1977 Chevy Nova - Disco Nova Part 3

They say you can't remove the air-conditioning box from a GM firewall without unbolting the passenger fender. They lie. When you're willing to maim, the suckers come right out. Welcome the return of The Tool, Car Craft's infamous Sawzall. You don't really need it, but that and a pry bar of unusual size make the job so much more entertaining. It gives you that feeling of dominion over the automobile.

Here's that tidy caption we warned you about: it covers two days of work. After the pressure-wash and A/C stripping, we unbolted the steering box and brake booster and some other junk that would never return. Next, we scraped and wire-brushed the engine compartment for about six hours before hiding some tiny holes with Everglass reinforced body filler left over from the May paint story. Then we hosed it down with some also-leftover self-etching primer. Only after lots of masking came the semi-flat black. We took the time to do it right, because we'll probably never do it again.

In the name of cost savings, we told you in the May issue that we were going to replace our shiny Mickey Thompson ET Drag wheels with the steelies that came on the Nova, at least until the car deserves the investment. We prepped our rallys for some fresh slicks by fogging them with aluminum wheel paint. They came out really, really badly. We should have sandblasted them and used more of that good primer. McGean tells us he's better than this, but we'll get over it.

NHRA rules require that all the holes in the firewall be filled. We took the easy way out when blocking the gaps left from ditching the air conditioning. Rather than welding them up, we made a cardboard template in a shape that blocked all the holes from the backside of the firewall, and then duplicated it from a sheet of 18-gauge aluminum. We riveted the aluminum in place and used black RTV silicone as a seal around all the firewall voids.

We slash junk out of our way for more than just entertainment and simplicity. Our Longacre scales showed that the parts we've razed from the Disco so far weighed 84 pounds. Most of that is off the nose-including the air conditioning and the front swaybar-none of it will be replaced, and we've only just begun to gut. If Alex the shop dog gets more ink, he's going to need an agent.

We took our trans to a shop that promised "bench rebuild, $179," but it walked out for $210 in cash. At least they gave it three swipes of cheesy chrome paint and returned it without the spring clip on the governor cap and with a bunch of water in the pan. Lucky we found all this out by installing a B&M Racing Transpak, which is a step up from a Shift Improver Kit because it has a Competition mode with manual upshift and downshift control. We were able to clean most of the mayo out of the pan, and hopefully this cheapy TH350 will work OK. There's only one way to find out. Coming soon.