🔧 BUILD 1971 Nova - Work in Progress

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1971 Nova - Insanity in Progress

I bought this Nova last year when I sold my mustang, I was a active member here when this was CSVT so all the info of my old car is still on this site. Some of you know me from other sites as well as some of the old CSVT members who are still around. I apologize in advance for being a little long winded.

I was looking to get back into a classic muscle car that I could restore and modify to my liking. I choose a Nova since they are cheap and my wife wanted it to be a chevy. I enjoy all makes/models domestic or import which is why I enjoy TCG.

Specs:
1971 2 Door Nova factory v8 auto

Engine
350 block 383 stroker
Cam - unknown (I have several cam cards from the previous owners not sure which one is installed)
Rods/pistons - unknown
Heads - stock
Edelbrock intake - unknown which model
Holley 750 double pumper

Trans
700R4
3200 Stall
Shift Kit - Jegs brand

Rearend
10 bolt 8.5
3:56 gears

I knew the car needed some work before I bought it....I just underestimated how bad some of it was going to be. When I got the car the owner I purchased it from had just primer bombed the car and splatter painted the trunk (was still fresh when I went to look at the car). I would have still bought the car but would have negotiated a better price, but hey live and learn. The guy I bought the car from purchased the car from an elderly couple in Ohio who had a binder of documentation which was a huge selling point to me. Unfortunately I didn't look closely to see that the receipts didn't have much specific information. So the documentation only shows dates and what parts were replaced not what they were replaced with (for the most part anyways.) Again no biggie.

The car had 3 paint jobs in it's life plus the primer the guy I bought the car from put on it. Under the primer was a Suzuki gold that was applied in 2002. (what a FUGLY ass color) under the gold was a red. Whenever the red was put on the car it also had extensive body filler applied but no rust or sheet metal repair, more on that later. Under the red was a factory correct blue. The cowl tag says the car should be Sandalwood, while I did find it on a few parts of the car this leads me to believe someone painted the car early on in it's life or worse someone swapped the vin and cowl tag to another car :dunno: . Also there were a few spots where Green was found, I'm assuming a donor car or junk yard parts replacement. To be honest with all the documentation I have it just confuses things even further. The car was also in a few fender benders, the worst being the passenger front fender.

In 2001 the whole suspension was replaced with stock equipment minus air shocks, this was also when the whole drive line was overhauled and the engine was turned into a 383 stroker. I'm just guessing and based on some info I've accumulated from Steves Nova Site SNS, everyone seems to agree this theoretical combo should be around 350-400hp 400+tq.

I drove the car for a few weeks and fixed some legal and safety equipment such as putting on the rear bumper, side mirrors and attaching the seat belts. The car actually drives pretty good, has some good low end torque and the trans shifts firm. These were all the reasons I purchased the car as I didn't want to blow the budget replacing the mechanical's right away while I concentrated on restoring the body and getting it in paint. I was originally hoping to have it in paint in early spring of this year. Currently it may see paint by spring summer of 2015. (crosses fingers)

Goals:
For now I want a nice cruiser that's got some decent hp/tq. I'd like to drive it around town and take it to a few cruises/car shows. During winter I always like to tinker and do upgrades.

My unrealistic dream goal would be to turn it into a pro-touring car. Sitting low on 18x10 or larger wheels. I would also drop in a LS series engine maybe a LQ4 on a tight budget or go wild with a LS3/6 variation. The car will stay an auto, I know some people won't understand that but I love a good auto as much as banging gears in a stick car.

Short term goals that are more realistic is to just restore the vehicle to good quality, I will keep the drivetrain as it is for now as it's in good shape and if anything blows up take it to the next level at that time (budget pending of course). The body will be fully repaired and painted by myself. It will be painted a blue (unsure of which specific color code at this time) but it will be a medium to dark hue.

Bottom line is all work will be done by me, in my garage with whatever tools I currently have or acquire. Hence the whole reason for purchasing this car.

Now to what's happened since I started work along with pics.

As I purchased it, as you can see the body doesn't look bad at all. Looking at it very throughly I could tell there was bondo/mud applied and I did notice some rust in the rear quarters and in the trunk area (which is common for these cars) I also noticed the body bushings were bad again another common problem with age.



