Well, I guess it is about time, that I start documenting everything. I bought the car about a year and a half ago, and decided to start the work log, and catch up to where I am now. I figured it was best to hold off, and do a post with more than just a picture of the car a year and a half ago, and start a thread with a little more info.

How it began:
I have always loved the lines of the Fiero and 2 seater cars in general. I found a 1986 GT Fastback about 100 miles from me, and decided to take the plunge. The car was pretty rough, and I was told that it ran decent when it was put in his garage. I picked it up for $400. I had to have it hauled home on a flat bed truck, as it was not running, and all 4 tires were shot. So bad in fact, I could reach through the side walls of a couple of them and touch the inside of the rim.

Here it is the day I bought it, backing up into my driveway to "dump it off"



Some shots of the car they day it got here:

The seats are shot, and someone did a half arsed job at trying to install a sub in the console.

A nice mess under the front trunk, hood, deck, whatever anyone wants to call it







The engine, with most everything disconnected: (A white Plenum... Really????)



It had been sitting so long, the tires not only were dry rotted, they just fell apart!


About a week later, after hooking everything back up (PO started removing wiring and such, to do an engine swap, that he just stopped at the early stages of) I fired it up for the first time. The engine had a VERY sever knock, enough that I backed away in anticipation of a rod flying out at me! On top of that, the typical, as I have learned now, cracked manifolds in the back.

I started to look at engine swaps, and determined it was just more than I wanted to tackle at the time, and found a nice 2.8 replacement about 350 miles from me. The owner's engine in his Fiero went bad, so he bought a crate engine, assembled it and installed it in his car. He drove it from Colorado to Florida, and after getting here, decided that even being a brand new engine, thinking it would be much "peppier" he decided it was still not good enough, and decided to do a V8 swap. Thus the 2.8 was for sale. I rented a U-Haul, and went to Jacksonville Florida to get it. It was covered with a tarp in the corner of a large garage. I paid the $300 and brought it home. The best guess is the engine, according to him, has around 2,000 miles on it. Judging by the block when I got home, and later the rockers and such, that seems about right from what I can tell. The block still has that brand new shine to it, and is not even surface rusted. The lifters when I replaced the valve cover gaskets looked like they were not a day old, and the oil was nice and clean. It was not leaking oil, but I figured the engine is sitting here, may as well replace all gaskets while everything is super easy to get to. From there I put all new parts on the engine as well. New A/C compressor, water pump (metal impeller) new alternator, belts, hoses, plugs wires cap, rotor ect ect.

So, out with the old:



And in with the new:


I am NOT a mechanic, but can do the little stuff. I had friend who is a mechanic put the engine in for me. He had never done a swap on a Fiero, and the concept of taking an engine out the bottom was a new experience to the both of us! hahah! What would take some on here a matter of hours, took us a couple months from starting to remove the old engine, and starting the new one. This was not steady work, but him coming by maybe once a week for a couple hours in the evenings.

So, now the engine is now in the car, and purrs like a newly born kitten! Shew done...... Woah there!!!! Not so fast! Come to find out the transmission on this engine is frozen up for some reason (Automatic tranny) Using even long channel locks on the shifting plate on the tranny, even with a LOT of force, it will not budge in any direction! I walk over to my old engine, and sure enough, you can shift it through the gears by simply turning it with my hand. So now to go back 4 steps, take off the tranny from both engines and swap them.

So, while they are separated, why not?


We figured it would be easier to just lift the motor a bit, and drop the tranny and replace it. WRONG! It was a royal pain, and would have wound up being easier to just drop everything again. Oh well, Live and learn!

Here is the engine hoisted up to swap the tranny's:




So my tranny from my blown engine, put onto the new engine, it all goes back in the car again. Finally done, I was able to take the car around the block for the very first time!

Here is the second time it was started, I forgot to record the first time a couple minutes earlier...




In the mean time, between visits from my mechanic, I was plugging away at getting other stuff on the car done. The first place to start was the front.

I removed the headlights and snapped another picture:




After a lot of cleaning, taping stuff off, sanding, I painted up everything nice and pretty. I printed out a new RPO sheet, and did up some vinyl stickers to finish off some of the little touches:




I also started cleaning and painting stuff to go back in the car when the engine was back in. Here are some of the parts I started with:



And how they look after lots of sanding, priming and painting:




Well that's about it for this first post. I have done some of the interior work, and will post about that in the days to come.

[This message has been edited by JohnWPB (edited 11-21-2011).]

PK, I know I am gonna get a lot of flac about having an automatic transmission, but that is what I intentionally went with. In South Florida, the stop and go traffic is brutal. I would literally be shifting non stop. Ya would get the nice humm at the top end of 2nd gear, just about to up shift, and bam, brake and down shift instead....

This car is not gonna be for racing, but for pleasure and taking to an occasional show. I love the feeling of control with a stick shift, don't get me wrong, but more so when on the open road. My best friend has a Mini Cooper 'S' and I make him let me drive it every chance I can get Man that is a fun little car!!!! But for use as a daily driver, in rush hour, twice a day, I opted for an Automatic.

PS and with no stock cup holder, I would be spilling my iced tea all over the place!

PPS: PK, are you feeling alright man? You did not mention IMSA in your post?!?!? Someone call 911 ! ! !

[This message has been edited by JohnWPB (edited 01-11-2011).]

[This message has been edited by cornersonrails (edited 12-03-2010).]

[This message has been edited by nmw75 (edited 12-03-2010).]