I hate this car.
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When I support the rear of my Nova (to remove/install the rear end), I place a 6-ton jack stand under the front side of the rear frame rails where they flatten out. I tried to show a couple examples.
In the photo below, the rear frame rail and jack stand are outlined in white.
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Rear end removed
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Side View
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In the photo below, the rear frame rail and jack stand are outlined in white.
Rear end removed
Side View
Mama says, Better to be Pssssd Off than Pssssd On. Happy Birthday.
April 18th, 2022
The weather still isn't really cooperating. 29 degrees this morning, frost on windows and such. If it's not raining and cold, it's just cold and damp. Eventually this is going to turn around though. What I have in mind is getting this POS up on jackstands and yanking out the rear and suspension with it and installing new. First step will be getting it on jackstands...and maybe I'm just old and lazy or maybe the weather really is just oppressive but I haven't even managed to make it outside to get it on jackstands. Some day.
The weather still isn't really cooperating. 29 degrees this morning, frost on windows and such. If it's not raining and cold, it's just cold and damp. Eventually this is going to turn around though. What I have in mind is getting this POS up on jackstands and yanking out the rear and suspension with it and installing new. First step will be getting it on jackstands...and maybe I'm just old and lazy or maybe the weather really is just oppressive but I haven't even managed to make it outside to get it on jackstands. Some day.
May 5, 2022
I have some photos but I’m not going to post anything up at this point, nothing too exciting happening. Weather is good and I’ve finally begun
Overhaul Rear Suspension and Rear
So, I plan where to put my jackstands. Jack her up and get her on stands and remove the driveshaft. Yes I used tape on the U-joints. No I didn’t plug the transmission tail shaft YES I have a huge puddle of transmission fluid I’m looking forward to cleaning up.
Step two is eyeball everything else. Ohhhh crap, E-brake cables. Ohhh crap I didn’t take the wheels off as I had some silly plan / idea that i could disconnect everything and wheel the entire rear out from under the car. E-brake and try to get the wheels off…drivers side worked, passenger side not so much. Dropped her back on the ground and jacked up my shop light in the process…not good but it still works it’s just worse for wear.
Loosen the lugs and she’s back in the air on the stands and it’s time to remove the drums. Passenger side comes off fine but drivers side isn’t playing nice and the knock outs on the rear backing plate are non existent so I’m not backing the shoes off that way…Lots of hammering, turning, hammering and jiggling and it’s off.
Now it’s time to strip off the brake drums…blah. It would have been really slick to keep everything together just in case but whatever…the right tools for this job would have been helpful also but a pair of lineman’s pliers worked pretty well too.
Tons of dorking around with the stupid e brake cable retaining blah blah blah but they are off and I got off work about 2 hours and 20 minutes ago.
What’s left? Brake line, shocks and then…what is the best approach from there? many people spoke of undoing the front mount from the pocket with those three bolts but after doing that I’m going to need to still get the leaf off of that mount to reuse it right?
Oh also…i lied i’m going to post one photo
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LOL passenger rear shock has a bolt just dangling out there. Epical!
I have some photos but I’m not going to post anything up at this point, nothing too exciting happening. Weather is good and I’ve finally begun
Overhaul Rear Suspension and Rear
So, I plan where to put my jackstands. Jack her up and get her on stands and remove the driveshaft. Yes I used tape on the U-joints. No I didn’t plug the transmission tail shaft YES I have a huge puddle of transmission fluid I’m looking forward to cleaning up.
Step two is eyeball everything else. Ohhhh crap, E-brake cables. Ohhh crap I didn’t take the wheels off as I had some silly plan / idea that i could disconnect everything and wheel the entire rear out from under the car. E-brake and try to get the wheels off…drivers side worked, passenger side not so much. Dropped her back on the ground and jacked up my shop light in the process…not good but it still works it’s just worse for wear.
Loosen the lugs and she’s back in the air on the stands and it’s time to remove the drums. Passenger side comes off fine but drivers side isn’t playing nice and the knock outs on the rear backing plate are non existent so I’m not backing the shoes off that way…Lots of hammering, turning, hammering and jiggling and it’s off.
Now it’s time to strip off the brake drums…blah. It would have been really slick to keep everything together just in case but whatever…the right tools for this job would have been helpful also but a pair of lineman’s pliers worked pretty well too.
Tons of dorking around with the stupid e brake cable retaining blah blah blah but they are off and I got off work about 2 hours and 20 minutes ago.
