Doing good work. Keep it up! I know it's a little late, but I'm glad to see your daughter doing well.

Congrats on the child. Glad she is doing well.

Thanks!

Another quick update!

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The shop got the laser cutting done pretty quick for me. So I assembled it. I tacked it all together before fully welding to make sure the fitment was good.


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Here it is mocked up to the pedal, so I could build the link to the pedal.

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And now it's mocked up on the firewall. The pic from inside the car shows the bellows for the brake rod, hopefully that'll keep the interior nice and fume free! Now that I know it all works, I have some finish welding and grinding to do before paint.

I got the driver fender welded up. I need to work on it a bit so it fits the contour of the new door... then I have some rework to do to the rear of the door and the quarter panel... panel gaps to adjust, a trunk lid to fit... on and on it goes!

Update Time!

After getting the brake system bias bar completed above, I moved on to the fenders and doors.

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Removing the door skin was easy - take a angle grinder to the folded over edge, make long sweeping passes until I broke through the door skin. After that, it folded right off! Once the skin was off, I had the shell sandblasted and epoxy primered.

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Here's the skin going on the shell. the AMD Skin fit decently, but I did have some issues where the door handle attaches.

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Does anyone know what kind of sealer to use in the corner of the door opening?

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Passenger fender patch. This turned into a bit of a debacle. I had to chase high spots, low spots, the door gap started changing... I had to step away for a few days to reset on it. In the end I got it decent enough where I don't need more than 1/8" of filler anywhere, and the gap is good.

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I had to slice along this body line and move it up to make the contour work right.

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The driver door fit decently, except that the arc between the upper body line and lower line is too long relative to the quarter panel. I'll have to add a little metal to the top of the quarter panel line and the bottom line using some round rod.

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Got the shop relatively cleaned up, so it's time to step back and take it all in! You can see I made a wheel change - got some Forgestar wheels with a custom offset to tuck under the car another 1/4".

Not shown is having the fenders sandblasted and primered.

Shifting gears, I decided I needed to complete all heavy metal work in the interior. That really just means the radio bezel, center console mounts, and making sure the dash fits.

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I decided to make the console from sheet metal. I may live to regret it... but I think it came out pretty well. I'll use some filler to smooth it, then put a layer of foam and vinyl over it.

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Dash panel test fitted!


At this point, I decided to cut the car off the frame jig, for the first time in 8 years, 10 months. I decided to get the tires mounted up so I could roll it around when I get a little further.


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Things were slow at work, so I designed something to make my life easier for installing and removing the transmission.


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I have not yet welded this all together. I'll use a powered winch to raise and lower it.

It looks good. Nice trans jack.

I suppose I'm due for an update! The Covid thing has given me a bit more time to work on the car, so I've made some great progress!

After the last post, I went into full body work mode.

My OEM trunk was too rusty to save, so I got a new one. They guy who had it before really piled on the featherfill sprayable body filler, so I used a heat gun and a razor to knock it down. Then, an 80 DA to profile the surface.

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I then put a layer of Southern Polyurethane Epoxy over everything. I did the fenders a while back in White epoxy.

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A couple weeks of body work ensued. I blocked the black epoxy, and took care of all kinds of little dings and waves at this point.

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After the body work, I did 2 coats of White epoxy,
Followed by 3 coats of Southern Polyurethane's regular build 2K primer.

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I got the whole car blocked out flat to 400 grit without getting through the White epoxy! Minimizing film build is good, so I'm happy with that.

After blocking, I replaced all the plastic sheeting, and got ready for base and clear!

I put down a coat of White epoxy, reduced 50%, then 3 coats of Southern Polyurethane Orange base. Seemed like everything was covered in 2 coats though. I used SPI's Universal clear.

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I made sure to make the door window frames black, I've seen novas where they left them orange with a 2 tone look, and it comes out kind of odd looking.

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Suspension, Wheels and tires:

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First time it's been out of the shop in 9 Years, 2 months!

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Congrats, Nick! I missed the update where you got the car on the ground and now it's outside. That's great. Hope Jody is able to get the pic issue resolved so we can see it.

Got the pictures fixed! One little typo copied and pasted....

Looks good orange and black always a good combination.