Tommy Lee Byrd is back at it, with more from his Hot Rod Hoarder YouTube channel and this time is a pretty cool one. Tommy is sort of known for resurrecting “wrong year” Nova’s and making them good with simple ride height adjustments and the right wheel and tire combo. We love him for this, so this new project aka “The Grandma Nova” is right up our alley. Watch this video where he tells the story of getting this one and then also shares the adventures of getting it up and running again. There’s more to come too, so stay tuned.
Video Description:
Will it run? This 50 year old Nova has been sitting for 32 years. We’re confident that this car hasn’t been messed with, as it sat untouched for so long and appears to have only had one owner since being bought new in our HOME TOWN. This car belongs to my buddy Kyle Shadden (be sure to check out his channel at 
/ @shaddenmotorsports .
He first saw the car nearly 20 years ago on a random ride-around adventure near Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was sitting under a carport, and he fell in love with it. He finally ended up having the chance to own it, and he gave me the opportunity to get it running and driving since he knows Carlee and I love rescuing old cars and getting them back on the road.
What we found is this car is a 1973 Chevrolet Nova Custom four-door sedan. It has its original 307ci V8 with Rochester two-barrel carburetor and TH350 automatic transmission. It is showing 34,000 miles on the odometer and I have no reason to believe it’s 134k or 234k. This survivor probably never went further than Hamilton or Rhea country. It was bought new at Brown Chevrolet in our hometown of Dayton, TN. The green paint was quite common on Novas, but this one came with black interior, which is pretty unusual.
This car is 100 percent complete, and we were pleased with a free-spinning engine. It gave us hope that it would be an easy job. After a new fuel pump and 5 gallon jug, it gave the Nova new life. We have plans to take it further, but this video documents our initial inspection as well as our efforts to make it run and drive for the first time in over 30 years. Stay tuned for a clean up video, where we’ll dig through the car’s contents and also shine up the original paint and get the brakes working a little better.