What’s left? Brake line, shocks and then…what is the best approach from there? many people spoke of undoing the front mount from the pocket with those three bolts but after doing that I’m going to need to still get the leaf off of that mount to reuse it right?
Oh also…i lied i’m going to post one photo
LOL passenger rear shock has a bolt just dangling out there. Epical!
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If you can get a hose clamp on those cable retainers they come off pretty easy. If you’re getting rid of the parking brake there is one more at the firewall that will come in handy for.
yes you’ll still need your front spring pockets.
glad to see you’re making some progress.
yes you’ll still need your front spring pockets.
glad to see you’re making some progress.
is the hot ticket to unbolt the pockets from the mounts and then pull them off the spring or just leave them alone and is it possible to get the spring out with them intact?
I think you have to drop them to get the bolt out. I would leave the pockets on the springs until it's pulled out, but hopefully the bolts holding the pocket to the car come free. The j-nuts are known for breaking.
What did you do to eliminate those? Just curious. Nothing I'm trying to copy just curious is all because I really like your build.
I notice on the photo that @kimmer71 posted that the pockets aren't attached to the leaf springs. When I get a chance to work on it again I'll look at it and decide. The other ball I have up in the air is that this would be the perfect time to do subframe connectors because they go UNDER the pocket I believe. Once I get it all stripped down I'll take a look at it. I'm thinking that I might be able to bolt the rear subframe connector up, drill my hole in the floor etc. because my carpet and backseat are out and I can get them to sit where they are supposed to sit and then get the mount point welded up. I'll cross that bridge once I get to it.
So-so on the progress yesterday. Hopefully everything else comes apart pretty easily. After all, auto mechanics mostly boils down to lefty loose, righty right. I mean sure, when it comes to the drivetrain you've got some close tolerances and stuff that you need to worry about but a great majority of things really comes down to taking bolts out and putting bolts back in.
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779 Posts
I'm pretty sure both the subframe connectors my dad put in the car a long time ago and the rear framerails had front spring pockets. I remember cutting off the tangs of the the subframe connector spring pockets and my dad welding the new rear frame rails to the flat of the subframe connectors that was left.
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Sorry buddy, I missed that somehow.
@kimmer71 no worries brother, I 100% appreciate the feedback, knowledge and wisdom that is here along with people's willingness to chime in and help out.
May 9th, 2022
It seriously looks like spring has finally sprung here. Today we are looking at temperatures pushing towards 70 and this week we should see 80. What does that mean for the H8FUL Nova? I need to climb back under her and disconnect the brake lines and then work on unbolting the suspension to pull that entire thing out and develop a plan to get the new rear and suspension in...but as always I overthink and overcomplicate things...
So there's a guy on youtube called SS396RAT who did the Calvert setup and also did a shock relocation kit. Yep, I'm going to do the shock relocation kit at the same time as I'm doing this because it makes sense to me. It's one less thing I'll need to dork around with later but I feel like I'm going to have a few "moving parts" on this part of the build to include the subframe connectors and such. I havent' worked it all out in my head but I'm thinking I can probably tack the front subframe deals on to get the subframe connectors up and into place and when I do the shock relocation kit I can have this entire thing rolling and can roll it out of the garage and get it up on stands and get a mobile welder to swing by and weld everything up for me. If I do all of the prep work and such I would expect that he could show up, weld everything pretty quickly and be out of my driveway within an hour or two. I think I'll call the guy now to get thinking about what needs to be done.
May 9th, 2022
It seriously looks like spring has finally sprung here. Today we are looking at temperatures pushing towards 70 and this week we should see 80. What does that mean for the H8FUL Nova? I need to climb back under her and disconnect the brake lines and then work on unbolting the suspension to pull that entire thing out and develop a plan to get the new rear and suspension in...but as always I overthink and overcomplicate things...
So there's a guy on youtube called SS396RAT who did the Calvert setup and also did a shock relocation kit. Yep, I'm going to do the shock relocation kit at the same time as I'm doing this because it makes sense to me. It's one less thing I'll need to dork around with later but I feel like I'm going to have a few "moving parts" on this part of the build to include the subframe connectors and such. I havent' worked it all out in my head but I'm thinking I can probably tack the front subframe deals on to get the subframe connectors up and into place and when I do the shock relocation kit I can have this entire thing rolling and can roll it out of the garage and get it up on stands and get a mobile welder to swing by and weld everything up for me. If I do all of the prep work and such I would expect that he could show up, weld everything pretty quickly and be out of my driveway within an hour or two. I think I'll call the guy now to get thinking about what needs to be done.
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