A while back I posted that I picked up an '86 2m4 for my 16 year old daughter. https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/083122.html Now this is a project car in every sense of the word. I was not maintained very well by the PO's.. but the frame is solid. Fortunately, my daughter absolutely loves the car.

The goal is to replace all the rubber with poly, take apart the suspension components while the replacement happens and clean and powder coat them, change the body to an '85 GT style and replace the tired Duke with something a bit more.. well, more.

We're also going to give the Rustolium paint job a try. She likes white, so we're going to go with that.

Oh yea.. she's going to do as much of the work as I feel safe letting her do. The things that I do, she'll be watching over my shoulder and learning.

Day 1
We started by taking off the hood so that she can get in and clean the spare tire compartment and such..





We got the front end up in the air and secured on jack stands.. She took off the tires and the inner wheel wells..









So here's a question.. Other than dousing then in penetrating oil and beating the ever lovin' snot out of them.. is there a trick to getting off seized brake rotors that I don't know about?

If I ever have a daughter, I want her to be like that.

Most brake rotors have a threaded hole going through the hat to the hub. Often these are rusted out too badly to use, but if not, you screw a screw into the hole and it pulls the rotor off of the hub. Whether or not the Fiero has this, I don't know.

Otherwise, yeah, a sledge hammer has worked for me in the past.

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'88 Fiero GT - Project MIDTRBO
'10 Camaro LT/RS - daily driver
'96 Talon TSi AWD - 11-second winter beater
There's no replacement for turbo placement

After lunch, we went back out and did a bit more..

While I hammered away on the stupid rotors.. I had her pull her blower motor



Not bad at all.. but she did take it apart and wash it anyway..



Once she put the motor back in, she went to work on taking off the front bumper and fenders.. Notice how she's careful to put each bolt into a plastic baggy







And the end result of the day..



Both rotors are seized on.. so they are going to soak over night before the beatings begin again tomorrow...

[This message has been edited by datacop (edited 02-06-2011).]

Very Nice!

This is awesome! do you have a sand blaster?

quote Originally posted by Finally_Mine_86_GT: This is awesome! do you have a sand blaster?

Yes he does, but its in MY garage

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May the Lord guide me where I must go. May the Fiero get me there in style

Excellent start on the build, I am still looking for a car for my daughter so we can do the same. I have seen a few guys on here doing the Father daughter build, yourself as well as Hulki come to mind so I will be watching both of yours for inspiration for when I get my daughters build on the go.
Keep up the good work

quote Originally posted by fieroguy123: Yes he does, but its in MY garage

LOL! i was going to recommend a cheapo one i found recently. Here
At the price it's worth getting a couple of them and a bunch of kids play sand is cheap too. Works well.

Haha! Great job! My daughter's project is (was) also a white bumperpad notchie.

quote Originally posted by Hulki U. My-BFF: datacop, I may be wrong here, but it looks like the front wheel bearing caps are still on, and that leads me to believe that the spindle nut is still installed with the wheel bearings? That would be why your rotor is not coming off. The rotor is also the hub assembly.

Oh really?! They aren't floating rotors? Don't I feel like a jackass

Thanks Hulki!

You beat me to it Hulki! I was gonna say that. Just spin the spindle nut off and the whole hub will come right off. Now would be a great time for a brake swap!

I was waiting for that.

So I pulled the dust cap off, removed the cotter pin.. spun off the castle nut..

And the damn rotors slid right off.

I hate being made to feel stupid

Thanks again Hulki

quote Originally posted by datacop: So I pulled the dust cap off, removed the cotter pin.. spun off the castle nut.. And the damn rotors slid right off. I hate being made to feel stupid Thanks again Hulki

Just blame it on the beer Jason, Coors will do that to ya

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May the Lord guide me where I must go. May the Fiero get me there in style

Day Two

I stopped by the local harbor freight today and picked up a set of chisels. This allowed her to get down and take the rockers off the car..



Once she did that, she was able to "properly" get the passenger side fender off.. we broke the drivers side last night



I showed her how to take off the rotor she laughed at me for spending a few hours beating the piss out of the other one when she saw how easy it was to come apart.

The she took off the dust shield from each side and pulled all of the cotter pins from every castle nut on both sides.

Here I took over to separate the ball joints and pull the spindle out. I'm using the Rodney Dickman ball joint separator to do the work.. I can't recommend it enough.



If you've never used Rodney's tool before, it's very uneventful as you crank it down.. then when the unit separates, it goes with a loud POP and THUD. I didn't tell her about that part as I was walking her through what I was doing

I wish I had video when they released.. she must have done a sitting butt jump at least 3 feet in the air!



And this is where we left things tonight..



slowly tearing it apart so that we can take the parts over to FieroGuy123's and clean and powder coat them.

I did close the deal on a new engine for her.. we're going to go with a 3.1 out of a '94 Olds Achieva that was in a rear end collision.

[This message has been edited by datacop (edited 02-18-2011).]

quote Originally posted by datacop:

This is a family forum. You can't go showing full frontal nudity like that!! Poor fiero, probably getting pretty cold.

Nice work so far. My daughter has 4 years before she can drive. She's already eyeing one of my fieros...

