Thread: madmax nova

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WOWE IS ME..

Today I only had about 30 minutes to spend on my nova. So I took a crack at swapping the pinion shaft seal. Turns out the pinion shaft is sloppy loose! Probably meands the gears are damaged, right?

I think I got it figured out. The pinion was loose because I had the yoke off.. DUH!

Well, Ebrake cables have arrived, and I'm going to try to get the rear end finished up today.

Found a pinion seal at NAPA, $20. Today, put it in, put the yoke back on; torqued it about the same as I took it off, called it good. Dumped in oil till it poured out, put the driveshaft back on.

Swapped the axle spring plates with the bird, so I could use the bird's (new) shocks. One hole had to be slotted to make it work. Broke an upper shock bolt on the drivers side, so had to deal with that. And all my good easy outs are at work... bummer. Got that straightened out though. OMG am I bucking feat! Even putting heat to the bolts, penetration oil, wirebrushing the bolts.. still took LOTS of MUSCLE and a three foot cheater bar. I snapped both the U bolts on the bird, and one T bolt on the nova. But the plates are swapped, and shocks installed.

installed the new ebrake cables, hooked them up.

Put in the brake shoes and drums from the bird.

rear axle = done.

Next, front brakes.

Got the discs, calipers, hoses, shocks swapped in the front. Had to swap in the upper hose brackets from the bird to use its hoses.. the bird hoses have a hex shape at the bracket, the novas had a 'double notch'. The drivers side bracket had a broken bolt, and I didn't want to deal with it. So, I just welded it in. Noticed some shims in the driver side spring, so I pulled it and found the bottom coil broken off. I'll swap in one from the bird.

Got the drivers side back together. Had to use a coil compressor for the task, I made it years ago. 3/4" all thread, and 1/4" hardened steel plate. Did the job, but what a chore. Noticed the upper A arm bushings were SHOT so I swapped in the whole upper A arm. So, the nova has new Upper A arm bushings ( poly ), upper and lower ball joints, poly sway bar bushings. Makes me wish I had thought to swap in the lower A arm too. Would have been quicker, not having to press in / out the ball joint. I'm pretty sure the lower A arm on the passenger side is damaged. I hope the upper is ok.

Finished swapping in front end parts. Got both upper A arms and ball joints, lower ball joins, sway arm shackle bushings, drivers side spring, calipers, discs, shocks, hoses.

next, got to swap in the new rear brake hose, then I can bleed the system.

I've got two tires from the firebird, plus two old hoosiers from the firebird which were in the shed, all on the cragar rims for the nova. Soon as I bleed brakes, they will get mounted.

Today, sold the mortal remians of the firebird. $100 picked-up. Was very sad to see it go the the crusher. I've tried to sell the rest of the parts, just no intrest here locally.

the nephew is getting up too early.. doesn't want to spend time helping uncle Eron bleed the brakes...

meanwhile, I have decided to just pay my favorite transmission shop to fix the leaky front seal. Smith transmission in Columbus GA.. great guys. They are going to replace the seal and the bushing, whatever needed to fix the leak, dropping and replacing the trans, $175. And, he is going to barter down the price in return for a 3 speed from a 64 C10. sweet deal.





I like the wheels and tires. Gives it a nice stance, along with the gas shocks.

Trans is fixed, no more leaks. Although I did find a loose bolt on the flywheel cover. Those guys are cheap for a reason I guess. But then, I've paid more for the same level of service..

Car drives well. Does need an alignment, it shakes a bit over 60. Very quiet, nice firm ride.

Unfortunately, the exhaust was coming in thru the trunk. Still a good deal of rust holes back there, and I suppose it's a high pressure area, so with the windows down the exaust was coming in.

So, I scrapped the exhuast ( dam shame too, as it was one of the few things on the car which the previous owners had replaced, and was very quiet ) and put on a side pipe I had laying around.



Only put on the one side, as it's a straight six and doesn't need both sides. Also, the other pipe is a bit damaged and would have to be straightened out.

To mount, I used some 1/4 X 3 flat stock and migged it onto the rocker panel with a 2" overlap. Then I pieced together the old exhaust to blow through the side pipe. toughest part was patching a piece of 1 3/4" pipe into the 3" inlet.. For that I welded it on at the top, then heated and beated the bottom of the inlet, folded it over until it fit snugly around the smaller pipe. Not pretty ,but easy enough. Sounds good, but not as quiet at speed as the old muffler, which was stock location with dual outlet, and chrome tips. Best part is, no more exhaust coming into the car.

Oh, and it looks good. To ME, anyway.

You know, I had decided to throw in the towel on this project, and pass it along. At this point, it was supposed to be more of a driver, and less of a beater/project.

Anyway, I bought a 400$ two door nova, put a thousand $ of parts on it, and advertized it for $900. It runs good, drives good.. and no one wants to give over $700 for it. What is with that? I thought 2 door novas were top dollar? Maybe craigslist just isn't the best selling medium.

anyway, I'm keeping it.

glad you are keeping it. wish that you lived closer as i would have helped you with the brake bleeding. you are moving right along with it.

I'll take you up on that brake bleeding help. They still need to be (re) done.

Seriously thinking about just swapping out master cylinder and prop valves.. shoulda done it to start with. The brakes just don't feel quite right... They grab good at first, then kind of fade off.

Tonight I did the coolest repair:

Had no dash lights, and thought it was the headlight switch. Swapped it out with an old switch I had laying around, no difference. Ohmed out the switch, and found the one I swapped in had a broken rheostat wire. I (now) dimly remember keeping the switch as an 'emergency' repair, as the rheostat wire was broken. Well, I was able to repair the wire, and the good one got put back on the shelf. But, still no dash lights. Swapping the switch wasn't wasted time however, because the plug was barely on the switch, and I had to pull the switch out to get enough leverage to put the plug on correctly.

I'm checking the voltage at the fuse, and I'm getting solid 12 volts regardless of the position of the rheostat. I'm now guessing missing ground..

So, I'm looking for the cause, and discover a broken trace on the circuit card. The traces for the right hand top dash light were busted loose, and the ground trace was broke in half.

Well, here is the cool part.. on my back, upside down, I soldered a jumper wire onto the trace,( dodging the drops of molten solder raining down ) and screwed the other end of the jumper under the circuit card ground screw. VOLIA! I now have dash lights! Wasn't able to fix that corner light, but can get by without it.