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When we last saw this 1973 Chevy Nova, the team at Muscle Car Restorations (MCR) was still exorcising the car’s body of all the hidden rust molecules. Since then, the MCR bodywork team has been fitting new quarter panels, installing mini-tubs, and a new trunk floor. The Nova is starting to look like a car once again!
All of the rusty areas have been removed. Now, there is just a little bit of careful trimming to make room for the mini-tubs and prep the remaining surfaces for new panels.
The new body panels have made a significant improvement in the overall look of the car, but what you can’t see are the improvements incorporated into the new parts. This car is going to have MUCH more power than when it left the factory, necessitating wider tires to handle all that power. Plus, there will be a complete Schwartz Performance chassis installed to help control the additional torque to the rear tires. To fit those wider tires, the car is getting a set of mini-tubs, mated perfectly with the new trunk floor and quarter panels.
You can see how much more room installing mini-tubs will allow for wider tires by placing an OEM-style, inner wheelhouse over the silver Detroit Speed mini-tub. The small, lower rear portion of the OEM tub will need to be transferred over to the mini-tub to seal the underside completely.
Cutting a car apart to this level severely weakens the entire structure, and the MCR team carefully placed the body into a jig to preserve the dimensions as much as possible. You’ll also note that the upper portion of the quarter panel still surrounds the trunk opening. There are a few reasons for this, but this is done whenever possible to give the rear section of the body added strength and preserve the trunk opening dimension during the rebuilding process.
Fitting Mini-Tubs In A Nova
It would be crazy not to take advantage of the car’s current condition and upgrade the underside to accommodate some modern amenities, like wider wheels and tires, as well as a fuel system designed to feed the most voracious of fuel injection systems. Fitting a wider tire and wheel under the back of the car is done with a set of mini-tubs from Detroit Speed. According to the team at MCR, these tubs give an extra 2-3/4 inches of clearance, which is enough to stuff a 315-sized tire out back — a significant improvement over the factory-sized wheelhouses.
The mini-tubs require the framerails to be trimmed a bit. The key when trimming good metal is to go slowly and take only as much as needed to make things fit.
The popularity of Chevrolet’s Nova means there are a vast amount of reproduction parts available for these second-generation rides, and the aftermarket is rife with products to help improve any of the car’s shortcomings. That is great news for anyone wanting to restore, rebuild, or modify one of these cars, but popularity does not ensure specificity, as pointed out by the team at MCR.
With judicious trimming, the new Detroit Speed mini-tubs mate perfectly with the remaining OEM seams. Keeping as much of the original body limits the amount of fabrication needed to cleanly join the panels. The MCR team makes filler panels to fill in and add rigidity to the trimmed areas of the framerails.
Firstly, full replacement quarter panels for a 1973 Nova are not available, but as shown in the rust removal story, the complete quarter panel, as well as the entire roof panel, needed to be removed to get access to all the rusty areas of the body. The upper “sail panel” sections, which would originally be part of the quarter panel, but are not part of the replacement panels, needed to be sourced from the same vehicle that offered its roof for the project. Replacement quarter panel skins for a 1972 Nova were ordered from Goodmark Industries and will match up to the repurposed sail panels from the donor car.
The trunk floor was carefully measured and trimmed to fit into the '73 Nova's trunk. The fuel filler section needed modifying, so the MCR team used part of the old trunk floor, and then fabricated the remaining part and welded it all to the new floor.
Also, the trunk panel specific for a 1973 Nova is not available, so a new floor panel for a 1971-72 Nova was sourced from Auto Metal Direct (AMD) and modified to work on our ’73 Nova.
Mini-Tubbing & Restoring The Nova’s Trunk
All of the rust that destroyed the body of our 1973 Nova has now been eradicated. The task at hand for MCR’s bodywork team is to rebuild the back side of our Nova with the new mini-tubs and all the necessary new panels to restore the trunk area. Since mini-tubbing the car requires going a little bit further than just rust removal, the MCR team starts by fitting the new mini-tubs to the remaining parts of the body.
The fuel tanks on 1973 Novas had a hump protruding up into the trunk. The area was trimmed for clearance, and then new panels were fabricated and welded into place. Then, the mount for the fuel tank was sourced from the old trunk floor and joined to the new trunk floor's underside.
Instead of going in with a firesuit and a chop saw, the craftsmen at MCR take care to keep as much of the OEM mounting areas for the inner and outer wheelhouses, cutting only where clearance is needed. This allows them to join the panels in very much the same way Chevy did, with a minimum of fabrication and an OEM appearance.
