1967 Casper Nova Part III

Previously on search and restore parts. Flew in after the phone calls were made as the 67 Chevy two began its transformation from a tired old rust bucket to a shiny new street machine.

Today, the family gets a sneak peek at the new power plant,

followed by assembly then pay. Right. Tim.

It's been a busy two weeks on the search and restore set

where a lot of progress has been made on our first project.

We sent the call out the viewers and you responded big time. Yeah, I think we got over 50,000 applicants so far in these books right here.

Our team is looking for worthy candidates with compelling stories, vehicles and their owners who could use a hand.

Now, most of the submissions or a lot of submissions aren't from the candidates themselves. It's from friends or neighbors or

other community members. I just wanna recognize their contributions to the community.

They are definitely a lot of deserving candidates here.

What were your plans to do with this? Like Andy Wilson and his classic muscle car.

He lost his wife, Jessica to cancer a few years back. It never got to restore the Chevy, they call Casper.

He's too busy raising his Children,

Gavin

Emmett and hunt

and grinding out a living is a mechanic with an earshot of his home outside Cookeville, Tennessee.

He's the nicest, most patient man that I've ever met. And between him and Jessi, the two of them are like a perfect couple. And when she was gonna leave,

she was worried about how it was gonna work out with him to be being the, the sole caregiver

with the help of both sets of grandparents. The family has persevered and their family heirloom is in good hands too.

Hot. Rod builder Tim Strange is steering this ship,

feel like we're just going in circles.

He and his cast of characters know the pressure is on to build a reliable and safe muscle car for the Wilsons,

but not without having a good time doing it.

That's awesome.

Tim's a nice guy. He's a good dude.

He's a nut.

He's definitely a cut up and it keeps us laughing, which is good because we're under a lot of pressure here. But that's all right. There's some southern acting guy. Hi guys, some floors.

I think you call him Tommy.

Fire in the right order. Kevin trucks are sweating. I've never seen him sweat. What?

Look at this perspiration.

Rick is like just a stand in. Hey, Jim, did you order an assembly manual for this thing?

I don't think he's ever had a screwdriver in his hand

and now you got guys running around with hair spiked up to here.

You got other guys that are just, you know,

talking about moonshine. Don't use that. Please do not use that. It's just, it's a whole different world some days.

Even though we joke around a lot, all these guys are really hard workers know what they're doing.

We've had a blast. We've pitched in and we're really building a cool project.

Our lock tight build team have brought their own special set of skills including marketing manager, Karen

Vassy.

Yeah. Try to stay on that.

Karen by trade is a fine art specialist. I wanted to sculpt uh big sculptures out of metal and uh went to art school. One little thing unique about her is that when she was a senior in high school, she won the Connecticut Regional Welding Championship. It's gonna be a angled weld. I haven't welded a lot over the last couple of years here in, in my marketing role, but it's coming back to me. It's like riding a bike.

Her enthusiasm as you see here at the build.

Yes.

Yeah. Translates back to the office as well. She's very enthusiastic about engaging with our customers and helping them

uh with the lac tape products. She's doing really awesome.

It's like a stack of dimes through there. That is a really great experience. Glad to be here. I think it's going well,

I did do a lot of mig welding on my dad's model a and there's one thing I can tell all the dads out there and, and Andy, as a, as a single dad don't be afraid to involve your daughters in your projects because, uh, it's, it's time spent with your kids that,

you know, is valuable and I, I really appreciate all that time that I had with my dad doing that

coming up trouble on the engine run

thing.

And later on strange is no stranger to a paint booth. Stay tuned

nine on the Nova Build and the floor pans, the guys ordered a week ago still aren't here

par for the course when attempting to restore a muscle car on an incredible four week deadline.

Tommy's cutting some more cross braces getting ready to weld them in the car. Once those are in there gonna start plasma cutting the floor out so we can drill some spot welds in the normal build order. You would put the floors in first.

But since we had to wait, we couldn't stand around and do nothing. So we had to do stuff out of an extreme order, what we would normally do.

So we kinda rolled the dice

did some stuff before the floors

and

it looks like it's gonna work out. Ok. For us,

the floor here

we want to.

Why are you waiting on this four floor panel with automatic cut off? 62 to 67 Nova A Yes, sir.

