Slow but steady progress…

Wow… I didn’t realize how long it’s been since we got the Nova back home, and how little I’ve got done since then. We’ve been making progress, but it’s been slow going. So far we’ve got the trunk floor and wheel tubs painted, trunk bars painted, did a bunch of cleanup and painting on the bottom of the car.

The project that’s taken quite a while was the dash. It was sanded down to bare metal – like 6 layers of paint on that sucker, cleaned up and repainted. That little project has been something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time as the old paint was nasty and had a lot of scratches in it. Painting it was a lot of fun because every time I rattle can painted it, the can no matter what would “spit” and put drops on the paint job. So, had to let it dry a few days, then sand the drops back down and redo it. I need to get me one of those
HVLP Spray Guns like Eastwood Sells. Anyway, finally I called it “Good enough for a race car” last night, time to move on to the next project and quit screwing around with it.

If anyone’s curious, I used Rustoleum BBQ Grill Paint, which is virtually the same color as their Satin Black, which is close to the OEM color. Why BBQ Paint? That’s all they had at Wally World, and it was the same color as the satin, so it was close enough!

While I was at it, I completely sanded/scrapped/wire brushed under the dash and repainted everything under there. What a mess, but it sure looks a lot better now. I also did a bit of weight removal on the brake pedal mount – got a whole whopping .7 lbs out of it. But hey, after you’ve done all the easy to get weight removal things, what’s left is these little 1/2 lb areas here and there, which over time add up – I hope. I can thank my friend Mike Peters for corrupting me with the weight removal obsession.

My current project is getting the back window out, and it’s been so much fun. Apparantly the last guy that painted the car deceided to use a bunch of silicone in and under the trim, making it very difficult to remove. Took me 2 hours last night to get one piece off. Hopefully this weekend I can get that finished up, the rear window removed and start working on cleaning up the window channel. Next will come painting the back deck and getting started painting the Roll Cage on the interior.