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Installing a Late-model Fuel Door in a Classic Nova
When the engineers at Chevrolet designed the fuel inlet and fuel cap for the early Nova, they must not have looked at the rest of the car. Novas aren’t called shoeboxes for no reason; with the exception of the wheels–and that gas cap–they are basically square. Wheels have to be round, but the gas cap, well….
Aesthetics aside, anyone who has ever attempted to put fuel into a Nova knows the other problem associated with the stock filler: It’s hard to get fuel into it. There is no down angle to the inlet; it enters the car at a right angle, so when the fuel is topped off, it wants to slosh back out and down the side of the car. There has to be a better way, and in the case of the Nova, any way would be better.
A number of companies produce fuel doors of assorted shapes and sizes, and they work well, but there are also many doors sitting in junkyards, just waiting for someone like you to come along and carry them to a next life. Because most modern vehicles use a remote pull and cable system, we had to find a suitable door for this application, meaning one with a finger pull situated on the correct side of the car, and also one with an appropriate down angle. Of course, it also had to follow the body contours of the Nova, which, while not exactly flat, is only slightly rounded.
Armed with these requirements, it took only a few passes around JJ’s Auto Recycling in Placentia, California, for one to catch our eye. It was on a Volvo sedan, and it had a finger pull and featured a slightly rounded profile and the perfect inlet tube configuration. The price was $50, and the crew at JJ’s even cut it out of the car. Included in that price was the door, the cap, a few feet worth of the filler tube and the rubber grommet that attached it to the door assembly. Sold!
We were on hand as the father and son team at Kenney’s Garage in Buena Park, California, installed the new fuel door on a vintage Nova station wagon. Though known mostly for their mechanical prowess, they were contracted to build a Nova station wagon. One of the many things that needed to be done was to smooth the car by shaving the door handles and so on, so they were also about to do something worthwhile with the fuel door. Follow along and see how they took a round hole and filled it with a square peg–or fuel door.
