1986 Fiero daily driver (Page 1/2)
SavinJunk JUL 12, 02:54 PM
Hey all,

I was looking for a fun vintage compact daily driver and after look at a variety of different cars decided to go with a Fiero. I just bought this 86, 137k miles and seems to run pretty good. It's just the base 2.5/manual 5 speed but it sure is fun to drive. I'm going to do a good tune up, new hoses, replace the headliner, fix the A/C, and maybe a new fuel pump for pro-active insurance against breakdowns.

Great website and I enjoy all the good tech talk.
IMSA GT JUL 12, 03:35 PM
Welcome to the forum. You picked a great gas mileage car during these high gas prices. If you decide to do the fuel pump, be aware that you will need to be under the center of the car to remove the tank so please have jacksatnds and a floor jack for backup. We recently lost a member when the car fell on top of him. Also a factory service manual will help you greatly.
R Runner JUL 12, 07:25 PM
Welcome to the Forum!

There are several members in the St. Louis area who will be able to help you in person if needed. This forum is a fantastic site for looking up solutions and asking questions.
Great car for mileage!

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Paul

SavinJunk JUL 13, 01:58 PM
That's terrible to hear about that person's accident. My auto shop teacher from years ago always stressed two means of support under a car; jack and jackstands to back it up.

I'll definitely pick up a book, good advice.
RichLo1 JUL 13, 04:20 PM
Welcome to the community!

Once you get it all fixed up you'll probably start going down the engine swap rabbit hole. There are a gazillion different engines that have been swapped into these, lol.
theogre JUL 13, 10:20 PM

quote
Originally posted by SavinJunk:
That's terrible to hear about that person's accident. My auto shop teacher from years ago always stressed two means of support under a car; jack and jackstands to back it up.

I'll definitely pick up a book, good advice.

Jack stands etc have "Rules." If you fail to follow then people often disable or die and sadly that happens all the time. See my Cave, Safe Jacking

Many things are also in the cave or here.

Haynes books are crap. Chilton is a bit better but often hard to find. Factory Service Manual and alldatadiy.com that gets data direct from GM are good but very hard to use by many because how written. Worse... many FSM have "errors" and many not fix even if you have GM TSB that can get thru alldata. So when FSM shows X and doesn't match the car like rear brakes in 84-86 FSM people have problems. (Is cause by FSM "authors" copy/past data from other car lines and don't check.) GM finally fix rear brake section in 87 Fiero FSM.

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Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Jurassic Park)

The Ogre's Fiero Cave

liv4God JUL 22, 03:56 AM
Welcome to the Fiero family! I also use an 86 Fiero as my daily commuter. She has 230k miles, but I swapped in a low mileage V6 a about 5 years ago which only has 200k on it
My daily commute is pretty lengthy at 150 miles and I actually made a video about it a few years back explaining why I think the Fiero is the perfect car for the job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trD7hF8SHdU.

Here's a recent shot of her:


I hope you will enjoy daily driving your Fiero as much as I enjoy mine! Also, looks like you have found a real nice one, it looks beautiful!
SavinJunk JUL 22, 10:29 AM
I watched that video; it was one of the deciding factors of buying mine!

I replaced the ignition module, pickup coil, cap, rotor, coil, plugs and wires and it fired right up and ran great. For about 10 miles. Then it came home on the back of a towtruck with no spark again. I used all good AC Delco ignition parts so I need to dig into it tonight and see what the story is. I guess its possible a new part was bad but I'm thinking something more like a bad connection in a plug, maybe a fusible link somewhere?

Also, here's a video I made of the trip home when I bought it if anyone wants to check it out.


https://youtu.be/9k5YsA3Ql8k
kendell JUL 25, 01:46 AM
Man, that looks totally neat!
Rhodesia1977 JUL 25, 08:54 PM
I used to have an 85 Fiero SE. Mine would
do that a lot especially when it rained. I jiggled the wire harness near the battery and it would eventually start. It turned out to be some kind of sensor by the distributor. I installed a new distributor and new ignition module and cleaned up the connections near the battery. It never happened again. Maybe that might be it. I had mine for 5 years and was rear ended at 45 mph by a Chevy Cavalier. The Cav was totalled but my Fiero was able to start and drive home minus some trunk damage. That Fiero saved my life I believe. Had it for a few more years and sold it in 2003. I now have an 86 fastback GT. These cars are awesome. They can be finicky sometimes but they are not complex like today's POS! Welcome to the forum. Let us know what you find out.