also here is a website that shows more pics of the car that has the gauges i want. the one problem that i noticed from these pics is that the trip gauge is seperate from the gauge cluster. not a big problem but will require some work.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2632291

[This message has been edited by fiero al (edited 07-26-2010).]

I got the wiring diagrams for the Dash's we have if you want to see them.

i guess i could look at them but again not sure what good they will do. i mean i can atleast see if the thing work but like i said before, i dout that im going to use it and might end up selling it.

on the other note. i was over matts house yesterday working on his and his dads car. both cars are now engineless and are in the process of getting thier new trans and soon i will be getting mine after matt gets it out of his. i have pics i took whille i was there.

here is a pic of the engine and cradle out of the car


also whille i was there, two friends of matt [mike and midnight] came over in a 88 formula, it was a very nice and clean car. perfect conditon too. and whille they were i was able to take a pic of all 4 of our cars together

here is a pic of matts new gear shifter

and in the words of matt, REVERSE!! [ if you want to know why, ask matt]

The digital gauges were an option on the 87/88 GTA. When I worked at a Pontiac Dealership, (remember them) I special ordered my new 87 Tuned Port 5.0, 5-speed manual GTA with 3.45 gears, but opted for the analog gauges. The digitals look cool at night but get washed out during the day. Also the oil pressure reading tended to go off scale on a cold engine. With the 5-speed I liked the needles and dial display. It was much easier to see when you were close to redline. They digitals also tended to have reliability issues so make sure everything works properly before you spend you cash.

thanks for the info. i may have to rethink my decision on these gauges too becuase i cant find these gauges for sale any where. but like i said before the gta gauges would work alot better then the ones i got out of the cadillac. they would fit better and would have a better chance to wire up. even if they have some problems, they are definitely better then the cadillac gauges

[This message has been edited by fiero al (edited 07-28-2010).]

Thanks for posting that pic of all the fieros Alex.


It was cool meeting ya and you got a sweet car. Cant wait to get mine on the road.

well today, me and matt were able to seperate the engine form the trans and the trans off the cradle. now the trans is sitting in my garage floor. here is a pic of it



also, yesterday, while looking around on the forum, i found a post on someone who drew a pic of a fiero and it made me think of when i was messing around with a computer program i had and was able to draw these 2 pics. they're not much but it is a start.

Those are cool drawings Alex!

sry for not being on lately but i had things to do. some time this week, i was able to get the 4 speed trans i wanted from matt which is now in my garage. with the help of matts friend, who works on trans for a living, was able to fix the trans and should be fixed and working perfectly now. i have to wait and see if it works when the car is done. along with that i was able to start taking my car apart with the help of matt and the cradle is now almost ready to be droped. only four more bolts are holding the cradle to the car and its off. here are some of the pics i took.

today, with the help of matt, i was able to drop my cradle and is now sitting in my garage. also today, with the cradle out, i was able to start working on the engine. i took the upper and middle intake off and cleaned them. i also took off the vavle covers and cleaned them. these parts, including the blue trans cover, will be painted at a later time. i also loosen the trans bolts and took off some of the upper exhaust bolts. next thing i have to do is loosen the water pump bolts and some other parts that i forgot at the time. here are some pics of my progress




what the engine looks like now

i moved the trans to the other side of truck for room. the valve covers and upper intake are on top of the rear tires. middle intake is not in pic.

still have some more cleaning and disassembling left but the i am getting progress with it.

Wow dude it looks great. keep up the good work.

quote Originally posted by pontiackid86: Wow dude it looks great. keep up the good work.

With my help of course.

I guess when the sparkling wine cork pops there wont be any celebration.

today i was able to get some work done on the engine. i took off the starter, the water pump, and the two belts for the altenator and the ac pump. also while working on the engine, i noticed that the rear exhaust manifold had a crack in it. wasn't a big crack but needs to be fixed. i was planning on taking the manifolds off anyway to do the boring out process to allow them to breath better but i don't have the gaskets yet for them. i wasn't able to take pics but i will take some tomarrow and hopfully have the engine and the trans seperated.

today, me and matt were able to get the engine and the trans seperated. the engine is now hanging on the engine lift and the trans is ready to be swapped out with the 4 speed auto. the next thing i have to do is clean up everything and wait for the new parts to come. also here are some pic i took of my progress.

yesterday i took my vavle covers, intake, and the trans cover to my dad's friend,who is a good painter and restorer of old cars, to have them painted. i also took over my cracked exhaust manifold and see if he could fix it. today i'm hoping for my new parts so that i can start switching the trans on the cradle. also when i was able to get the timing chain cover off, i noticed that the chain was loose. not really bad but enough to cause some lag in the accl.

