Haven't been making much progress on the Nova lately, too many other things to do and work on, like my Troy-Bilt string trimmer that ran for 30 seconds and died, to run no more, and resurrecting a Snapper push mower that has sat in my garage unused for 7 years.
I also replaced three of the florescent lights over the side of the shop where the Nova sets with LEDs, converted the old fixtures to use LED bulbs, and hung two of those in the center of the rafters. I have one more converted fixture left to hang near the front, just waiting on my niece's husband to get a free hour or so the climb the ladder and put it up. The amount of light in the shop with all those lights is great, never been that bright before. I'm also going to convert the three remaining fixtures on the north side of the shop to LEDs as soon as I can move some items on the upper deck so I can set up a step ladder and take them down.
Also, last Wednesday I had carpal tunnel surgery on my right hand, as it's been making my fingers go numb and hand ache, especially at night. That went fine, in and out in 2 hours, done with a local anesthetic.
The powder coat shop called last Friday and said that after blasting and recoating the wheels, they looked worse that the first try. Well, bah! So they are going to blast them again, and I just have to paint them. I checked on just buying new wheels, but they want $250 apiece for the bare wheels, no trim rings or center caps, so that's not going to happen.
I've been putting off installing the side molding, as I hated the idea of drilling all those holes in all that new metal, but I finally decided to get it over with and go it.
After studying a lot of pictures of Novas with the molding and getting the location pretty well nailed down, I tried laying out a tape line where the molding will go, as 1" masking take is about the same width as the molding. Try as I might, between the compound curves of the body panels and my macular degeneration that makes things in my central vision appear squiggy I couldn't get it as straight as I wanted. Then I came up with the idea of using a contractor's laser level to get a dead straight line. I picked on up on Amazon, a Klein unit for $30, that did the job. The molding passes about 3/8" under the door lock, and is pretty much centered with the top portion of the headlight eyebrow trim, so that gives me two fixed points to define the trim line. I stuck the laser level to the side of a tool box with the beam at the same height as the molding centerline under the door lock, 41 1/2", and adjusted the beam to the desired height on the front fender. I stuck tape centered on the beam at the rear of the door, and ran it to the front of the fender, keeping the laser beam centered on the tape, then did the same, running it back to the rear of the read quarter panel. There, it came out at virtually the same location as seen on the other Novas, so that's good to see.
For each piece of trim, I laid out the points where I would drill holes for either the plastic retainer clips or the wing bolts, with a spacing of about 9" and centered on the tape. I center punched and drilled all the holes, then attached the plastic clips with the supplied screws, dipped in undercoating to seal the threads and holes. I had to modify the wing bolts to get the threaded stud to be centered in the trim, not sure why they're made so they are offset in the molding.
The front molding came with only the wing bolts, I would have to take the fender off to get to some of those, so I used one only at the front and used the plastic clips on the rest of the piece. The rear piece came with two bolts, but I only used one at the rear, with clips on the rest of the piece. I can't see that it should be a problem, as the clips seem to hold the molding pretty securely.
I think the molding makes a huge difference in the looks of the car, glad I decided to put them on.
