Ok, so the headlights aren't wired up yet, but I am pushing to get it on the road.

TO WIT:

tail lights. The old ones are a mess, and replacements aren't in the budget. On ebay, a ratty set will go for $80. Anyway, the sockets are bad, the buckets are dry rotted and deteriorated. the lenses are melted from bulb heat, and the left is busted up to boot. BUT.. I have the firebird the wife wrecked as a donor car, so off we go!

The trunk pan is a mess..

but I'll address that later.

There was a lot of bondo and great stuff ( foam ) all around the seal channel, and of course the channel was totally rotted out. So that came out first. I'll pull the front seal channel off the bird's trunk and weld it in. come to think of it, the little sail panel in front of the trunk lid will work nicely for donor steel. The steel around the left side tail light was pretty rotten too. Lucky I won't be needing it.

First thing, stripped down the rear ends of the nova and the firebird, to get a better look at what's what. Then, I cut out the tail panel from the bird. Then I cut a preliminary hole for installing them into the nova.


Next, more cutting as I got a better idea of how it was going to work. Then I got to do some welding. Lucky me, the acetylene was running out just as I was finishing up. Not that it's done, I need some little odd pieces of donor steel to finish it out.




Not bad. thought I was going to have to notch the trunk lid, but it seems to clear. At least for now.. the trunk lid is too far back on the hinges, will have to adjust it right and see if it still clears. Ok, one side is in.. and the other side should go a little quicker!