There go

floor pan.

Ok. In by lunch.

I brought down my buddies, Brad Starks and Tom Opa,

high end hot rod builders buddies for a long time, build some really cool cars. They come down to help, volunteer to help Andy to get back.

Enjoy doing it because it's for a reason, it's for you're giving back to someone. So it's a really neat idea.

And to put the floors in, they're both metal wizards

and they went through that floor in like a day and a half, like nothing.

The car's gonna be great. It's built good. It's got good parts under it.

It'll last a long time.

There's still a lot to go, a

lot of work, but

you've got a good team, a lot of good people helping. So

I think it'll move on pretty smoothly, probably as smoothly as it can

for the time period.

Not only volunteers, but companies have really stepped it up, donating their products and services to Andy's Nova

Lindsay and Kevin from Nitro plate dropped by with our headers and exhaust system. Now sporting their highly polished aluminum ceramic coating,

this stuff can be used on everything from intakes to wheelie bars. But the main goal for these two hot rodders was to simply lend a helping hand

when we heard what you guys were doing for Andy and his family, we just wanted to come out and help out with the ceramic coating here, natural plate and anything you guys need. We're here just give us a call and we'll take care of you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

On the other side of the shop, the team is connecting the 383 to an engine run stand in hopes of firing it up. By the end of the day

we got one engine.

You can tell that these are trained professional.

You're speaking that code.

Yep. Oh, no.

Yeah.

Uh

right there. Oh,

yeah.

To the

left.

Come up a little

bit.

Oh,

see you thought. I was kidding.

Try it again.

Yeah.

As professionals, our guys know that things don't always go right the first time

or the second time

or the third time. But for Andy's sake, we're gonna keep on trying.

Damn. I was a

hope

bad starter

problem solved

when we come back, more goodies arrive as the volunteer spirit spreads throughout the aftermarket community. Plus the Wilsons drop in for an update on Casper when search and restore continues

back at the shop, some final masking is done before the car rolls into the prep booth for sound deadening and undercoating.

This is the stage of the build where the mechanics say the hard work is done and the paint guys say it's only the beginning

and here comes more sand.

There you go.

Just mixed up some lizard skin poured in the cup. Put a couple of heavy coats on there for sound deadening and heat insulation.

Earlier, Wayne and Pam mcgriff stopped by, they own M and M Hot Rod interiors out of Holly Pond, Alabama.

Theirs is a full service custom upholstery shop.

Not only have they earned quite a reputation nationwide.

They also created this awesome black leather interior for power blocks. Very own red sled.

But today they find the interior for Andy's Nova to be a lot less of a challenge. This is just basic trim works, not like custom making seat covers or anything like that. That takes days where this takes just a few hours though. This may be easy. The M and M team still has a trick or two,

their sleeves to improve on the seat's original design and construction. I had him put an extra layer of padding on the back seat because these kids will jump all over it and that's what kids need to do, you know, they need to, they need to play and,

and uh enjoy it.

One delivery, we couldn't wait to get our hands on was all the chrome work from Steve Tracy and his artisans at advanced plating bumpers coming out.

They produce some of the finest chrome work in the nation.

And what's nice is his shop is just around the corner.

Now, plating on this level is far more than just dipping apart in the chrome tank. Steve's team does complete restoration work on all kinds of metal. So what the customer gets back is not just a shinier version of their original part. It's a completely restored and freshly chromed piece.

Yeah,

that is beautiful stuff.

You can tell the sign of a good chrome shop.

When you run your fingers along the edge of a bumper,

they not f

not only finish the front, they finish the edges too. Look at that how nice that is. Now, it's not just the big parts, even the smallest details, all get the advanced plating treatment

and Steve realizes his contribution is not just about building a very nice street machine.

There's a lot more to this than just

so many parts. The plating business has been

very good to me and this uh allows me to actually give back to somebody well deserved.

You know, this guy is gonna be able to hop in this car, load up his three kids drive down the road and the world's gonna look very promising.

Hey, Andy, remember you there?

Yeah, I'm here, Tim. I see you got all the kids today.

I do.

I got a circus.

It looks like you fed him sugar for breakfast.

Not much. Just like half a bag.

Are you guys ready to see the car?

We can give you a sneak peek.

Can you see that?

It's our car.

