66 Nova SS Project

[byndbad914]

then the fun stuff - started working all the sheet metal which is something I have never done before. Peanut gallery can feel free to sit this one out - I figure this out as I go and when I feel it is good enough, that's as far as it's going to go regardless of whatever snarky comment could be made. I bend things on my leg, over a tire, tack it in at whatever temp and speed won't blow holes thru it, so forth. I am considered a pro at some things, this isn't gonna be one of 'em anytime soon.

started on the wheel tubs in the rear to widen the factory stuff enough to fit the 335s. it looks as good in person as the photos so good thing it is in the trunk filled in all the areas I hacked out as well.

[byndbad914]

BTW, there will be a ton of seam sealer purchased at some point in the future haha.

Interior floors are a mix of screw in panels and welded panels. The main "floor boards" in front of the seats I will keep removable in case I ever need to do some surgery on the car or get under the dash with it up on the lift. Firewall has all welded in panels, some are thick like where feet will be since I like having them should things go wrong. Panels under the seats cuz I like my testicals as much as I like my feet, maybe a bit more Pulled off keeping the factory center tunnel so the console will still fit and look stock-ish.

[byndbad914]

more pix

[byndbad914]

started on the dash. Some may recall I had built the chassis to be able to lift the body off to final weld the cage and paint the chassis separately, but frankly I decided that ain't gonna happen without it taking another 10 years, so I just decided to start finishing it and will just cut holes in the roof to final weld the cage or reskin it like everyone else does.

So in goes the dash. I noted back in 2019 I was going to set it back and wrap it around the cage. Yeah, I warped it a bit welding it back together cuz it's so thin, but that can be "fixed" when it comes time to paint it. No matter what, bondo cures all ailments if it can't be heated and hammered out by a better skilled body guy.

I did the cut thru the glove box so I could use the glove box door hinge to reset the gaps and make sure it would fit right after install.

[byndbad914]

s'more of the dash. between my knees, a spare tire, and whatever random tubing I had laying around, got the endcaps to blend pretty nicely around the roll bar and left enough gap that the door seals will still fit onto their lip/seam.

there still needs to be a little work to tightly close out to the cage and so forth, but that is minor stuff I will deal with just before I am actually ready to paint. Main focus now is to just get this thing blasting up and down the road in the next couple months. will have to wear my helmet without a windshield so the neighbors will likely think I am "special".

if there is any random shots with underwear in them, hey, rags is rags and I have no shame

[byndbad914]

rear seat area - I am hell bent to keep the option open to install a factory rear seat when that day comes. will have to be modded for the wheelwells or just all made from scratch, but I have kept the lower pan and the rear package tray (or whatever it's called) with the seat hangers. Made creating a removable closeout panel a total PITA tho'.

the first pic shows a couple sh!t panels that are what happens when it's late after 10hrs of thrashing, making it up as you go gets a bit hustled, then you see later pics with a much better idea the next morning. People scoff at the little tacks, but it was a complete MF'er to get those little panels cut out, so bad ideas make bad mornings.

then a couple shots of the shop after a solid 2.5 wks of thrashing (pix taken Jan 3rd) and go back to that first shot I posted with the car up on the lift around Thanksgiving. It isn't getting any better as I keep going... anybody think I can salvage that wheelbarrow?

[byndbad914]

threw the front together a bit with the bumper and got it on the scales to start doing the frequency math to pick springs to then be able to order shocks from Penske that match that spring selection. This little piggy may need to go to market - fricken tubing adds safety and rigidity but it adds weight in equal amounts. Good news is with the big engine setback and rear mounted transaxle, it is right at 50/50. Reality is it might get a bit heavier percentage on the nose because the hood was off (carbon fiber, so not burly like the stocker, but not zero either), the grill, etc. But interior is going to all go right in the center.

That said, this is going to hit 3200 lbs pretty fast and likely keep going. That Porsche I had was just under 2800 lbs complete with fluids and track ready, so this car is going to feel sluggish. But I ain't getting younger so prolly will be a welcome change - that car was a blast but a total handful at the same time with the power to weight ratio it had and much shorter wheelbase.

pay no attention to cross weight - that will all get sorted once the adjustable shocks replace the solid rods it sits on now

[byndbad914]

so the first step for weight savings in this round of work is to get a lithium battery and start thinking about the wiring. I need to be a bit careful on wiring since I will need to strip this car completely to finish weld, paint, etc.

