I never liked the rear and and wrap around bumper of the MK 2 Nova's, so I set about changing it to a Mark 3 rear end. This was originally designed for Opel Manta round lights, which I had originally fitted. Subsequently I changed these out for new Ferarri 355 round lights as the Opel Manta lights were cracked and looked very weathered and dated. I also made up some aluminum slats for the lower section to break up the overall space and make it look more interesting. Then finished the look off with some twin slash cut chrome exhausts
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Making the pop-up lights was probably one of my most frustrating challenges of the rebuild. The old lights under the perspex covers were ineffective as they were too low down and the perspex covers diffused the light, plus I wanted the look of pop-up lights. This is a job I did, then redid at least 3 times until I got to where I was happy with them (eventually). Some of the photos were extracted from old VHS tape so the quality is not great. Next I tried to make covers out of perspex, again another failure. I then tried to take a mold from them, with poor results. Finally I modified the main pop-up box with fibreglass filler, then used high density foam to shape the front covers. I laid fibreglass over this and sanded it down After lots of trial and error I was eventually happy with the end result
I started by using 2 part PU foam to create a basic shape for the wiper motor cover, making use of cardboard to retain the foam. I also used cable ties to mark the position of the motor so I knew when to stop cutting back when shaping the foam Next I covered the foam I had shaped with body filler, followed by mold release wax and PVA release agent. Finally I laid down several layers of fibreglass. Then I after it cured I dug out the foam and filler to leave the fibreglass cover. Trimmed, painted and fitted with a rubber strip to finish the edges and a couple of mounting brackets
The Nova seat area is quite narrow, especially if you have dropped the floor pans. Very few (almost none) commercial reclining seats will fit in a Nova. I wanted to have recliners and found a pair of Recaro seats out of an old 3.0L Capri in the scrap yard. They were too wide to fit so I set about cutting 1 1/2 inches out of the middle and then fitting every thing back on them. The old mirrors I have on the car which were vitaloni turbo racing mirrors looked great, but they were not adjustable and wobbled around quite a lot when driving. So I decided it was time to find a better solution that gave more visibility, were remotely adjustable and were in keeping with the lines of the car. I finally settled on the shape of Buick Regal Mirrors. These were stock items that I purchased online and had sent to Singapore from the USA to work on them initially. The mirror housing shape was good but the mirror mounting was completely wrong for the Nova, so I set about re-fabricating this. Stage 1 -The first part of the job included mocking up the car windows shape and angle of the canopy out of wood (remember I'm in Singapore and my car is in the UK). The first 2 stages were completed in Singapore. Stage 2 - I mounted the mirror at the correct angle to the ground and cut away much of the original mount. I then used fibreglass filler to mock up the new mount shape to conform to the pattern of the window line. This stage also involved embedding new mounting points and threaded collars into the fibreglass as the original mounts were chopped away. Stage 3 - Final fitting and shaping was done in the UK, only minor changes were needed and I was pretty happy with the result. In these shots most of the body preparation work has been completed and its sitting mostly in primer and black guide coat to identify and high or low spots.
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David SkinnerI have been living in Singapore since 1998 and I only get to go back to the UK to work on my kit car once or twice a year, so as you can imagine progress has been slow. This blog chronicles the various jobs I do on the car each trip Archives
November 2018
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