John's 1971 Nova
Project
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
Mini-Tub
Floorpan
Headliner
Saving Weight
Message Board
10/14/02 Exhaust, Rearend, misc. details
Here's some pictures of the new 9" rear end and the caddy disc brake setup.
9/2/02 - Back Seat, Carpet
Time to get the interior put back in.
I started with new carpet from J & W Nova. This was a fun job fitting the carpet around the cage tubing. To cut the holes out, I used tin snips (works better than razor blade) and cut a line from the edge of the carpet to the outside edge of the tubing, then pushing down on the carpet around the tubing a cut a little at a time and wrapped the carpet around the circle. I ended up with what would look like a letter "P". It turned out looking pretty good, it's hard to see the seam with black carpet.
The carpet I got from J & W I wasn't 100% happy with, it was supposed to be pre-molded to fit, but wasn't as close fitting to the floor pan curves as what I was expecting. The carpet however was good quality. I had to strip a lot of the jute padding from the back of the carpet to work with it and get it to lay flat. I ended up using some spray adhesive in some areas, and when it was all done it turned out nice looking.
9" Rear End
Here's a pic of the rear leaf spring sliders from Landrum, I made mounts for them just inboard of the rear frame.
Rear end is finished except for the brackets and paint. It's got 3.25" Dia. axle tubes and a Moser back brace.
06/13/02
Turbo 400 Swap
It's been a while since I updated this page and lots of changes have been made since April. First I finally got the 4 speed pulled out and the Turbo 400 installed. This went really well except I found out the reproduction crossmember that I bought on Ebay was built wrong. It was over 1 1/2" off to the right and short by about 1/2". Turns out I'm not the only one that's gotten a bad crossmember lately, friend of mine got one that was made the same way. In addition, the mounting tab itself was welded very poorly to the crossmember, it didn't take much to grind the welds down and pull it off. If you buy one of these Turbo 400 crossmembers for a 1st Gen. Camaro or 3rd Gen Nova, be aware that there is probably a bunch of these bad crossmembers for sale out there.
James Roberts told me he found a good source for T400 crossmembers that will fit correctly, he got his from Classic Industries, GM P/N 03912573. (Thanks James...)
To fix the problem I made a new mounting tab and welded it up. Fits perfect now and the transmission is centered in the driveshaft tunnel. I used a poly locking style transmission mount from Performance Suspension.
Oh, by the way I did try something different getting the transmission installed this time. In my younger years I used to set the transmission on my stomach and lift it into place and hold it with my legs. I didn't think I could do that this time with the 400, so I made me a transmission jack (more or less) and man, let me tell you that's a "lot" easier than trying to bench press one of those things and put it in. I took the round jack plate off, drilled and tapped the top of the jack for a pair of 3/8-16 bolts, then cut me out a piece of 1/2 plywood to match the bottom of the tranny pan (about 12" x 15"). Then I bolted the plywood to the jack, added some spacers to clear the bolt heads, stuck the tranny on there and tied it to the plywood with some tie down straps. This worked GREAT, just put it under the car and jacked it up, went right in, no hassle, no sore chest, etc. Everything lined up great and I didn't have to fight it, didn't take but about 30 minutes!
Rollbar Installed
Got the S & W 8 Point Rollbar installed. This took a lot longer than I figured it would getting everything to fit just right. Here's a picture of the back of the car with everything all in place. I used their "Seat Saver" bars so that I can reinstall the back seat, although you'd have to be a contortionist to get back there now. The bars are tied to the top of the subframe connectors. If I can remember I'll add some pictures of the rear mounting points soon. One note, I didn't find an easy way to avoid having to remove my door rests with the S & W kit. I decided I'll just make me a set of custom door panels and make something for the door pulls instead of using the stock ones.
Lot's of people have asked me about the floor insulation that I'm using. This stuff is Insul-Tek from Juliano's $45 a roll. It's not near as heavy or expensive as the dynomat stuff, this is a light weight closed cell foam - about 4lbs per roll and I used about about a roll and a half on my car. It's real easy to cut with either a razor blade or scissors. I used 3m Headliner Spray Adhesive to attach it to the floor.