I bought an American Autowire kit for the car back when this all started. It is not quite as advertised which I will get to. We have a spare bedroom where I can jam without firing up all my studio equip which is now where I exploded wiring everywhere. There is a fair amount of wiring that I will be deleting but I knew that and that is easy to deal with. The engine harness is laying around the corner but that is one that will get pared way down since my ignition stuff is inside the car for example.

What blew my mind is that there is very little in this kit that was preassembled, cuz apparently there was crazy variation in the wiring of a 66 Nova from one to the nexst? Did the line workers build the harnesses for each car one-at-a-time? WTH.

[byndbad914]

now for the rant - I have to have at least one each time I work on the car. First thing I thought is I would install the instrument cluster wiring cuz that should just be plug and play for the most part. Or... not at all. I was losing my shizzle. Let's start with the fun stuff - check out the label on the bag in the first image. Let's pick out the things that are easy to poke at:

1. is it "Factory Fit" if I have to cut the wires to length and install all the end connectors in my spare bedroom?
2. Do you make wiring easy?
3. The bag says loose pc kit in the title... prolly not going to be something that is ready to install, which would be easy, and maybe even all built at a factory to the original wiring confirguration aka factory fit.

Interesting enough, when I went online to see if there were better wiring diagrams I could zoom for my old eyes to read, I found there were updates, which brings me to the 2nd image now: apparently they got enough feedback to remove anything about factory fit and them making wiring easy! This was the only chuckle I had during the cluster wiring process.

then we get to the little F'ing connectors I had to cut off a strip, get into my crimper tool with old hands and not sure it would have been much easier as a younger man, and crimp them successfully. This took a couple nights because within about 15 minutes I would go thru all the swear words I know in English, Spanish, and French and a mangling of those words together, and then would transition to the "make up words" phase. It was appropriate that "A Christmas Story" was on a month ago with the Dad in the basement. Yeah, like that.

Then finally when I got to the gas gauge: the 90deg connector to use was made undersized. Note the unused, different 90 on the left and the one I needed with the undersized holes. More cursing as I walked to the garage and got a couple solderless connectors to circumvent that problem.

Final image I assume is a factory fit wiring harness. I put bulbs in everything and used the battery to verify all the wiring worked and they lit up. I forgot there is 11 bulbs total when I bought a pack of 10 at O'Reilly, so the clock had to wait a day. Turns out it doesn't work, which I expected, but sucks cuz those ain't cheap. We'll see how the fuel gauge wiring goes once this gets into the car along with all the other wiring - I did buy a new gas gauge a decade ago as I knew I was going to care about that.

[byndbad914]

finally this weekend got a day to mess with starting battery and relay install while waiting on supplies. I will be running two separate 200A relays - one solely to drive the starter, the other as a "main" relay to power everything else. I am waiting on connectors and 6ga wire to show up at the gate.

I will be running 1/0 cable from the battery to the relays. Then the starter relay will run 1/0 to the starter. This long run will only be hot when the key is switched to start. otherwise, it will be dead which is the safest way to do this. Makes overall wiring a bit tougher, but mo' betta.

From the main relay I will run 6ga wire to a 175A mega fuse right by the battery, then another 6ga run up to the dash area where I will power the fuse box and a 6 relay panel (that I need to get in gear and get on order).

The alternator will run a completely separate 6ga wire back to the battery and go thru its own 175A mega fuse.

Kill switch will activate the low side of the main relay and will in no way be wired with the alternator. Even I have made the mistake in my younger days of wiring the alternator in with the main feed, which means if the car is running and you hit the kill switch, the alternator can keep the car running since it is wired in with the fuse panel and you don't actually need a battery to keep it running once it's running.

So here is a pretty rudimentary start to the battery tray that will hold the battery, relays, and mega fuses. That's it for now but I intend to keep plugging away over the next few months of weekends getting this thing going.