It's about time I started this thread. So here goes. I picked up this 87GT two years ago for a reasonable price to use as a project. The car did not run and needed rescueing. My plans were to spend my semi-retired time on this long project. I parked it in the garage and removed all the panels except the door skins and roof panel. My work load just multiplied from there. As the pics will reveal, two years later which is April 2006 the efforts are very satisfying.
As a teaser this is the car as of April 2006 right before it's maiden voyage.

For the record, three people worked on the car, me, myself and I. Sometimes we even argued but I always won. This project could not succeed without the help of you guys/gals on the forum. There is a plethora of information available which I took advantage of. I cannot mention all of the individuals who helped and inspired this restoration in the event I miss someone. So thanks everyone and take a bow if you think I used your ideas.

The entire car have seen a lot of salt and it's evident from the following pics.
Right Front corner.

Center Front section

Left front corner

You can see from these pics that under the plastic body I found disaster. The rail that holds the front nose in place is just about gone which included a section just in front of the rad (pic to follow).

What was left of the rail.

It took a lot of local sand blasting, scrubbing, sanding, swearing, oops I meant sweating. So after removing the rad and attachments the missing rotten section was replaced.

Center section from a donor with the old one on the floor.

When it was almost done it looked like this.

Front end completion.

More to come...........

Edited to add my sig

[This message has been edited by rubyredfiero (edited 04-16-2006).]

Ok - this time I'll show the underside of the car, very brief but not much to the underside.

Taken from the engine side.

Taken from the front.

It was tough brushing and scrapping upside down but determination is my middle name.
Painted with tank out.

Most of the cooling lines retaining brackets were gone, so I made my own. The sketch shows the dimensions I used and using the old one as reference I bent the new piece as close as I could and cut out the section.

The gas tank

I think that's enough for now. To be continued.........

Very nice job.

& a bump for you.

Archie

Thats is how my car look now after Katrina and flooding salt water....

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Looks good, keep up the good work!

quote Originally posted by rubyredfiero:

Looking at this picture (and I have seen pictures like this before) I have always wondered if some one would make an El Camino type car out of a Fiero one day.

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Rodney Dickman

Fiero Parts And Acc's Web Page:
www.rodneydickman.com
Rodney Dickman's Fiero accessories
7604 Treeview Drive
Caledonia, WI 53108
Phone/Fax (262) 835-9575

Thanks for the compliments and encouragement. Having a short time before I leave the house I'll add some more resto work. This time I'll cover the interior. Once I started looking around I seen things I did not expect. Wires missing, cut, spliced with some ends left open, relays unplugged and missing pedal switches. Also extra wires were added from the looks of it trying to add a stereo system. I did a continuity test from some wires other than ground and concluded I better not hook up a battery at this point.

So I decided to dismantle the interior and trace every wire and check it against the schematics.

That part of the project was frustrating cuz I had to remove the wrapping tape. It had it's benefits cuz I found two wire shorted out against the shifter bracket. One of the wires was the hot-on-run that ended at the C203. The column was rebuilt for looseness and ignition switch mulfanction. There was no radio so I installed a 2000 Grand Am CD w/equalizer deck and cheap pioneer speakers. Not a glass ratler but loud enough for me. I don't have completed interior pic, but it looks just like any other Fiero GT grey/dk grey interior. The head liner and trimming are still off cuz the rear clip is still on the floor.

More to come........

Looking good oscar 2 thumbs up... you going to drive that car this summer?

Chris (4BanGinFun) - Well, I doubt I will be driving it to a cruise this year. Short on cash for all my toys since insurance is high and still have my 84 and two other cars on the road. Inspection will be a challange, and it's not painted. But you never know. I may still trailer it to local meets. Besides I'm in no hurry. Looking forward to seeing you easterners in London. Oscar

Good to see your taking your time and not rushing--it will show at the end of the project --looks darn good now & I like your fab on the brakets--I may try this....

Thanks for posting your work Oscar.

I've been in Oscar's shop and I've seen the car and the engine out on a dolly. Oscar's finished work is rather immaculate and you can't really appreciate it fully in pictures. The extent of the frame restoration is really admirable. The SBC installed will be a real treat. I'll stay tuned.

