Just got back from a long drive and here is where we are at with the car. For most the time she ran great. part way through the 60 mile drive the idle went up to almost 3 grand for a short bit so I need to see whats up with that. The gauges have an issue as well. the speedo jumps around quite a bit. need to check the sensor at the back on that. The tach also jumped a few times witch I have not seen before. The drivers door need a little work as the door will not open from the outside from time to time. I am going to tune her up next week it looks like and search for any vacuum leaks. I need to replace a few bulbs in the dash as well.
Well got back into it today after a 60 mile drive with it. I wanted to see what could be cleaned and started scrubbing. My son Josh helped out for today.
Here is the front after a good scrubbing and cleaning. Needs some paint on the headlights and the radiator schroud
Here is my Son Joshua. He was my helper today
Here is where we left off in the engine bay
Wanted to do a test on the rims today as well. Here is where we started an I think this is the first painting that I am going to do on the car
Notice the shine and refelction that I am finding with my poslishing. I am going to paint the red on the rim as well. NO decales for this car I think other than the doors.
Great Job! Indys can be real fun, except for that part about the Duke. I just put mine back on the road. Charged the A/C, filled the tank and I am set to go. I painted the rims with some flat red enamel and covered it with clear. Turned out real nice.
. The tach also jumped a few times witch I have not seen before. More to come. any thoughts on the idle??
I have been told that a crappy pickup coil will cause the tach to jump around unexpectedly. I am having problems with the tach in my Indy as well. Haven't really had a chance to check it out much. Yours is looking good!!!
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09:02 PM
May 24th, 2008
Fiero Thomas Member
Posts: 4669 From: Round Lake Beach, IL Registered: Jul 2005
Well I have been outside looking at her for a bit and thinking of the next area to get into. Thngs I need right now are door locks and trunk lock, rear decklid, and the hold downs for the spark plug wires to attach them to the valve cover. I think today I will tune her up and see what other grim I can get off the motor. I look at her and need motivation right now as I see a road that is hard to travel at this time. I did two restores before but I am not sure what is holding me back from tearing into her like I did the front end. who can motivate me and no I will not post my phone number ZOMG.
Did a bunch of work on the car today. I tuned her up and she runs great. New plugs, plug wires, cap, and rotor. I also put in one of my headliners. Here is the work
Strange thing happened. I turned on the blower and smoke poored through it. It is not the heater core as it smelled all electrical. just went out there and ran the blower today and there was no isse at all or smoke. strange???
Lets add some Visors. It started to rain so I have one in and the other will go in later. THe Visor holder only should be installed one way. If you do it correctlly the bar will go straight accross. If not it will point down or to the top of your car. It will screww in either way so a test fit is first. Its hard to get a good shot in the car with my camera so here are a bunch of small ones
Here we are in the up position. they fit in there nice an snug. The screw in the visor is to tighten the viser up to the bar so it does no fall
Here they stay up nice and tight. Why dont I like to add Mirrors as they put an extra space there and they gap the look when they are up. Also they will crease your headliner.
Not much to post lately. Been way to hot out here to work on her. I think that next will be refinishing the wheels. THe red stripe will be painted on as well.
Good looking headliner and visors!! Where did you get the material? edit- oops- I forgot, you are the vendor that sells them. Really lloks like nice fabric!! I'll keep you in mind next time I need one.
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 07-27-2008).]
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12:51 AM
PFF
System Bot
Fiero Thomas Member
Posts: 4669 From: Round Lake Beach, IL Registered: Jul 2005
Good looking headliner and visors!! Where did you get the material? edit- oops- I forgot, you are the vendor that sells them. Really lloks like nice fabric!! I'll keep you in mind next time I need one.
Sounds Great. Would love to hook you up with your car
There is an small update today.
My partner came out of the pool and pushed me as I was bumed out about not going to the 25th and reminded me how bad the paint was and to test a small panel with my gun that has been sitting.
Here is the Good panel and yes this is the good one that was on the car.
And my Gun getting ready to spray some primer. I should have cleaned her a bit more but it was a test spray anyway.
Panel In Primer abter removing all the old paint and preping for primer.
No I dont know if this is supposed to be gloss or flat black but since I can cover with gloss if needed I can so this is flat after three coats
Here she is in the car
Here she is with the deck lid closed
And here you can see how the old paint is and the new for the time being.
Lookin' good! I just peeped in on this thread for the first time tonight and caught up on your work. Makes me tempted to hunt down my own Indy. They're so neat.
Dont think that I will have here set buy then. I have the interior almost done. Need to finish seats there still and fix the dash abit still. I have everything under the front hood done. and I just started to paint the motor as well. I need to find a matching color to the paint still on the motor. There is some primer under the hood already. I have to paint her still and I am not sure if I can get all that done in the next month. I will have the 86gt there for sure though. Still need to find a new rear deck lid for her of I can fix the old one but I would rather have a new one.
Small update today. No Photos how ever. THe drivers door would not open from the outside unless you practicly lift the car with the handel. I had to rework the door rods and let me say there is ZERO room for your hands to work in there. After reworking the rods the door now opens just like it should now inside and out.
