Spring 2001: a fresh start

After a long winter it was time to get back to work on the Nova.

This is the way the motor had been sitting for quite a while. It has an Edelbrock 1405 carb with electric choke kit but it still needs some attention.

Some detail work like painting the water pump, new valve covers and oil pan and a few other items and it's a lot closer.

Then Steve started cleaning up the tranny. Carburetor cleaner is great for messes like this.

Then a coat of self-etching primer and....

a little aluminum paint makes this puppy look all nice and shiny. The shift kit goes in next.

We installed a Stage II B&M TransPak. That otta provide for some nice crisp shifts.

And finally, a pretty, finned chrome pan with drain plug.

After a while, it was time to wake sleeping beauty.

And tow her the long, long distance (about half a block) to the garage.

Steve's wife Ruth and her sister Terresa were the co-pilots for the dangerous journey. You can see the terror on their faces.

Aha! Another inmate at the Chevy Asylum!

Steve really gets into this painting thing. And the fumes ain't bad either...or is that ether?

We put the tranny on a jack and are preparing to bolt it up to the motor here.

But first the B&M Torkmaster converter was installed.

And a couple of other things...like the frame mounts. We used a 9/16ths wrench taped to a stirring stick to hold the retaining nuts in place.

And the dipstick, cooling lines, detent cable and vacuum modulator line (not shown in this pic) were installed before dropping the motor in. Makes it a LOT easier than trying to do it underneath the car.

Finally the motor and transmission were lowered into place. It took a little fighting to get things lined up, but not too bad.

The Dynomax headers were another story. The passenger side fell into place. The driver's side required loosening the motor mounts, jacking the motor up and removing the clamshell from the block before we could slide the header past the steering box. It was a pain.

Then we found out that the Corvette "snowflake" manifold wasn't compatible with the Accel HEL distributor. I ground it down a little bit and could get the distributor stabbed, but it still didn't allow enough movement to adjust the timing. He ended up trading the Vette manifold for a Weiand dual plane unit. That will be the next installment.

Next page: Putting things together.

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