72 Nova With C5 Front/Rear Suspension

[nickcornilsen]

Hi,
This build will chronicle the build of my 72 nova. I have this thread going on a couple other forums, but I see a couple similar builds here, so I thought it would be nice to swap notes.


About four 11 years ago, I happened across a corvette chassis/engine/transaxle drop-out on eBay... and that got the gears going in my head.


Pretty much since that day, I've been planning this project. Saving money... not to buy the parts, but to buy a house with a good sized shop. With the house found, I finished out the shop, and got ready for this project.


Anyway, I've owned this car since I was 15, in 2003, when it looked like this:











I painted it before I turned 16. Did all the body work, panel replacement, primer, and final paint. Had a professional help me mask the racing stripes. I was such a fresh faced young man for my first prom!





As high school came to an end, and college began, the poor old nova began to see neglect. I couldn't afford to drive it, so it got parked, and the motor was eventually pulled and used in a circle track car. And there it sat.


As the car sat, covered in dust... I looked at corvette chassis on eBay, thought about wheel choices, engine combos. All the while saving, saving saving. I needed a place to do this project. And eventually, the perfect piece of property came along. It had a 32x24 shop. It was also cheap, well located. minutes from work, minutes from downtown Portland, and it also had some kind of house or something, which turned out to be pretty nice as well.


After re-wiring the house and shop, and getting my quarterly bonus and huge tax return, I was finally financially and schedule ready to begin this project. First step, dragging the old nova out of the hay barn in Roseburg Oregon up to Portland. My dad and brother get big props here for hauling the car up for me. Even after sitting all that time, it cleaned up nice!


March 2011







Next step: Frame jigg. This thing is square to within 1/32 of an inch, and flat to within .005" per foot. I thought having the beams right under track width of the car would be a good idea. After building it, I realized this was not the case, since I can't install a wheel and tire on the rear-end without getting them caught in the wheel well. lesson for next time is to make it a bit narrower or wider.