Arn

Once again thanks for all the compliments, which makes the project even more satisfying. Arn, you make this old man blush. Well so far I covered the front end, under carriage and the interior. So going in the same direction, the next step is the rear end. I will leave the mods for the V8 when I cover the V8 swap. I know, you can't wait. It took me two years so you can wait two days.
The rear end was the biggest and toughest to do for it was in a very bad state, in my opinion worse than the front.

Left rear corner.

The center section.

The right rear corner.

Typical wheel well area.

Removing the rear steel bumper in one piece was a challenge. The bolts were cut off and the bumper was paper thin. How bad was it you ask? Here's a pic.

Luckily the frame rails were good enough were only a small section had to be repaired. I'm used to replacing both upper frame rails. So really there are lots of positive surprises, all I had to do was concentrate on them. So, here's a pic of the finished rear end. I think you can agree that it was worth saving this car.

Next I'll cover the engine compartment and the trunk..........

Thanks for sharing, I enjoy pics. Your cars are always enjoyed around here. We shall see it in person soon I am sure. More pics please.

Pete

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The trunk is easier to cover, so I'll cover it next. The trunk corners did have holes in them and to no one's surprise, lots of rust. I spent very little time on the trunk and after replacing the corners and brushing the rust off the final product looks like this.

You'll have to excuse the dirt on the car, I took the pic a few days later and I did'nt cover the car or clean the area for the pic. I guess that's going to cost me some points now isn't it?

Oops the boss is calling and breakfast is ready. Be back soon.........

What kind of paint are you using? Looks good.

I am glad to see one of these recovering from such extensive deterioration. Too many of our beloved Fieros suffering from rust are crushed and not saved. Save them now to insure they only remain an indangered species, instead of becoming extinct.

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Check out My website at http://www.auto-classics.biz/acmain.htm

I'm back. Thanks for your patience.
Before I start on the engine compartment a brief history of the car is necessary. I bought the car from someone who bought the car from someone who attempted to make a project out of it. Although they did a valiant effort to put a V8 in it, the project would have been better if they spent more time on the forum and less time with the cutting torch. The lower frame and wheel well on the passenger side were......... how can I describe it?....... destroyed. You will see it in the following pics. It had a very bad copy of the Z-kit plate were the crank center line and the tranny center line did not line up. But hey, for the price I got it for I knew it was worth the GT body. That's another positive. The previous owner did not know what was done to the car and when contacted the second last owner's father, he did not want to talk about it and not to bother him anymore. I respected his request and the rest is history. On with the build. The engine compartment is next to restore.
The driver's side was not too bad and all it needed was elbow grease.

As I already mentioned the passenger side was a disaster.

After some investigation and measuring, I find that when the lower frame was torched along with the strut tower, the entire back section was twisted. An attempt to strengthen it with a steel plate as seen in the pic above, was done without straightening the space frame.
After stripping everything out of the engine compartment I found some more work was needed. Right behind the C500 is always a weak spot in our Fieros.

I trimmed some more out of this side to suit what I had planned to do, which was using as many stock off the counter (or junk yard) parts as possible. So the idea here was to use a SBC complete with stock harmonic dampner and double pulleys, stock water pump and pulley. Read on. After many trial and errors in and out with the mock-up block, I ended up with this.
Reinforced lower frame and strut tower.

The remaining original frame was boxed in with an L-shaped bracket and a center section was added and offset about 3". At first I had square tubing for the center section, but it was too big to fit between the h/b pulley and the w/p pulley. So I ended up with a formed C-section that was wider on the outside than the inner for strength and rigidity. You'll see in later pics. Here are the pics of the engine compartment restored.

Driver side.

Passenger side.

Remember the corner where the C500 bracket attaches to the strut tower wall? That was repaired but the C500 bracket needed attention also. I cut out what was left of the bracket till I got virgin material and made an insert for it.

After it was brazed together it looked like this.

More to come.........

I hate to break your work flow but do you have a picture of the outside of the new rail? I was thinking about doing something like that and would love to see what you did.

[This message has been edited by Jake_Dragon (edited 04-16-2006).]

Jake - that's alright as long as it's stays on the topic. I expect ???? as I go along and if I can provide the info it would help others. That's how I got motivated. Anyway, yes I do and here it is.