What did they do to it?

We've been working really hard on it

and we've had to use the bake system in the paint booth and I think we might have had the heat turned up just a little too high. I don't know, is there any way to make it bigger?

We can maybe put it in a stretcher and pull it back open?

Ok. Andy, we know you were wanting to put a V8 in that car. But we did a little research on the Vin when we were tearing it apart that we know that it had a, an in line six in it originally.

So

we thought maybe we'd put that back in there

and we didn't care what you thought.

We got it on the run stand. It should be a nice quiet. Go to church, go to the grocery store type of car. See, I think you'll be really, really happy with it,

but we do are gonna let you hear it run.

Hey, do you guys want a six cylinder in our car

or an eight

cylinder V8,

6 9,000,069? What?

Just tell him the six cylinder.

Nah,

it's not gonna work.

It's really

a uh 383 small block

Stroker

uh Chevy engine

with all Edelbrock top end

and we got it running last night and we're gonna let it hear it.

Ok. Sounds good.

No, no.

Look at that.

You might wanna watch your ears.

Holy cow.

I think you're gonna be really happy with the performance of this motor once you get it in the car,

how do you think it sounded?

So you want any mufflers on it or you just wanna run straight pipes like that?

Just for going to get groceries, maybe some mufflers,

you know? Ok, we'll take care of that for you. You wanna hear it run again?

Hey, Ryan, can we start that thing up again? I believe so.

That's just awesome. Isn't

that

awesome?

That is awesome.

We're, we're glad you like the way the motor sounds. We're gonna go get back to work and we'll see you when you come pick it up.

Ok? That sounds great, man. Thanks guys

and

see

you

guys.

This guy done. Put the white sealer. It was the epoxy bare metal

primer.

Now I'm getting ready to put the white color on the first time around all the jams a little bit around the trunk firewall and everything.

I got some Dupont chroma premiere. I'm getting ready to spray down

day 13

and with all the jams painted and clear,

the Nova can start hanging all the body panels on and finally go together for good. Well, the gaps back, right?

Ok.

This is kind of a pivotal moment. See the new Subra

go on the firewall.

It's looking like a brand new car

since this is the last time these parts will go on. We've really got to pay attention to the details.

Yeah, that looks good.

Earlier, Eric saliva donated his fab skills with a unique piece. We're looking to make an air cleaner for this car. Just kind of thinking something,

you know, old school dragster looking

but not too out of control for what the rest of the car is.

To

the

first things. First, they gotta make a wood buck in order to make the top and bottom panel and get a radius around the edge. We need about 3.5 inches tall. So I use 23 quarter pieces and a quarter piece stack all that junk up into a big sandwich and

we'll have us a buck

back on the floor. This is the first time the Real Engine in trans gets dropped in. So we knew it would take some finesse.

I'm not watching the cross member by you, Kevin. I'm watching where the frame.

I'm watching the cross member. Here we

go

easy.

You know, that's a

small

wheel.

What's going on guys?

Uh, 00,

everyone said that

and it included,

that is awesome.

There's more than one way to get to the end result.

It's just lots of hours, lots of sanding and blocking and sanding and blocking and priming and fitting and gapping

to you guys. It looks mind numbing, but we know we gotta do it for the end result. Put one coat of sealer on it

and then we put four coats of the white

and then we masked off the blue and then cover the whole car. Then we sprayed two or three little light coats of that, let that dry,

then go back in and we masked and we did the charcoal color.

I think I put four coats of the charcoal on, let that sit for about an hour and a half. I actually put a little bit more clear on than a lot of people do because with all the sand and the polishing you're gonna do actually move about three coats of clear.

So there's seven coats of clear on the thing.

Perfect.

When Andy and the kids come to pick up this car next week, they're gonna be really excited once they see it, hear it run and see it move. Finally,

next time on search and restore, it's a mad dash to the finish line

with installation of a complete interior wiring gauges, plus a test drive that doesn't go so well,

we lost

everything

and the Wilsons arrive at the shop to take delivery of a family treasure.

I

think the car is looking really good and I think Andy's gonna be happy.

I think it looks really good

except for Kevin's wiggling behind me.

I can honestly say, I think Andy's gonna flip when he sees this thing.

I think it looks really awesome. I think Andy's gonna be really happy with it.