Thread: madmax nova

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OK, so I got the six headlights installed in the 76 nova. The extras aren't wired yet. Going to put them all on a relay fired off the highbeam circuit, probably straight off the battery for convience.



Everyone whom looks at it says MAD MAX.

now thats cool.

And whats wrong with that
Now faba aluminum grill head light filler assy and away you go, Maybe checkerplate

????? Why

Looks like lots of tickets and cop hassles to me......

What the......Oh nevermind......

Im am thinking a couple of rocker switches would be good.. one switch fires them all in series, the other fires them parallel... low/hi sweet

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!

Man what a chore this is turning out to be. Thought I had the lights in nice and straight, but nope. They both angled down some, and the pass side was way off. Didn't know how the heck I got it so messed up. Decided to go ahead and adjust the trunk lid in, just to see if I would have to slot out for the tail lights. discovered that the quarter panels had leaned in when I cut everything loose. Either that, or they were already misadjusted from some repair / damage in the past, as the trunk lid was adjusted almost an inch too far back. Just knew that gap at the rear window looked odd.

SO I cut them both loose, and stretched the quarters back into position, and welded them back up. I was happy with the drivers side, but the pass still got skewed. Two more tries and I think I can live with it. Not that it is perfect by any means.. If I were to do it over again, I would have taken the extra work to put the tail panel in as one piece, and of course, BRACED THE QUARTERS before I started cutting. But then again, judging by the adjustment of the trunk lid, they were off anyway.

SO.. here is the latest effort.




I would like to be out there right now, piecing in around the donor sections, but the sun is really cooking me. Got a pretty good sunburn as it is.

That's why they make long-sleeve shirts and wide-brim straw hats.

Originally Posted by techinspector1

That's why they make long-sleeve shirts and wide-brim straw hats.

Weld sparks and straw hats are a bad combination.

Today I went to trace-and-splice in the tail harness from the 78 firebird into the 76 nova. Low and behold -- it just plugged right in, and everything works fine! Well, after I replaced two bulbs, and adjusted the bottom contact on one socket, that is. The nova licence plate light is in the trunk lid, and won't be needed now, so I didn't splice into the harness to wire it back in. Instead, I used the socket to fix the front side lamp, drivers side.

Since the trunk pan holds 20 gallons of fuel weight, I decided to address this next. First, cut out all the rot.

Trunk rails look good, but frame rail on pass side will need a few small patches. Probably should have done that first, would have been easier, but I got impatient to get the trunk patched up. Have some 16GA sheet sitting around, so I cut a patch and got it spot welded in. What would be a good caulk for the seams?

The 16 GA is tough to shape, but easy to weld.

Piecing it together. Would be nice if I had a metal brake. Maybe one day.

Meantime, I'm piecing it together. One strip left.

keep the pictures coming. really enjoying this build.