I removed the two gussets later in the build cuz they interfered with the little tab on the strut that the flex hose is bolted to. Using stock struts and springs don't leave too much room. Refer to the very 1st pic to see the stock set up. What may I ask are you doing to need this setup?

Thanks!
Here is the frame notch welded up and the hole I had to cut for the water pump
I'm running an electric water pump and it sticks into the wheel well more than I would like but it doesn’t come close to the tire.
https://images.fiero.nl/pffimages/frame-notch-weld-1.jpg
I would like to do something like what you did, I have coil overs to install later I just need to get some better springs.
If I leave it like it is I have to remove the water pump the drop the cradle, its a pain but can be done. But once I build the cover plate for the hole its going be even more of a pain. I may go with a removable cover and just build a tube frame to beef that part of the car back up.
Thanks again for posting the picture.

Hello everyone again. It's time to cover the last part of the build. The V8 install. Before I get into it I want to repeat that the abundance of information provided by the forum members about any swap is vast. If one takes the time to search the forum the chances are someone has done it or will chime in to help. Although I said I can't possibly identify all the names that have helped me, there is one name that stands out in the SBC swaps. That's Archie. Although some may disagree or dislike what he does, he is good enough to share his experiences with us. His web site is available for all to view and also provides feedback to other threads. I never spent a dime at his business and yet he chimed in this very thread to congratulate me on a good job. Archie, the thanks are to you, the pioneer of V8 Fieros.
I am a retired Mechanical Engineer in the automotive stamping and assembly automation for the OEM factories. I understand the R&D expenses necessary to launch projects. During the same years I also raced in circle tracks and road racing, crew chief in CanAm series was my last reponsibility in 84. That's the year I bought my 1st Fiero which I still have. With my background and the info available to me, I was able to design and build the V8 kit. My brother is a 25 year mold maker with equipment to satisfy my designs.
The first pieces I built were to set up the block/tranny in the cradle and get the proper angles for the carb setup.

I assembled a bare block with heads, intake, water pump and other parts to verify fit to clear the modified frame, which is shown in one of the above pics. When I was satisfied with the fit, it was time to assemble one of the SBC lying around the garage. I chose a 2bolt main with a mild hydraulic cam setup in case I got too excited and blow it up in the early stages. 4bolt main block is apart begging assembly.

The 350 +030 2 bolt main in assembly stage.

When I primed the engine on the stand I noticed #1 exhaust rocker was not getting oil. Immediately I suspected the push rod or the lifter was the culprit. I hoped it would be the push rod cuz it's the easiest to replace. You see, this old man forgot to prime it while the intake was off. I removed the push rod which was new and checked it. Clear thru. Right away I figured I now have to remove the intake to get to the lifter. Then I remembered an old racing trick to check a collapsed lifter by hitting an old push rod a couple of times to force the oil up the rod. The system has to have some pressure to work. Not the best way but works in the pits on a hot engine. Anyway, I got squirted in the face telling me the lifter may be ok. Guess what I found.

Pretty obvious isn't it. The speed shop gave me another one and also told me to keep the other one. So I drilled a new oil hole to meet the one in the steel insert and now I have a spare. Another positive (free spare). Reprime the engine and all is well at 60psi. Cha-ching. Oh, I added a second timing tab on the opposite side and left the original alone. You can see both tabs in the pic. To avoid confusion I wrote "Fiero" at the new groove on the h/b. Believe or not I use the original tab for timing cuz there is no battery there.

Here's a close up of the engine in place showing the moded frame rail and the waterpump with double grooves.

Next I'll cover engine and engine bay mods......

Wow Oscar, the work that you put into that car is amazing. Hopefully you'll be able to bring it out to some local meets this summer. Cody and I will have to drop by sometime to check this car out. Once again, awesome work.
-Dave

Thankyou. What a huge job, and well done

I am interested in the battery tray. I'd like to do the same thing in my trunk.

Any pics of the new tray minus the battery?

Arn

Thanks again for the compliments. As requested, here's the battery tray less the battery.

Don't forget to add reinforcement under the trunk sheet metal for rigidity. Use stainless steel fasteners. Oscar.

Thanks again.

It looks like it's a good thing I learned to weld over the winter

Arn