needs replacing.

Before

I have the shop light under the pan so the holes are better seen.

I then drilled pilot holes so I didn't cut the braces. Then I cut out the center rot, I am leaving it like this for a few weeks as it's easier to work being able to stand in the trunk.

Cuts

It was a real bitch finding the spot welds, I sanded down the metal and usually you can tell where the spot welds are by the indentations. No such luck here so it was a lot of guessing. I found common spot welds on both braces and just pealed the metal back to the next set of spot welds. I fucking hate spot welds!!

About as far as I am going for right now, lots of trimming to do but that will come after the wheel tubs are done and the shock cross member is in.

Wire wheeled and rust converted for now.

Then on to the wheel tubs, I bought a new body saw from Eastwood, the shit ass harbor freight saw was gutless.

Rough cuts for now

Now I have one side under my belt I know this side will go faster.

When I was trimming the wheel well near the passenger seat and floorboard I found more trust metal shelving with its partner in crime JBWeld. I wish I had sent this out for blasting so all of this would have bee found at once.

All that was cut out today

 

[Gav'sPurpleZ]

dem inner wheel houses.

great work / progress

 

[cap42]

Had a helping hand today so I pulled the rear glass, there was a few holes so I need to fix. That and the little welding blanket I have didn't cover all the glass so I feel better knowing it won't shatter in me.

Once the glass was out I went back to surgery, knowing what I had to cut from the other side I bypassed the 30 or so spot welds holding the inner tub in and just cut my 2 inch line.

The drivers side had the panel that goes from the bottom of the inner tub and connects to the trunk pan. I did have to cut out the spot welds on this so I could keep it as a template.

I mocked up the inner tub, there is a few spots I have to grind back since the outer tub is still in for reference. However it is very minimal and should only take an hour. Then it will be on to making the close out panels and boxing the frame back in.

All in all this side is taking about a 1/3 the time, so a full day or two in the garage I should be ready to burn it all in.

 

[Gav'sPurpleZ]

new sheet metal is a great thing

 

[cap42]

Very rare the wife tells me go play in the garage, especially considering I was just in there yesterday.

I need to clean everything to bare metal and weld through primer and then it's on to welding in the close out panel and frame plate.

Pics

I will need to make a few patch panels for this window brace like I did on the other side.

This motherfucker just plain sucks, this was a good 2-3 hours of trimming, spot weld cutting and general cussing. This is the brace that holds the outer tub at its top most location. If I had chosen to buy full quarters it would have been easier to get to. I completely forgot how much this sucked on the passenger side, this side was a little worse since I left much more of the original quarter panel in place.

Inner tub mocked up again, now that the outer is removed I can dry fit all the parts to make sure they are all in alignment.

 

[cap42]

Only had a few hours in the garage today so while I did get a lot done it didn't feel like it. Had to stop early for trick or treaters.

I mocked up both tubs and one small section of the inner tub was pushing the outer tub out of alignment by 4 inches. Took a little while to get that corrected and then both tubs slid in like butter.

I then moved on to making my close out panels for the frame. I have it tacked in but forgot to grab a pic.

Using the supplied DSE template as this one actually came close to fitting the opening.

Then it was the vice to bend 1/8 plate to fit the curve. With my dad's old workbench and vise (see dyi projects thread) it went pretty smoothly.

I am heading down to Springfield tomorrow for a conference so I won't be back at it till next weekend.

 

[10thSVT_03]

Coming along nicely. All that sweat and effort will pay off in the end.

 

[cap42]

So I know I am very far from the end result but I can't help wondering what my vision of the car will end up resulting in.

So I am no artist and even though I am in IT I am not very good at photo editing or rendering. Regardless I am read up, watched a bunch of YouTube videos and tried this many times over several weeks.

So I took a bunch of 71 nova pics from the inter web and started manipulating what I could. For this round I choose this silver nova because the profile was what I wanted to work with and it had a decent stance. Also silver was easiest to manipulate since it blends in with the chrome and stainless trim.

Here is the base photo

After many many attempts here is some of the results

Trim in body color

Darker color. Still undecided on what I like.

I didn't like the rims in the picture and I am a cheapass so I may be utilizing something like these dark stars. For now these will be used in my next couple chops until I can find something I like better. I am also undecided on keeping the trim raw stainless or painting it body color.

I also modified the front bumper as I didn't like the cutouts, there may be more on that later. I also want to spend some time chopping out the eyebrow moldings and the hood trim and just smoothing that out. This is a major body mod I have been contemplating over the last year or so.

There will be a few more I am posting up with different changes as I work on these edits. I welcome all opinions/comments.

 

[RICH17]

I like all of that

 

[Bub]

steel cities grey metallic and widened corvette ralleyes /thread

 

[cap42]

So I got both the outer wheelhouse and inner tub welded in before I went hunting last week. When I got back I started on fitting the fender and realized that the outer wheelhouse was kicked out 1/2inch again. I was rushing trying to get as much done before I headed out of town. That will teach me!

Luckily I didn't fully burn it all in so I cut out some of the welds and was able to pull both tubs back in place. Then back onto final fitment of the fender.

I didn't take too many pics, but someone on Steve's Nova Site PM'd me about metal repair specifically what I am doing now. So I started playing around with time lapsed video so this person can get an idea of what it all entails.

Pics first

Ya nothing special you have seen it before. So forgive the bad angle of the time lapse, this was my first attempt. Hopefully this link works. The video is about 3 mins long and not that entertaining.

Nova
Welding in wheel tubs and fender
http://youtube.com/watch?v=a2fnvI4Mi2E

 

[Pressure Ratio]

Looking good Chris. Nice to see progress being made.

 

[cap42]

Thanks Mike, it's moving along at a better pace now but every time I get a bit of steam built up something comes up. Hopefully I can continue on at the pace I have been at lately.

 

[cap42]

Fender is now burned in, I had one spot warp pretty bad, had to cut the welds in that area and hammer it out. I still need to dress the welds which I will get to another day.

I needed to cut the lower stay line out of the new fender. It doesn't match up with the old fender, plus I needed to cut the old fender where it met the rocker so it's flush. I will get to all that later.

I also did another time lapse video, still the same angle.

Welding fender
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gp7nrA6TLgo

 

[Bru]

Now that's a good use for time lapse.

 

[cap42]

Back at with the holidays and house projects over with.

Fixed the lower style line on the driver fender, the passenger side will be more of a challenge. Cut 1/2 off the top and welded it in the bottom

Fixed where the fender met up with the rocker with a slice in the door jamb.

Also bought a new toy, I have wanted a stud welder for some time to fix the multitude of dents in the fenders I'm not replacing.

I got the stud welder at harbor freight with 200 studs, and a slide hammer. While the stud welder seems to be decent quality the slide hammer is a POS. I will live with it for now since the whole kit was $100, normally these kits are around $270.

Since I couldn't wait to play with it I started on the nasty dent that was in the drivers door. I dug out the filler and found it was about 5/8th thick.


Before I dug out the filler

During

All done!