Update...Things have been going slow at this time as I have this new job and love it. If I had a good solid week I know that I could get her painted and looking like an indy should but at this time I need to go a step at a time to get her done. I am almost done with the interior of the car. The last three things are steering wheel. shifter recovered, and the seats done. Now I have a set of Indy seats but like them all they need to get fixed. I was just about to send my steering wheel out when I found this for 25.00 and it is in great shape. I am glad that I waited the extra few days. I will get he one the car maby this weekend but I have a bunch of sewing to do as well.
Went out and installed her new wheel into her. Makes a load of differance. I still need to find a good auto shifter as well. but slowly it is comming together. Nest on the list is the distributer O ring. might take it in for that. So on with todays how she looks now
Hello all I just wanted to bump and update what I could. I put a set of my boots in the car and now its snowing again so I am down for the winter. We are supposed to get 11 inches tonight so I might not see here when I am looking out my window again anyway. I wanted to make a small list for next year of the things that I want to do. To me this will be a multi year project but if I had one summer with no kids or wife I could get this done in a summer. But I want to take my time and do it right.
2009 Goals
start the paint job panvnel off. Replace all the locks and shave the trunk lock off. well its not there anyway and why have another key hole Refinish my wheels like I did on the other car. Here is a link for a refresure on how I did them
Hey there Mr. Thomas. Nice thread. I gets bored alot. So I like to read others threads. Some sweet rides out there. The reason I am cracking in, is I have a method of refinishing wheels that might help. So, If you like it let me know. If it is not your thing, let me know. I just would like to offer some good advice. My first step is to dismount the tires. Do one rim at a time. Then I apply Aircraft paint stripper. Can be found at any parts store. Do this in an area that you can hose down. After several minutes, the bubbling will reach a climax. You will know when to begin spraying them off. There will be some residual paint and clear still on the rims. Depending on your degree of perfection, you will have only a small amount of paint and clear coat left. Next step is to lift the rear of your Fiero up, and support it with stands. Mount a rim onto the back and just put it into drive, or second gear if it is a stick. She will spin at a constant pace that is easy to work with. My favorite product is Mothers Wheel Polish. While the rim spins, just press a pad with this product onto the "silver" areas of the lip. It works really fast. And most importantly, uniformaly. The idea sounds a little bizarre, but the way that the rim spins, while in gear, is really like a lathe. After the polish, just tape and paint accordingly. I clear my paint after, but not the lip. I just lightly polish them from time to time. This process takes alot of work out of the equation. This is a trick that I had learned from a highschool auto teacher about 18 years ago. I have used this exact method about 20 times since then. I have a problem buying too many cars! Good luck with your build. .......Just reread your post on the wheel finishing. You know the stuff I use to strip paint. Cool. You got to remove the weights before polishing the lip. That may hurt a bit if'n you left them on. lol. Indy's are cool.....
------------------ Tony K
[This message has been edited by Tony Kania (edited 12-18-2008).]
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07:28 PM
Dec 19th, 2008
SuperchargedV6 Member
Posts: 1966 From: Hinckley, Oh, US Registered: Jan 2006
No date that I can find on it. but I drank it last night and it was still good. JK
Here are some more photos from today. Went out and brushed her off and she started right up. here are some photos for the winter
Here she it running. was funny to watch the snow pop out of the pipes
You can still see that she is not going anyware.
Wheels are half buried
Ny other baby waiting for a nice day and a dig out as well
My nice 25 dollar wheel on here
She is running
She has some age to her but she still runs great
Well not so nice here but A person here is sending me a few things and I think them very much. I never expected the gifts that I am getting for this car.
Made a boot for her. At least that looks good in the snow
E-Break Boot that I made
Arm rests Peeling. Stange
My Other Baby sitting for the winter. I suspend the insurance in the winter so it helps save a few dollars here and there
OK all here it is. This is parade car #4 The driver was Alan B Lacy who was the head of the Festival davision of the indy 500. I have an email to him and its looking very good that this photo is of my car that has the door open. Very cool stuff for me.
You may want to get it back on www.FieroPaceCar.com 's forums. It crashed when you did, some type of telepathic thing I bet? I tried to pull the old files up but no luck and half of the photos were gone. I have to get the photo hoster back up and running but this one will be better and members will be able to link there photos from the site. Rick B
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07:21 PM
Mar 13th, 2009
Fiero Thomas Member
Posts: 4669 From: Round Lake Beach, IL Registered: Jul 2005
well having issues with the car. I thought that I spun a bearing in it or busted a valve spring. It was not a nice noise. I took the valve cover off and well not the best thing to do but ran the motor and it ran fine. LOUD but fine. SO with that I looked through the inside of the cover and it looks that over time some things move around inside the car and the rockers were banging against the valve cover and one looks to have been stuck. so I bend and pound and now the car runs. However I will be happy if after it cools that it will run that way again. BUt I need a TPS and a MAP sensor for it. hint hint do you have one you can send out my way???