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

[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!

[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

[L78_Nova]

[L78_Nova]

Upside down shot towards the rear seat divider... cleaned up nicely.


All of the paint and seal sealer was also stripped from the door and trunk jambs.
This photo is looking up at the Left door jamb showing the fresh epoxy seam sealer in door jamb and drip rail seam... messy job !!