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

[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....."

[Too Many Projects]

I hear ya on a hot, filthy friggen job !! I blasted the entire underside of my '66 Chevelle in my driveway with a little 100# pot blaster. I had 300# of sand and knew it wouldn't be enough, so put the car on a tarp. Good thing I did. Over the next 13 HOURS, I swept up that sand, screened it and ran it thru the pot so many times I lost count. As you say, the overalls and helmet get really hot and all I had was a few bottles of water and a couple cheese sticks all day. The sun was going down at 9pm when I finally pulled the car back in the shop and cleaned up. NEVER again. I'll take it somewhere and pay for the job.





Rolled it out the next day to clean and prime.

[67since67]

Those don't look like MN floors!! Southern car?

[Too Many Projects]

Originally Posted by 67since67

Those don't look like MN floors!! Southern car?

Complete AMD 1 piece trunk floor. Left front floor complete pan and a section of the right front pan were replaced. IOWA car !! that ended up in Pensacola and I bought it from there.

[Igosplut]

So, are you converting it to a console car? The first pictures showed the floor with the rough torch-cut shifter opening that the factory did on the non-console cars.

[L78_Nova]

Continued cleanup and stripping

[L78_Nova]

When I first purchased this car it had 4.10 gears which I robbed out for another car. Not sure why but I did not powder coat the housing at that time. So away we go



Axle needed replacing.. had a good pair of factory axles to replace with.



This was a brand new bearing when I swapped the gears
This literally has less than a mile of use. The spots visible are deep pin holes which were not visible under the coating when first installed.



Housing ready to go



Ratech Shim Kit plus assorted collection from years of hoarding



Damn shim split on what would have been the last assembly. Oh well pull out and reshim.

[Bill Pritchard]

Gear pattern looks good!

[Darth]

Originally Posted by L78_Nova

The Saga of the Green Bastard (1970 L-78 Nova Restoration Thread)

1st place Dereck’s 1967 Nova SS. This is an original Texas Gem with “ZERO” rust!! Has some bruises and needs lovin but very COOL car original 275HP 327 Factory Air & Power steering. It would appear to have been stored inside since new. I actually knew the previous owner and got out of the way for Dereck to buy this car because I knew I would just never get to it. That’s around the time when Dereck and I became friends.
Highlight ; EVERYONE WANTED TO BUY THIS CAR! and it was the weekend trunk bar and Snack shack!
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A slight correction Gary, coming from the owner prior to Dereck! The car is originally an Arizona car, went to Texas, then Nebraska, then Canada!

[L78_Nova]

I'm Baaaaaaack. Well that was a long Winter / Spring Hiatus but finally have the summer cars home and able to have some fun and catch up. The Green bastard is currently in summer storage but lots of pics to update on.

Continuing body prep cleaning up under the package tray where everything has a layer of surface rust




Homemade tool to remove the torsion rods and trunk hinges




Loooooots of stripping with wire wheel and hand sanding




And a coat of DP90 epoxy to seal everything up.






Reassembled and still have all my fingers !! Success