Many of you know from my other threads that I've been working on an 84 project for a while now.

Finished rebuild here: http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum3/HTML/000077.html


EDIT: This is the car that was "sold" to me http://www.fiero.nl/forum/A...070315-4-032634.html
Car was described as a "nearly mint 9.5 out of 10" vehicle - so I bought this car without seeing it first. Big mistake!


I started dismantling the car a couple of weeks later on the Labour Day Weekend right after I received it. These are the pics I took at that time back in 2006.

While looking over the body, aside from the usual stone chips on the body and mirrors, the most noticeable problem was that the front bodywork didn't "sit" properly.

A closer look showed up these damaged areas. It looked like the hood and fender got pushed back into the pillar, most noticeably on the driver's side.



The leading edge of the hood by the driver's side headlight had an area of chipped paint (hard to see in this photo)
that had been poorly repainted as they didn't even fill and sand the chips first.



You can see that the hood was cracked in the hinge support area. The cracked support was left unrepaired and flexed
with opening and closing of the hood, but the hood was repainted as seen by overspray on the headlight door.





Further dismantling showed that this car had been in an accident (a surprise to me because
this was NEVER mentioned by Chester!) Here's the hammered out damage in the driver's headlight area.





There's no apparent repair to the steel bumper and honeycomb energy absorber wasn't broken up, so these must have been replaced.
But again, the damage that "didn't show" was left as is. You can see the top corner of the fender attaching point broken off.



Also, there was no observable damage or repair that you would have expected to see on a repaired front fascia, so I expect this was replaced.
But there was this minor damage at the upper edge, so perhaps it was a used fascia that had been installed.



At the back of the car, there were some problem areas as well - a chip in the decklid's corner.



Some scapes on the mirrors.





Virtually every 84 I've seen has a damaged cover over the battery. Usually the "hook" or the little support tab is broken off.



Another serious problem was that the decklid "skin" was separating from the decklid structure.
Lots of bodywork ahead - and needs new paint! (not something expected on a "mint" car!)





A "9.5 out of 10" car. Yeah right


Completed car as it is now - click on link below

------------------
My World of Wheels Winners (Click on links below)

3.4L Supercharged 87 GT and Super Duty 4 Indy #163

[This message has been edited by fierosound (edited 02-07-2021).]

This is Nice ..Am grabbing a chair on this thread can,t wait to see more

Edit ----- there something about 84s that relax me

[This message has been edited by Newbfiero (edited 10-14-2008).]

quote Originally posted by KurtAKX: Its that 84s are the best. There is nothing more relaxing than working on a white 84 Fiero.

Thanks. Weren't half the 84's that were sold White anyway?
Red and White were the only 2 colors at the start of production, weren't they?

The car's clearcoat also appeared to be etched with tree sap or something.
I only managed to get the windshield clean with heavy duty rubbing compound and a body buffer.
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/...090219-1-067246.html

[This message has been edited by fierosound (edited 09-02-2023).]

More pictures of this thing when I got it. The interior was relatively decent.
It suffered from the usual warping of shifter surround and center console,
the most severe being the radio surround. Not mentioned or photographed by the seller.



The dome light panel had a scape in it (why with 19,000 miles??), but I luckily found a "like new" one in a high mileage wreck in the junkyard.



The 84's had black switches, and on almost every 84 I've seen, for some reason the switches deteriorate into a burnt out grey with time. Here's my power window switches.



Luckily, the 80's Camaros and Firebirds used similar switches. While you can't use the switches themselves, the caps can be popped off and swapped onto the Fiero switches.



The car had Mr Mike's excellent leather seat skins. About the only thing wrong was that the recliner covers were the dark grey
instead of the matching light grey, and the seat rails were kinda rusted. They couldn't bother to paint these??





The most serious interior problem was the deterioration of the headliner foam. Smoothing the fabric left handprints as the foam collapsed.
It was so bad, that the fabric basically fell off when I removed it for recovering and the old crap underneath was easily rubbed off with a brush.





The same thing happened with the foam in the sunvisors and they "flattened out". I bought a new headliner kit and visors from the Fiero Store.



I had removed the interior completely for cleanup and soundproofing and for installation of a new stereo system.
I wanted to keep everything looking relatively "factory" so I got a Pontiac CD Radio for the car.



More here on that: http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/081643.html

[This message has been edited by fierosound (edited 09-02-2023).]

To inspect the mechanicals, the first thing I did was put it up on jackstands and pull the aftermarket 14" Enkei wheels.
I had expected the brakes and suspension to need work and it did. But steel components were rusted and aluminum was oxidized
much more severly than I expected for a car that had been supposedly garaged all its life. Clearly it hadn't been for some time.



The steering had some play on the passenger side, pointing to a worn bushing inside the steering rack and perhaps an inner tie-rod (why with only 19,000 miles??).
Shocks and strut seals had leaked. At the rear, the wheelwell liners were missing (took lots of time to find good replacements) and splash shields ripped.





In the engine bay, the battery tray area had some minor rust.



The bottom floorpan of the car was in very good condition, but the "custom pipe" and header the Seller bragged
about certainly didn't look to be in too good a shape. All the rusted brake cables would need replacing too.







The "non-working" starter and the "reason" the car could not be started, worked fine (now on a friend's 2M4).
We were able crank the engine to run a compression test with it. The results weren't very good. It produced only 92psi dry and 130psi "wet".
More about the engine here: http://www.fiero.nl/forum/A...070315-2-076520.html



Anyway, we would have to pull the engine to see what was wrong. Here's what we found when we removed the header.
That pile on the ground was the metal that had turned to rust and flaked off INSIDE the header.



Luckily, the header still seems salvageble. I was worried it would be so rusted out that it would need to be thrown away.

[This message has been edited by fierosound (edited 09-02-2023).]

What a "hack job"!!

Time to post more pictures. This was an unfinished engine installation and there was lots of goofy jury-rigging going on. Here's some examples.

The engine cradle had 1-inch aluminum spacers between the rear bushings and frame, apparently, to get the engine to sit lower in the engine bay.
But it also raised the body relative to the wheels for even more wheel gap.



This engine had an SD4 valve cover. Even with the engine lowered, it still interfered with the decklid hinge.
The person who installed it solved the problem by denting the valve cover.



At the end where the thermostat housing is supposed to be, there was a plug in the head with a sensor.



At the "front" of the engine was a coolant outlet. There was no thermostat here, only a restrictor plate (essentially a washer) to control coolant flow.
This guy also didn't believe in using gaskets. This ugly brown sh1t was everywhere!





So the hoses ran across the engine bay to connect the out-flowing coolant to the coolant pipe on the opposite side of the car.
Because of this, he threw away the firewall's upper heat shield that was in the way.
The heat shield protects the firewall wiring and A/C hoses from the exhaust heat. What a fire hazard!



An example of several "hose adapters" using plastic parts from Home Depot.
Not sure why they didn't buy the correct diameter hoses to start with.



With the header off, it was obvious that the exhaust had been leaking past the header gasket.

[This message has been edited by fierosound (edited 05-23-2018).]

[This message has been edited by fierosound (edited 10-29-2008).]