Lookin good man! My house has been a powder coating party lately between you, me, and john3:16!

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May the Lord guide me where I must go. May the Fiero get me there in style

DAAAAAAAMMMNNN!!!!!! Looking good!

Where were the girls like her when I was growing up?? LMAO

My daughter's 3 months right now, but I hope she turns out like that. Not afraid to get her hands dirty and able to work on her own car.

[This message has been edited by Rallaster (edited 02-08-2011).]

quote Originally posted by fieroguy123: Lookin good man! My house has been a powder coating party lately between you, me, and john3:16!

Just let me know if I need to buy some more powder before doing her parts or not.. I almost picked some up when I was shopping today, but they didn't have any black.

So I stopped by the auto parts store and put in an order for all the parts needed to upgrade the fronts and rears to '90 grand am / beretta breaks. Including a '94 Blazer master cylinder.

Need to find a machine shop to put the rotors on the lathe and turn them into free hubs.

This evening, Ternunda and I worked on taking apart the rest of the front end of her car..

Now both sides are naked...





Here we have a lovely box of parts waiting to be washed, blasted and powder coated..



She's going to have a "TON" of fun learning how to effectively use the sand blaster

For some reason, the ball joint stud on the passenger side control arm was a little longer than the drivers side. As such we couldn't get the ball joint press forcing cup to seat properly.

Brooke got a chance to learn how to use the cutting wheel to "take a little off the top"



Once she got the stud down to size.. she learned how to use our ball joint press to unseat and remove the old ball joint from the lower control arm.

Looks like some good progress getting done there guys! You made a wise decision doing those balljoints, those are one thing you don't want goin out on you.

New ball joints (upper and lower), poly bushings, sway bar end links.. inner and outter tie rods (both sides) and new shocks.

The only thing we're not replacing is the springs and metal.

quote Originally posted by Hulki U. My-BFF: datacop, I may be wrong here, but it looks like the front wheel bearing caps are still on, and that leads me to believe that the spindle nut is still installed with the wheel bearings? That would be why your rotor is not coming off. The rotor is also the hub assembly.

this is what i was gonna say =) lol

Last Wednesday, went over to John316's house and picked up the new engine and trans for the car.. 2.5 with auto out of an '88 with (I think) 87k miles.. Yes, we're going to convert the 5 speed to an auto for her.



Today I went over to FieroGuy123's garage today and made use of our powder coating setup to put a little pizazz to the new Grand Am / Beretta brake upgrade calipers that will be going onto her car.







Going to let them cool over night then go back over tomorrow and put the calipers back together.

[This message has been edited by datacop (edited 04-02-2011).]

Went back over to FieroGuy123's place and finished re-assembling the calipers after letting the powder coat cool over night..



I think they turned out "Freaking Awesome!"

I picked up a new blast cabinet from a local harbor freight sale... Came at just the right time..

Here she is using it to make pretty some suspension parts for powder coating later..



Upper control arm before



Upper control arm after



This cabinet was worth every penny.. it's incredibly fast to strip and prep parts.. and it even takes the coating off the springs post haste.

I expect to have all of the parts prepped and ready before the end of the weekend!

Oh I see how ya are...

You go out and buy a better blast cabinet than mine and you don't invite me over to play

Hehe...

I basically stole that cabinet C'mon over tomorrow and I'll tell you about it!

We got lots of stuff to blast still and need to get that steering rack pulled

Outstanding! Datacop, I wish there were more Dad's like you out there, I bet when your daughter starts driving she'll have true respect for the road and the car. And there's less of a chance of phone calls "Dad! The car broke down, come and get me!" Your parenting skills are unmatched!

And for your daughter: Awsome job. Keep up the great work, that car is a blast to drive and will be the most rewarding thing for you when it is done. These are amazing skills your father is teaching you, they are truely life lessons here. Oh, and don't forget to change the oil every 3000 miles! I am anxiously awaiting the final product. Keep us posted please!

Are you planning an engine rebuild? That car looks like it has a few miles on it.

-Chris

quote Originally posted by Letsbuildanexotic: Why go auto, learning how to drive a manual is a great skill to learn early? And if she goes through a couple clutches and some syncro gears doing it, that just more quality father daughter time! -Chris

Oh.. she'll learn to drive stick.. no worries there. But for her first car, first time behind the wheel solo in a larger city like Indianapolis, I prefer that she didn't have to worry about a clutch as well as every thing else like dealing with other drivers who pay less than full attention to their tasks at hand..

Any updates?

Time to make things look good for re-assembly. She started by washing out the inner wheel wells..



Then a little bit of black paint in there..



Since we've powder coated the calipers red.. she wanted to go with white control arms







And everything else black..

nice work..cant wait till my boys are old enough to do a tear down and a rebuild..looks awesome..tim

Datacop,
Awesome, awesome, awesome. I know that you have been following Kathryn's build thread, this one is awesome......We'll do your interior if you want to do our front end and brakes!.....lol.

In all seriousness, how is that new blast cabinet? I've been looking at one of those as well? Did you have to hook up a vac to it? What powdercoater are you using if I can ask. Thanks in advance, and keep us up to speed!

-MH