Since we’re making room for much wider tires, it goes to reason that the factory framerails were going to need to give up a little bit of real estate. The MCR team carefully marked how much of the framerails needed to be trimmed, and then fabricated panels to fill in and strengthen the trimmed areas of the framerail.
After everything is checked for proper fitment, the MCR artisans use a variety of welds to join the new floor to the body. The trimmed front of the floor is button-welded, and then the seam is stitch-welded to seal everything. MCR also uses spot-welders when possible to replicate how the body panels were joined at the assembly plant.
As mentioned, the trunk floor for a 1973 Chevy Nova is not available, so a new panel for a 1968-70 Nova was trimmed to fit into the available space of the ’73, making special accommodations for the wider inner wheelhouses. The trunk floor also needed to be modified to allow for the bump on the right-hand side of the ’73 Nova’s fuel tank, which is now an EFI-capable, stainless unit from Ricks Tanks. The modern tank is built to accommodate a modern fuel injection pump and sending unit.
There are a few areas that need to be built up to mate with the new tubs. The MCR team fabricates their own pieces and welds them onto the body, cleaning up the welds before installing the tubs. You can see how much of the framerail was trimmed to make room for the wider mini-tubs.
The floor needed to be raised to allow for the fuel tank. Likewise, the mount for the fuel strap needed to be reattached to the modified portion to help hold the tank in place. The MCR bodywork team makes the fabrication process look easy, but years of experience, patience, and the proper tools are all necessary to get this level of workmanship.
Installing Quarter Panels On The Nova
As the team finishes welding up all the seams and joints on the new mini-tubs and trunk floor, the focus turns to sealing up the rear portion of the body by installing new quarter and taillight panels. Of course, the finishing touch is the new trunk lid, which is an integral part of making sure everything is aligned properly, but that also uses bolts and has some adjustment. Welds are forever.
As with the trunk floor, full quarter panels are no longer available, but the MCR team has devised a clever way to just about remove any evidence of a seam. As with all the trimming done on the body once the rust was removed, the team makes very precise cuts, as it’s easier to grind a little bit away than to add metal.
Once the wheel tubs are spot-welded together, they are fitted into the body. Note the distance between the wheelhouse and the portion of the trunk floor. This needs to be filled in with the portion from the OEM inner wheel tub. Also, note how the OEM mounting joints were carefully retained to allow reusing with the new tubs.
This is particularly evident when installing the sail panel sections and quarter panels on the Nova. As you can see, rather than overlapping the panels, the MCR team uses small Neodymium magnets to hold the panels together. This allows them to cut through both layers of panels, and then carefully finish each cut so that the new panels fit precisely inside the other panels. This eliminates the typical overlap of panels and once the welds are smoothed, there is virtually no evidence of the joint.
The tubs are then welded into the body and trunk floor. New mounts are fabricated to join the inner tubs to the upper trunk panel and hinge area.
The repurposed sail panels were installed first. They came from the same vehicle that donated the new roof, but required some “extensive work” to be usable once again on this project. The sail panels mate with the remaining OEM quarter sections and reach up to the factory seam area with the roof when it is installed.
Both sail panels were rusty on the car, so a set from the roof donor vehicle was repaired and installed on our Nova. Leaving the upper portion of the quarter panel helps strengthen the rear portion of the car. And, since full quarters are not available, keeping that portion is all but a necessity.
Once the sail panels are installed, the replacement quarter panels can then be fitted and welded in place. The new seam gets trimmed and stitch welded, while the rest of the body panels get spot-welded just like Chevrolet did at the factory. The MCR team stated that the ’73 Nova quarters are not available. They used 1972 quarter skins. They work but need a little modification since the body line is slightly different. We put together a short video to show some of the techniques that the technicians at MCR use to create these incredible machines. More specifically, how they install body panels that require a minimum of body filler. Check out the video below.
With both quarter panels welded in place and the trunk and taillight panels fitted to the vehicle, this once-rusty hulk of metal is starting to look like a 1973 Nova again. With the added rigidity thanks to the trunk floor and quarter panels, and the upcoming addition of the roof panel, this body can soon be removed from the frame table and stand under its own weight once again.
Our ’73 Nova will soon get the new Schwartz Performance chassis installed to ensure everything fits as intended. Stay tuned, and we’ll keep you informed as this once-rusty ’73 Nova gets transformed into the nasty Nova we all wish we had in our garage.