IMG_1489 by Chris Watkins, on Flickr

IMG_1490 by Chris Watkins, on Flickr


Engine Bay, looks can be decieving, the whole front accessory system is a redneck engineer mess along with the fan and rad shroud.
IMG_1487 by Chris Watkins, on Flickr

IMG_1503 by Chris Watkins, on Flickr


IMG_1504 by Chris Watkins, on Flickr

Pics of the interior, the seats are trashed and the carpet doesn't fit right as it's either a universal or not the correct for this make/model/year.
IMG_1499 by Chris Watkins, on Flickr





I'll break this up into a few posts.
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cap42

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Those look like stock discs. They wont bolt to the drum spindle without work. Also I have 2 sets of those spindles, they both look like those. They are heat treated so as long as the bearing surface isnt smoked they are good. Progress looks great!

That is really good to know Hilrod! Thanks for posting that, I'd have been pissed ordering up new spindles to find out they were fine.
 
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cap42

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All the suspension components are finally off the subframe. The passenger spindle has some scoring where the bearing rides. Not sure if it's too damaged or if it will just need new bearings. I didn't grab a pic of that. I spent the last couple times in the garage stripping off all the undercoating and rust off the subframe. I've still got 1/4 of the underside left to go. Pictures are a bit sporadic. Leafs showed up yesturday so I'm just waiting on the UCA/LCA's. I also need to order steering components, all the boots were shot there and the pitman arm and tie rods have some play.

Just for during shot for reference of the cleaned subframe vs what I started with.
IMG_1064.JPG

A few closeups of the welds someone did to this subframe at some point in it's life.
IMG_1065.JPG


HILROD HILROD Does this look like factory welds or did someone do the guildstrand mod on this?
IMG_1066.JPG


This is under the driver side motor mount. I'm not sure but I think someone moved the mounting holes as the perches don't fit up against the subframe.
IMG_1067.JPG


Once I had the top side all cleaned up I flipped it over and started again. I got about 3/4 of the way finished but didn't grab a pic.
IMG_1068.JPG
 
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cap42

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Got a video uploading I'll post it later.

I didn't do an update here last weekend, but I did some initial measurements and found out the body mount plates I welded on a few years ago are off. Someone over on SNS posted a measurement diagram for the subframe and I used that to check squareness on the subframe. The measurements were for 69 nova which I am hoping is the same through 72. Based on the measurements the frame is slightly out of wack. The passenger rear rail is 1/8 in higher than the driver side rail and the passenger frame horn up front is inboard 1/16th. Now I'm no expert but I am not going to worry too much on about it. Especially seeing the quality work the factory did I'm just guessing that all of that was within factory tolerances.

That being said I cleaned up the under side of the subframe. Ground down some of the shitty welds and rewelded some of it. I didn't do too much as I was worried about not having the subframe in a jig/fixture and warping anything further. Most of this is covered in the video. I have some finish work to do next time out and I might be able to start shooting epoxy and paint on the underside. Then I can flip it over remeasure and fix my screwup with the body mounts and repeat the process.

Still waiting on the Upper and Lower control arms, so I may get this all wrapped up and then be ready to bolt the suspension on without too many delays.
 

cap42

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Finished sanding rust and gunk off the subframe, wiped it down and shot it with 2 coats of 2k epoxy primer and 2 coats of chassis black. I only did the underside as I still need to cut and weld on the body mounts. When that's done I'll scuff up the sides and shoot the rest of the subframe. Hopefully by then the control arms will be here and I can start on reassembly.

IMG_1072.JPG

IMG_1073.JPG
 

cap42

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No pics this week.

I flipped the subframe over and spent a long time getting it level on my concrete floor with jackstands. Took a lot of shims and made sure this time I had the same measurement from the floor to my reference points. I then cut out the passenger rear body mount and the drivers front body mount and re welded them. One of the rails being out of wack still bothers me but not much I can do about it. I'm not even sure if it matters as it's only a 1/8th. The passenger front horn I know is no big deal and I'll just have to shim it for fender/hood/bumper alignment later.

I'll get to primer and paint on the top side of the frame next week. Hopefully I'll get the UCA/LCA's in soon so I can just start throwing that all together. After the paint I'll need a helper to flip the car right side up. Didn't even think it was going to be on this jig a full year.
 
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cap42

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So I am a bit pumped, I can't believe it's been a year since I put this car on the tip over jig. Reviewing pictures and videos there's been a lot done but still a whole year....

