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I've had this shell for 13 years, got the chassis from Autoweld probably 2 years ago, had the body media blasted and now I am finally getting started on it. Started bracing the body tonight so I can cut the floor out for the full chassis. Then will come the Chassisworks 14 point Chromoly cage. I have quarter skins for it that I will need to stretch the wheelwells on. I am shaving the driprails and eliminating the wing windows and I am debating whether or not to do a 1" chop on the front of the roof. I hope starting a build thread will give me the kick in the ass I need.

 

[Redrider66SS]

you sure got your work cut out for you on this nova. just me but i wouldn't cut the roof they look great just the way they sit now. an for just 1'' thats alot of fab an fit. keep the pics coming i always enjoy seeing the 2nd gens coming back to life.

 

[chevylover]

you sure got your work cut out for you on this nova. just me but i wouldn't cut the roof they look great just the way they sit now. an for just 1'' thats alot of fab an fit. keep the pics coming i always enjoy seeing the 2nd gens coming back to life.

I'm leaning towards not cutting the top. It would add a huge amount of work. I have to decide before the cage goes in.

 

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Made a little progress. Got the majority of the floor roughly cut out. Now I need to go around the perimeter and tackle all the spot welds. I'm leaving the wheeltubs, seat brace and part of the firewall for now to give it some more strength until I get the frame welded in.

 

[JMotulski]

Looking good man. Keep it up

 

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Finally back at it after months of wife mandated house projects. I thought the tail panel was a bit flimsy to mount the frame rails to so I cut out the lower portion and welded in a Piece of 2 x 4 tube. Bottom of frame rails line up with the bottom of this tube. This will also give me a nice place for bumper mounts. Got the frame all trimmed to fit and I will just tack it in place while I build the cage and then drop the whole frame/cage out the bottom for tig welding so I can do it all in a comfortable position on a rotisserie.

 

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Couple of more pics with the frame fitted.

 

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Making some progress. Got all the outriggers fitted and tacked in place. Got the main hoop, backbrace and first of the rear braces in. Just tacking the whole cage together, then pulling it out and putting it on rotisserie for comfortable welding. I was able to weld the backbrace on the bench though.

 

[kimmer71]

That is some great looking work! Really nice.


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[BLYOTH]

That a lot nice of fab work. Good thing you got a pre fab chassis. I guess you decided not to do the top chop. Not sure how tall you are but to me the hard tops are pretty short already for my 6'3" body.

 

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Yeah, I'm 6'4" but that wasn't my determining factor. It was just going to add way too much work and I want to get this thing moving along and done. I'll still shave the driprail and do 1 piece glass.

 

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Took me all day today to make the x brace but i'm happy with how it came out.

 

[kimmer71]

Nice! I thought i had a-lot of bars in my car! Cage work really is a form of art. For one of my tricky cuts, i used a piece of pvc pipe to rough it up. Hate the thought of screwing up a length of DOM tube. Nice mill! What are you using to bend with?


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On the x brace I made that tricky cope on a short piece of tubing then wrapped it in paper and trimmed paper so I had a template to transfer to good tube. Same paper turned inside out gave me the opposite tube cope. I also took that short sample cope and another short piece with a fishmouth and connected them with a cardboard tube to get a perfectly fitting sample that I could copy. I'm using a Chassisworks cage, but I don't like the side bars so I will be remaking those with a JD2 bender. We'll see how that goes.

 

[chevylover]

Got the side bars made, I'm really happy with how they came out. The 3 bends being on different planes was a real challenge. The first image is the the one that came from Chassisworks that I just wasn't happy with.