My neighbor got me the phone number for a lower cost insulation that looks just like the Juliano's Insul-Tek stuff, it's from ESP, Inc. located in PA, 717-624-3581. They sell it around $25 roll at car shows, much better price than Juliano's and looks to me to be the same stuff.
In this picture you can also see the new bucket seat mounts I made out of square tubing. I used a full width piece for the front mounts so I would have an easy attachment point for the center racing belt. The B & M Pro Stick is installed and that console is a "Command Center" from Turbo Action.
Ol' Blue gets New Shoes
Finally decided on the tire and wheel combination that I want to use and got a set of Centerline Convo-Pro's. They are 15x4 in the front with P205/70-15 "Patriot" brand (made by Cooper I think) tires. These are a "lot" lighter than the Corvette Rally wheels. Unfortunately I forgot to weigh them before I got the tires mounted.
The rear rims are 15x10 with a 5" offset and the tires are Mickey Thompson ET Streets, 30x12.5x15. The cross section measurement was way off, these things ended up after mounting about 13.5 cross section and are going to be a tight fit, they definitely fill the rear wheel wells. I'm going to try and make them work, but in hindsight I wish I had got the 28" diameter ones, these baby's are TALL.
The weld in subframe connectors are going to give me lots of spring clearance with these tires. Got room to spare in this department. So now I've got the rear tires, I can get my measurements for the rearend width and start getting that work completed.
Here's a side view of the new tires and rims....
4/16/02
Subframe Connectors
Here's the new Moroso weld in subframe connectors installed and welded in. Moroso says they "must be" used with their formed rear frame rails, but I used them with the stock ones. I don't see a reason why they won't work perfect for what I'm doing. If you were doing a full backhalf on the car, you would want to use the frame rails but the stock rails will give me the clearance I need for now. The only question I have now is what to do about the rear spring mounts. I'm either going to use offset shackles or a fabricated spring sliders. Spring clearance is no longer going to be a problem and the car is now fully tied together front to back.
Cleaning up the floorboards was a lot of work, that required lots of time with an angle head grinder and wire wheel. In this picture I'm in the process of running my battery cable and the fuel line.
Manual Steering Box
The manual steering box is installed, didn't do anything to it except clean and paint. I used Plasti-Kote #285 Cast Iron Grey on it with a coat of clear. Looks better than new I think. The manual box (19lbs) was a 12 lb. weight savings over the power steering box (31lbs), and that just the box and pitman arm, I probably saved another 5-10lbs with the removal of the power steering pump, brackets and lines. This picture also shows the brake lines, the flex lines are from a 1985 Buick Rivera which have 3/16" hard line on one side and the correct fitting for the Malibu calipers on the other. I had to modify the bracket at little where the flex lines connect to the hard lines, just a few minutes with a file to grind new slots for the corresponding tabs on the brake line fitting was all it took.
Turbo 400
It's got a TCI full manual reverse valve body with transbrake, Midwest 10" 4000 stall converter and a TCI deep pan. I bought this tranny used from a local racer, it's supposed to have the good clutches and stuff on the inside. Crossing my fingers and hoping it will work well.
2/25/02
Front Suspension Rebuild - 2" Drop Spindles and Moroso Trick Springs
While I was working on the floorpan replacement I've also been working on the front end. I had a bit of a problem getting the shocks out when taking it apart, on both shocks I broke the clip nuts trying to take the shocks out.
Well I found out that you cannot remove the front spring with the shock still in there (shock top loose, 1 bolt in bottom), the spring catches on the shock and you can't pull it out even with the arm swung down a long way.
