Another thing I will do is use some Rodney poly mounts that I took out of the V8 when I went solid there. This is how the stock mounts allow movement (dog bone disconnected of course).

It looks like you can do this swap by simply dropping the cradle and leaving it under the car without even rolling it out?

I was thinking it might even be possible to do by even just removing the rear cradle bolts and swinging the cradle down if I had all the intakes off the engine....

Now to some little issues. On the 3.4 block you have to grind the lower right corner of the block (opposite to starter) to fit the TH125. For the 4T60 I had to grind like 1/4" more. After I did that the trany mated to the block with no problems. I said I used some Rodney's Poly mounts and those gave me some big grief just like they did with my V8. The rear one (trunk) kind of aligned but the front one did not by about 1/2". I had to dismantle the whole mount, attach the bracket and then force it into place. The engine sits differently and soon I'll show you why. Also I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with the brackets because I had the same issue with the V8 that worked fine originally with stock mounts. The good thing is that the engine feels like it is solid mounted with no rocking at all (video to come).
This is the rear mount and the good thing is that the trany cleared the cradle by a lot. I heard this might be a problem in pre-88 I think.




This is the front one. Here you can see four possible problem areas. First the coolant pipe didn't aligned properly. Later on I was able to attach it at that point but the top bolt was off. No big deal because it was tight. Also note that I have FOCOA headers, which create different problems than stock manifolds. The trany vacuum canister gets very close (touching here) but at the end it was ok. You will see later. My O2 sensor also gets close but then again I can still remove it. Finally the TC connector wire is not long enough but that will be resolved later.






This is the new driver side axle which fits perfectly.


more to come soon...

Question if anyone knows, when I took the plastic plug that was covering the trany vacuum canister hole this lilttle piston was loose in it. Does anyone knows if I have to put it back and push the canister against it? I didn't try because the canister itself has its plunger that already was pushing a little. But I have no clue if I need it or not.

Finally I just went and bought an adjustable vacuum regulator. I made the mistake of installing the little piston in the picture backwards and took me one hour to take it off So shown is the correct orientation. Also the coolant pipe was in the way (yes I know you told me!) to take the big one out so you better get this one from the get go. I got it at Autozone for about $13 and the box has the PN. I used one of the bottom TB vacuum pipes to get the vacuum signal.





Next was the TC rewiring. This was very easy. I went to the yard and bought the correct 5 pin connector. As you can see the Fiero one has only two wires on positions A and D. As you can see the 5 pin one has the same exact color wires at positions A and D so it is an easy swap. I tried to just replace the pins but my tool didn't work so I just spliced them. Maybe with more time and right tool you can make it look stock

TH125



New 5 pin

Now this one really surprised me. I thought it was going to be easy and it was one of the more difficult items. I was thinking on using the TH125 lines and just bending them to reconnect the hoses. But they are smaller. The 4T60 uses 3/8" lines. I went to the yard and took them off from a 90s Lumina. Very messy Then I had to bend them to redirect them more or less to the stock Fiero hard lines. That took me more than about 20 trials for each one! Think of lying down under car, check, mark bend, stand up, go to vice, bend line, go back and lie down, check again and repeat process. Then had to find adapters to adapt the bigger hose (3/8") to the smaller Fiero pipe. Oh well. At the end it all worked ok. Finally there is a picture of the shifter cable with the tab up to adjust the length which I had to do. Needed to be a tad longer. No problem there. It can find all gears






From teh top

[This message has been edited by Alex4mula (edited 05-19-2008).]

Now do you remember what I said about the new poly mounts above? Well guess what moved? The whole engine. Look at the dog bone position now. The engine tilted a little towards the front. But this thing is so solid now that it feels like it doesn't need that dog bone anymore. Maybe I get an adjustable dog bone (maybe this is why it is sold...) or modify that bracket.

Compare this one to video above. This thing feels solid mounted. What you see moving is the whole car!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjqnZ3AgrGk

[This message has been edited by Alex4mula (edited 05-19-2008).]

So I was testing the gears with the engine running to see if it shifted 1-2-3 etc. Well, in the little time I tried it didn't shift and suddenly I hear this splash! What a fu^%^% mess I'm more pissed about the mess than anything else. It will take me more time to clean it all up than to replace the axle. This is very weird. Seems like the rubber ruptured. I don't know why. Nothing was touching. It is not at an extreme angle nor did I took it to anything close to high speed The axle seems ok. It seems like the rubber broke off at a seam or who knows.. Have you ever seen this? Oh well. At least they have lifetime warranty....