Well folks, another Fiero has been added to our Fiero family, an 88 base coupe, auto. Has 131K miles, and it needs some TLC, but we got it for a good price. Picked it up today. It was a fun ride home, it was running on 3 cylinders, the dog bone was loose (so the engine flopped around everywhere and hit the trunk wall) and it has a nasty oil leak. It also may need new mounts, not postive yet. I fixed the dead cylinder, the spark plug wire was broken, and tightened the dog bone bolt, so that's fixed. But the oil leak is an issue, there is oil EVERYWHERE on the passenger side, during the trip, the oil would cover the windshield of the car behind us, and oil was coming out the vent to rest on the deck-lid. This is my mom's Fiero, its just my dad and I's job to fix it up. Needs a good list of little things that need attention, but it has great potential. The front suspension is brand new, very little rust on the frame (no rust on the passenger side because of all that oil!) and its an 88!
I need advice on that oil leak though, I'm more of a V6 guy, i don't know my way around duke's as much. I don't think its from the valve cover, since its mostly on the top of the cradle, I'm thinking its the crank seal. Here is the pictures from our trip today!
Your oil leak could be the oil pressure sensor tube, if your looking at the engine from the passenger side its right there by the pulley. If its leaking it will spray oil like you talked about. If thats not it then check the oil filter, make sure an old gasket didn't get stuck to the block.
this is awesome matt! now your mom needs to join PFF with her own username!! we will have to start a little club... mom's with fieros. hopefully i will join the club soon
------------------ Nellie - forever Tyler's mommy
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09:06 AM
GMplastic Member
Posts: 142 From: Wrenshall, MN, USA Registered: May 2005
Congratulations! Another Fiero finds a good home. Check the top of the block under the distributer. The O-ring that goes around the distributer shaft has been bad on every Fiero I've purchased. The O-ring is about 50 cents, but it makes a mess if it is leaking.
~~Dan
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01:11 PM
Frizlefrak Member
Posts: 2921 From: El Paso, Texas Registered: Aug 2003
Congratulations! Another Fiero finds a good home. Check the top of the block under the distributer. The O-ring that goes around the distributer shaft has been bad on every Fiero I've purchased. The O-ring is about 50 cents, but it makes a mess if it is leaking.
Well I have an update. Started digging into the car today, and this is what I first found. Um, something tells me it shouldn't do that. No idea how that could of happened. This is what the other rear rotor looked like. The E-brake was stuck on about halfway. This, plus i found the dog bone completely loose yesterday, broken spark plug wire, fouled plugs, and a bee's nest in the intake. No wonder it was slow, I mean, I was expecting a slow Fiero, but this was shockingly slow. Now I know why. I'm nearly sure the oil leak is coming from the timing cover/crank seal. Everything around that area is coated in layers of oil and grime. I don't have much room to work with in there. Here is the old iron duke itself I also removed the lower section to the vents, should let a lot more heat out now. Got a lot planned for this one!
[This message has been edited by mattwa (edited 11-23-2010).]
I had the same seal leak on my first Fiero. Part of a belt had wrapped around the shaft and worked into the seal. I never did get it fixed, it decided to break a couple of valves first.
If you pull the pulley the seal is right there, if the shaft has a grove in it you use to be able to buy a sleeve kit.
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01:26 AM
PFF
System Bot
SKIDMARK Member
Posts: 1350 From: Chardon, Ohio, USA Registered: Sep 2001
Nice looking Fiero. I've never seen ahything like that happen to a brake rotor before. White looks sharp on a Fiero and the body and interior look to be in grood shape.
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01:51 AM
Aug 25th, 2010
Ridgelandbaseball Member
Posts: 383 From: North Ridgeville, Ohio USA Registered: Aug 2009
Well we have put our first $100 into the car by ordering the rotors, tune up kit and plugs. After Matt dug into the car, I am really suprised we made the 180 miles home. As he said, we were running on three cylinders, it was leaking oil like mad and we had no rear brakes. The prior owner gave us a quart of oil which we used all of on the way home. Other quirky things are it has the loosest steering column I have ever seen, an after market sun roof which rattles like mad at highway speeds and no headliner board or fabric. But the potential for it is great. It has a solid body, new front end, new tires, and next year getting a very good 2.8 with the 4T60 tranny as Matt has said. Also, the prior owner gave us a trunkload of new parts with it, struts, brake pads, belts, etc. We plan on making it a very nice car.
Originally posted by pontiackid86: Ohh the joys of having the skills to pull an engine out through the top
Oh pssh, I have the skills trust me, but I dropped my cradle to change to a manual this latest time. and up the top would work if you had a bad engine, but usually you replace a bunch of other things when you drop the cradle so you don't have to do it later.
