June 27  2000 Update, continued.
Continuing with the stereo, you can spend all of your money on stereo equipment for the car, but if you cannot hear the music over the other noise in the car, your money is wasted. Some of this sound deadening material can help quiet the road noise, so that you can hear the music. Notice the holes in the sheet metal where the factory sound deadening material is deteriorated. I scraped all of the old material off, and cut out some new pieces. I also put pieces of this material on all of the large metal panels in the back of the car. There are directions on the box.

 

This Nova came with a nice sound deadening pad under the rear package shelf, I made sure to save it and reinstall it. I had to enlarge the original speaker holes in the pad.

 

The original rear deck for this car was cut up, and the holes were too large for the grilles that I have. At the upholstery shop, I bought a large piece of thick soft material to cover up the rear deck. This material is similar to the material used to make floor mats, or dash covers. Its the same stuff I covered the speaker boxes with.
Covering the rear package shelf with soft material like this can really help the sound of your stereo. It cuts down on the sound reflection from the rear deck, and makes the sound clearer. It especially helps if you are getting too much treble.

 

I used aerosol glue to stick the fabric to the rear deck. I could not screw the speaker grilles into the rear deck with the cabinet arrangement that I used, so I just fastened them to the package shelf. I had to drill new holes, because the package shelf was cut up too much to use the original holes. I used some nylon nuts and screws to fasten them, this was handy because I had to cut off the screws when I was finished, to assemble the grilles. The finished package shelf looks pretty good.

I was looking for parts in the junkyard recently, and I noticed that there were some Nova Concours there, this is a more luxurious model of Nova. One difference that I noticed between the concours and the regular Novas was that the Concours had a nice sound isolation blanket behind the rear seat. I guess this is intended to help the old ladies hear their Lawrence Welk, with out having to turn it up too loud. I had been driving my Nova around with out any back seat installed, so I know that there is a lot of road noise coming from back there. I tried to pull the blanket out of a Concours to put it in my car, but it was glued in, and it fell apart before it would come out of the car. So I decided to make my own.

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I found some woolly carpet padding at the home supply store, and bought a section. A piece 6 feet square costed about five dollars. I cut a section out that fits nicely in the area behind the back seat, and cut some little slits in it to hang it on tabs in the sheet metal. This ought to cut down on the road noise in the car. I can tell Rush Limbaugh to speak more quietly now, I can hear him without his shouting. But that wont work, oh well.
I am planning on making an under hood insulation blanket from this material too.