1970 L-78 Nova Restoration; Saga of The Green Bastard

[L78_Nova]

Well the Green bastard rears it's ugly head once again. Stripping the roof revealed some significant previous repair / damage. There are many quite rough gouges from a previous strip job and an area of Very heavy filler.

I suspect the aggressive stripping caused some heat and stretching of the metal resulting in oil canning. Apparently the cure was three HEAVY blows with a soft pointed body hammer which probably tightened up the panel but then required the heavy filler.

I worked out the hammer blow dents and did my best attempt at shrinking the panel but... I realized my limits here and reached out to a professional.





Proper repair required the careful removal of the inner bracing. Which were then straightened stripped and epoxied.










Cedrik Cahill of Cahill Auto Body brought his 12" shrinker and after about an hour of work had the panel in good shape for plastic work. Money well spent !

[WILMASBOYL78]

Impressive dedication to the project...great job

-wilma

[L78_Nova]

Around this time (June July 2020) having been recently separated and with the Covid restrictions in place... There was A LOT of activity happening in the garage !

Couple shots of the BEFORE in epoxy primer






And preparations begin for a semi-gloss finish coating (two coats DTM Urethane)




And once again... as Skee Low would say "I wish I was a little bit taller".




Final job turned out well with the exception of the firewall.


For the firewall I later reshot with a further flattened topcoat.
This is the shiny version.

[L78_Nova]

Now back to Bodywork on the Roof.... A week of holidays was a full week of 12 hour days bodyworking the roof.. never said I was fast ! The weather cooperated with high temps well in the 90's every day. It was Gruelling !! (I will foreshadow that it turned out beautifully after paint)
Reinstalled inner structure



Full skin coat of Bondo (couple rounds)... followed by a full skin coat of polyester glaze (couple rounds)

Looooooots of blocking and repeats


Once I was happy with the base work it was all sealed with DP90 (a little pebbly shooting it in the heat)





Some more spot repairs and DP90 sealing...
Then a full cover with high build primer and another round of blocking

[L78_Nova]

Doors had previously been stripped hung and aligned and epoxied.
Now onto the finishing work

Several rounds of bondo, blocking, glaze, blocking






Another sealing coat of DP90 Epoxy




And High build primer

[Oldss]

Can I ask how you get DP90? I was a painter at a shop in the 1990’s. PPG at the time quite selling DP90, so we had to go to DP90LF. Of coarse, it had no adhesion to bare metal. You had to shoot a wash primer on first before the DPLF. I was surprised when you wrote that you were using DP. Thanks

[L78_Nova]

It is the DP90LF... direct to metal is OK providing mil thickness is adequate and it is not further reduced (per PPG pec sheet). Never had an issue, sticks like concrete.

[L78_Nova]

Some pics of further finishing and fit up.

[L78_Nova]

The next challenge was fitting up and body working the fenders. I wanted to hang these on the car to fit and align and find any surprises before paint. So that meant putting the subframe and rad cradle onto the body.

I figured out a way to reverse the front side of the rotisserie and be able to hold up the car by the subframe.

Doing the majority of this work alone did not make things easy. Believe me, I carried that subframe around like a horse collar several times.



Loaded onto the rotisserie

Slid under the car supported by the engine crane.

My buddy Dereck did give me a hand bolting the subframe in... and voila first mock up of the NOS fenders

[Bill Pritchard]

Great work & ingenuity