Made a another video covering all of it, but for those of you who don't want to watch 10+ mins, here's the short list.

Flipped the subframe over cleaned up the old welds, burned in some new ones. Fixed the body mounts that I fucked up a few year ago and then sprayed 2k epoxy primer in a aerosol can. I tried to shoot the chassis black in rattle can but ran out and eastwood didn't have any of the satin in stock. So I ended up scuffing it all up again and shooting it in my hvlp gun.

I then called my brother and he came over and helped me flip the car right side up and bolt up the subframe. We didn't align it, the mounting bolts are all still loose.



IMG_1079.JPG

IMG_1081.JPG
 

cap42

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So I'm a week behind on whats reality and what being posted to YouTube.

I mainly worked on getting the rearend stripped clean, then I rolled it underneath the car. Took me a bit to lower the car down to a height I can mock up the rearend suspension. Having the car 2 feet off the ground would have been a challenge.

Here's some pics of where the car is at currently, I still need to find a good spot to support the car where the jack stands won't get in the way of the leafs.

Just a shot of where it was after taking the front/rear jigs off.

IMG_1085.JPG


Midway of stripping down the axle assembly
IMG_1084.JPG


Axle under the car, it's not connected to anything at the moment. I had to throw the fenders back on the car so I could have room in the garage.
IMG_1086.JPG

Here is this weeks video, it's just a recap of the jig itself so nothing that hasn't been seen before.

 

Mr_Roboto

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Aaah, was wondering if you'd gotten out of the stocker or not. A year later you'd have an 8.5 I think. I have one of those in the Lemons, the big benefit I have is that BOP got bolt in axles. Supposedly a titch stronger than a 7.5 but I don't know that it matters. If you're doing an auto I'd probably roll with it, hell the car should be pretty light I'd think.
 

cap42

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Aaah, was wondering if you'd gotten out of the stocker or not. A year later you'd have an 8.5 I think. I have one of those in the Lemons, the big benefit I have is that BOP got bolt in axles. Supposedly a titch stronger than a 7.5 but I don't know that it matters. If you're doing an auto I'd probably roll with it, hell the car should be pretty light I'd think.

I think the 383 had more torque than what this lq4 will have.... and yes this car is pretty light even with all the wiring that will need to go in this car I'm gonna guess it's going to be 3200 or less. I'd love to put a decent axle assembly back there but I just don't want to spend the money.
 

cap42

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I've been spending a lot of time getting the garage cleaned up and re-organized. I managed to spend a day just working on Nova shit. I did a weld repair on the driver side front leaf pocket. The holes for the bushing were beat up and out of round and one side was torn. Grabbed a bunch of timelapse on it and created a video, I'll drop the link below.

Once the leaf pocket was fixed up, primed and painted I wanted to get the leaf mounts on the rearend cut off. I didn't want to spend all day with cut off wheels so I broke out the plasma. Was quite surprised it could cut through that thick of steel but it managed it.... barely. I'll have to grab a photo of it later, been either focused on getting shit done or grabbing videos... I've just been slacking on pictures lately. Next time I have to grind down the slag and left over bits of the leaf mounts so I can mock up the rear axle. I would like to get the rear suspension mounted, still waiting on the DSE front control arms. I can't wait to get this thing back as a roller.

 

Mr_Roboto

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I think the 383 had more torque than what this lq4 will have.... and yes this car is pretty light even with all the wiring that will need to go in this car I'm gonna guess it's going to be 3200 or less. I'd love to put a decent axle assembly back there but I just don't want to spend the money.

I was thinking more like 3k flat, guessing you are adding stuff.
 

cap42

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I was thinking more like 3k flat, guessing you are adding stuff.

It's just a wild guess I'm throwing out there. There are things that will be added that a car of that era didn't have plus some of the modifications that will be done.

Extra wiring for the ecu and electronics.
Not sure but I think the new drivetrain is slightly heavier than the old
Vintage air system
Sound deadening in the cabin area/trunk
It won't have a sound system but I'll be putting more than just the 2 speakers in that came from the factory.
 

Mr_Roboto

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Even an iron blocked LS is supposedly about 100lbs lighter than a gen1 engine. If you go with a 4L80 or a 6+ speed you may gain some there. The electronics/air/sound deadening is more of what I was alluding to. Being a 71 you were probably starting to see some of the low speed crash stuff installed, but nothing compared to later vehicles that really added weight on.
 

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