[This message has been edited by mattwa (edited 08-25-2010).]
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02:15 AM
fiero al Member
Posts: 206 From: north ridgeville, ohio Registered: Jan 2010
Hi everyone! Even though I'm officially a new member to the Forum now, I've been a faithful reader for over a year. Since both my husband (Ridgelandbaseball) & son (Mattwa) are members here & I've met some extraordinarily WONDERFUL people at the Tyler Memorial Car Show this past July, I figured it was high time I become a member too! To carry it a little farther & not just help with my boys' cars, I decided to purchase my own Fiero & see what "tricks" I can come up with -- with a help from my family of course! I'm not THAT much of a grease monkey!! In any case, I will tag along with my boys & follow in the footsteps of our star -- Mattwa (hence my name -- Matts Mom).
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08:52 PM
Matts Mom Member
Posts: 22 From: N. Ridgeville, OH, USA Registered: Aug 2010
As you have already seen in this thread, my family have beaten me to the punch of showing off MY car before I even get a chance to! It certainly has it's problems, but as I've been reminded quite often since I bought her -- she's a 'diamond in the rough'. I'm just thankful that she got home in one piece, that my boys made it safely with all that COULD have happened on the highway! One thing though, Mattwa failed to tell everyone that the person my Fiero was spraying oil all over was actually ME! I was riding behind them in my Galant & kept getting sprayed! What looked like smoke puffs were actually oil sprays. Guess the Fiero doesn't like foreign cars. In any case, the windshield was nice & greasy -- slid those bugs right out of view! I used every opportunity when we stopped to let the engine cool down a bit & check the oil level, to clean my windshield. It was an adventure for sure, but now the fun of fixing it begins. Who knows, I may actually be able to work on my car -- if I'm lucky! Time will tell!!
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09:07 PM
fierobrian Member
Posts: 2976 From: aurora il 60505 Registered: Sep 2003
Hi everyone! Even though I'm officially a new member to the Forum now, I've been a faithful reader for over a year. Since both my husband (Ridgelandbaseball) & son (Mattwa) are members here & I've met some extraordinarily WONDERFUL people at the Tyler Memorial Car Show this past July, I figured it was high time I become a member too! To carry it a little farther & not just help with my boys' cars, I decided to purchase my own Fiero & see what "tricks" I can come up with -- with a help from my family of course! I'm not THAT much of a grease monkey!! In any case, I will tag along with my boys & follow in the footsteps of our star -- Mattwa (hence my name -- Matts Mom).
what a cool mom ! best wishes on the car sounds like you got a bunch of free help right there that is a big plus
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09:07 PM
PFF
System Bot
Matts Mom Member
Posts: 22 From: N. Ridgeville, OH, USA Registered: Aug 2010
Update on this, I installed new plugs and wires, new rear rotors, and one new rear caliper. Brakes need to be bleed, the oil leak hasn't been fixed yet (i'm pretty sure its the front crank seal) and it has a nasty backfire, but it goes away when you remove plug wire #3. Mechanic is going to look at it, I already have my hands full with the other two in the driveway and top of working a heckofa lot.
I haven't updated this in a while, so here is what has been going on. I have been using it as a DD for the past two months or so. Mechanic fixed the mis-fire, it was a swapped plug wire (face-palm). But he didn't have time to fix the oil leak, so i tore into it myself. The front crankseal was completely torn off, and it fell out when I removed the timing cover, which I ruined trying to get the crank bolt off. So we got a new timing cover with seal and gasket, along with a repair section for the crank pulley (it doesn't have a HB) put it all back together, and guess what. It still dumps oil out. It doesn't fling it everywhere like before, it just drips on the cradle and then to the ground. I have been losing a quart every 100-150 miles or so, if not more. It's coming out from where the timing cover and oil pan meet, right near the bottom of the crank pulley. The then new belt constantly has a mild slip at any RPM, louder as the RPM's go up. But It drives/shifts good. Amazing heat. The plan is to put my ford blue 3.4 PR in this car, while mine gets the DOHC. This car will also at the same time upgrade to the 4T60, like my first set-up was. Since the last post I have also done a lot of interior work, but its still not done. I added trunk release, snake head shift knob with shortened shifter, added aux radio surround and gauges, and Wood trim pieces, but they all aren't on yet because some either were the wrong type or they broke. So there is some custom work to due in that case. Replaced a few bulbs, small things here and there. Needs a front end alignment too.
Still needs the horn paddle to be glued on, steering column wobble fixed, headliner installed, new driver's door hinge, dew wipes, and of course, swap my engine in with a 4T60.
Nothing else has really changed, so here is a picture of the current interior (compared to pictures in first post)
.. its nice though.