I fought it for a while and finally gave up, so I got out the torch and nuked the spring, that did the trick. For those of you that like to keep track of what things weigh:
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Front drum, brake shoes, spindle 41lbs
(Complete assemble plus grease and some dirt) - Disc Rotor, bearings, shield and Superior 2" drop spindle 36lbs
- Stock GM Disc Caliper, shoes and bolts: 9lbs
- Almost complete disc brake combo (36+9): 45lbs (missing a few bolts and the spindle lock nut & cap which wouldn't weight but a few ounces)
The difference between disc and drum isn't as much as I thought it would be, only approximately 4lbs more. If I changed to aluminum calipers the disc setup would actually be lighter, but not sure about rotating weight - I suspect the disc setup would be slightly heavier, but it's not a lot.
Here's a picture of the superior dropped spindles with the Moroso springs. If found that the springs seated best if you put the flattest end of the spring down.
I also installed Energy Suspension Polygraphite bushings and new upper and lower ball joints.
What I learned was it's a lot easier to burn the old bushings out then trying to press the whole thing out of the control arm. But don't bother burning the exposed rubber ends, instead heat the center of bushing shell with a propane torch and get it hot. After a while you'll hear a hissing sound and eventually some liquid rubber will start oozing out of the joint. After awhile more the rubber goes nuts and will start spewing out of the ends, a little later the entire bushing will just pop out on the ground. This part is fun, Justin had to join me in burning bushings, he got a kick out of it.
After getting the rubber centers out I first tried cutting the shell lengthwise with a hacksaw cut through the center of it, then pressing it out with a hammer, when you do that it's hard to keep from cutting into the a-arm using this method but it worked. It worked a lot better by just getting my air chisel and letting it drive on the bushings, that seemed to be the easiest way. To install the bushings I just got a few pipe fittings, some 1/2" all thread and some thick washers - I had to put a temporary spacer in between the bottom control arm holes to keep from collapsing the metal (a socket works good) when pulling them into place.
Of course I couldn't wait to sit it back on the ground to see how it was going to sit with the new 2" drop spindles. I've been told that the front will very likely continue to settle over the next week or so, so it may end up being slightly lower.
The Moroso wheel studs that were installed were a lot longer than stock, so now my Rally wheel caps won't fit over the studs. Not a big problem as I'm planning on switching to lightweight aluminum wheels soon. The longer studs are required by many drag strips when you run the aluminum wheels with the thicker than stock centers.
The next part of the project involved replacing the stock drum/drum master cylinder with something that would work for a manual disc/drum or a disc/disc brake system. After reading a lot of different web pages about this swap, I learned that about a 1" bore Master Cylinder would be required. Since I'm trying to save weight from the car, I went with a manual S10 aluminum master cylinder from a 1985 Chevy S10, Wagner PN R105801 ($41 including core charge). This master cylinder has a 24mm (.954) bore and has a quick take up piston that should provide a higher pedal with this small bore cyl. I did look at using the Mopar aluminum master cylinder (Wagner R108168) but that one doesn't match up well on the mounting bolt holes. The S10 master cylinder will require that you enlarge the hole in the firewall, it's rear diameter is about .25" bigger than the stock Nova master cylinder. However, it does match the mounting studs perfectly.
The downside to using the S10 master cylinder is the pushrod hole is very shallow which could allow the brake pushrod to fall out easily. This shallow pushrod hole I believe is common to all late model aluminum master cylinders that have the quick take up piston, both manual and vacuum models.
Here's why - This is a picture of the quick take up piston, see the notch where the arrow is? That section is only about .56" diameter. If you drill the pushrod hole deeper, the wall thickness would be too thin.
Since drilling the hole deeper is out of the question, I made a "pushrod saver" bracket that attaches to the firewall to prevent the pushrod from falling out if the master cylinder sticks or the pushrod gets too loose.
I made two brackets, the first one I made was too close to the pedal and interfered with the pushrod and the pushrod clevis. The second one I made which worked much better places the retaining hole close to the rear of the master cylinder. It's made from a piece of 3/4" mild steel (had some laying around) with a bend in it. This one I believe is going to work good and makes it impossible for the push rod to fall out. Here's a picture of the pushrod guide installed.