NOTE:
All the videos in this build thread has been taken down due to copyright issues on YouTube. I have created a new YouTube channel (Reborn74Nova) and all videos will be reuploaded to new channel remastered to remove copyright issues.
I have always loved the Nova ever since my father had one. When I finished restoring my other car (98 Eagle Talon) I had the itch for that v8 Muscle car sound. Than I was looking through some pictures and saw a pic of my fathers old 74 Nova. Thats when I had to have it. It took me 8+ years to find one in decent shape and with a good price tag. What made the search even harder is that I would not accept any other year but the 74. (the year I was born:yes
So now I have the Nova of my dreams (and then some with the BB 454) and am restoring it. I wanted to share my experience with this site as I could not have even begun to attempt restoring it if it wasnt for this site and other members posting their builds, and restos which motivated me.
Heres the car when I found her. She sat for 7 years left to rot. And according to seller was owned by someone that had it garaged before him.
It was a good find as it was in totally original condition. Only the Engine was changed from a 6 to the Big Block. When I bought the car, it was sold to me as is. It has not been started in over 7 years and they guy did not guarentee me that it worked. But I did not care. The condition of the car body was more important. Got home and tinkered with it.
This was better than I expected! So now Heres my progress so far. I have lots of pics so I hope you guys like them. I have never done this before so with hekp from this forum, this is what I have accomplished.
I started off with the fenders. I removed them and decided to Por-15 them. There was one spot that had rust so I cut into what I could and used a great product to clean them off and kill the rust completely. It takes a long time (days) but well worth the results.
Heres the product. Wait till you see all the miracles this product has done for me!!!
Before and after.
Than used weld to seal the rust holes from the inside and outside. Than Por-15 both fenders from the inside making sure to actually por material into all nooks and crannies and letting it drain out. I primered it temporarily with spray bomb since its going to be a while before body work. From the looks of it I got it pretty good with the form.
The car was in great shape for being almost 40 yrs old. So i had to see how the floor pans looked. So i tore into the interior. It had red carpeting and I was surprised to see that it was the original!
And the floor were in great shape. So i had to make them better. I stripped them down to bare metal and used the Por-15 treatment on them. I also scraped up the old seam seal and put new seam seal in. After the seam seal I put a second wet coat of Por15.
Than I decided that I wanted to put down sound deadner over the floor and back seat area. That was alot of work!
Next I decided to repeat the process all over again with the trunk.
All the videos in this build thread has been taken down due to copyright issues on YouTube. I have created a new YouTube channel (Reborn74Nova) and all videos will be reuploaded to new channel remastered to remove copyright issues.
I have always loved the Nova ever since my father had one. When I finished restoring my other car (98 Eagle Talon) I had the itch for that v8 Muscle car sound. Than I was looking through some pictures and saw a pic of my fathers old 74 Nova. Thats when I had to have it. It took me 8+ years to find one in decent shape and with a good price tag. What made the search even harder is that I would not accept any other year but the 74. (the year I was born:yes
So now I have the Nova of my dreams (and then some with the BB 454) and am restoring it. I wanted to share my experience with this site as I could not have even begun to attempt restoring it if it wasnt for this site and other members posting their builds, and restos which motivated me.
Heres the car when I found her. She sat for 7 years left to rot. And according to seller was owned by someone that had it garaged before him.
It was a good find as it was in totally original condition. Only the Engine was changed from a 6 to the Big Block. When I bought the car, it was sold to me as is. It has not been started in over 7 years and they guy did not guarentee me that it worked. But I did not care. The condition of the car body was more important. Got home and tinkered with it.
This was better than I expected! So now Heres my progress so far. I have lots of pics so I hope you guys like them. I have never done this before so with hekp from this forum, this is what I have accomplished.
I started off with the fenders. I removed them and decided to Por-15 them. There was one spot that had rust so I cut into what I could and used a great product to clean them off and kill the rust completely. It takes a long time (days) but well worth the results.
Heres the product. Wait till you see all the miracles this product has done for me!!!
Before and after.
Than used weld to seal the rust holes from the inside and outside. Than Por-15 both fenders from the inside making sure to actually por material into all nooks and crannies and letting it drain out. I primered it temporarily with spray bomb since its going to be a while before body work. From the looks of it I got it pretty good with the form.
The car was in great shape for being almost 40 yrs old. So i had to see how the floor pans looked. So i tore into the interior. It had red carpeting and I was surprised to see that it was the original!
And the floor were in great shape. So i had to make them better. I stripped them down to bare metal and used the Por-15 treatment on them. I also scraped up the old seam seal and put new seam seal in. After the seam seal I put a second wet coat of Por15.
Than I decided that I wanted to put down sound deadner over the floor and back seat area. That was alot of work!
Next I decided to repeat the process all over again with the trunk.