Man, I didn't think you'd actually post that! Damn you! lol. That was fun, one time i was in 6th gear and full throttle, wheels locked to the right, turning around a tree. two wheels come off the ground, but I didn't flip.
Sometimes my ideas aren't the best.

[This message has been edited by mattwa (edited 08-10-2010).]

ya it was somewhat funny except for the part that blew out my ear drums :] but other than that it made me laugh.

[This message has been edited by fiero al (edited 08-10-2010).]

today i didn't do to much with my car other than clean the exhaust ports and clean off some of the old gaskets on the timing chain cover and the water pump area. i also recived my new struts and oil pan gasket. i also found out two things while cleaning my engine today. one was that one of the spark plugs had a crack going around the white part where the boot covers [not a full crack but still bad] so it had to be replaced. probably the reason why it crack was from the oil that came from the vavle cover got onto it and cause it to crack when got hot. i also found out that the reason why i was missing one of my exhaust manifold bolts that goes from the manifold to the engine is that it snap off in the block some time ago. so i have to some how get that out.

quote Originally posted by fiero al: today i didn't do to much with my car other than clean the exhaust ports and clean off some of the old gaskets on the timing chain cover and the water pump area. i also recived my new struts and oil pan gasket. i also found out two things while cleaning my engine today. one was that one of the spark plugs had a crack going around the white part where the boot covers [not a full crack but still bad] so it had to be replaced. probably the reason why it crack was from the oil that came from the vavle cover got onto it and cause it to crack when got hot. i also found out that the reason why i was missing one of my exhaust manifold bolts that goes from the manifold to the engine is that it snap off in the block some time ago. so i have to some how get that out.

Oh, darn, so you weren't as lucky as I thought, its fun trying to get those out.

well with the help of matt and my grandfather, the engine is now reconnected to the trans and is now sitting in the cradle. the altanator and the ac pump were also installed.

today i was able to pick up my painted parts. they came out very well. they came out a little darker than i wanted but they still look nice. i might end up putting the silver stripes on them like the original one had but i dont know what im going to do until i can see it in the light. i'm still waiting on the trans cover because it had some problems before being painted so it will be done tomorrow. but with the other parts i just got i can continue to build the engine back up and start putting it into the car. i also got my other exhaust manifold back from being repaired and i can now start boring them out. im also waiting for the FIERO GT sticker for the intake. im hoping it will come tomorrow along with some other parts. here are some pics of the painted parts.

[This message has been edited by fiero al (edited 08-17-2010).]

Looks nice, but please sand the paint off the "raised" sections, it will look a lot better, trust me.

well i would sand it but the guy that painted them said that there were dark spots there so i might end up just painting the stripes in with silver. i was going to do this with just the intake because if you see the vavle covers in the light, it looks alot better but i don't know what im going to do. i just have to see what looks better. and by the way i got my trans cover back and it look really good. the only problem is that i can't get it back on with the trans sitting on the cradle so i have to loosen the trans bracket bolts to the cradle and lift the trans up a little bit to get it to fit.


[the pictures are not that good but it gives you a look at what it looks like. i might have a better pic when its on the car. also the color is suppose to be a metalic burgundy or a dark candy apple]

[This message has been edited by fiero al (edited 08-18-2010).]

Look nice Alex. Can't wait to see it on the car!

yesterday i was able to get the engine in the car. today me, matt and my dad were able to get some things done with the engine in the car. struts are in place and all cradle bolts are hooked up. almost all the hoses are hooeked up excepted for the heater hoses. i got the computer hooked up and the console put back in. im still waiting for the painted parts to be clear coated to protect them from damage. with this problem i will not be able to have it ready to drive to school. but i sould have the parts tomorrow and hopfully the car will be up and running. i forgot to mention that i was able to bore out the exhaust manifold but i was not able to take pics of it before i put it on the engine. [mainly becuase i forgot to]. but i will have pics of the engine done and running tomorrow and maybe a video if i can figure out how to get it on the internet. heres some pics of current progress



my dad and matt working on axle

by the way i was also over at matts today, after working on my car, and was working on thier new fiero they just got. it's a nice car but it has some problems it needs worked out. one of the problems is that it has a bad oil leak somewhere on the engine. it also has a rear break problem. one of the rotors came apart [i don't have i pic but you can look on his posting https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/082401.html ] and the other rotor has cruves in it which was caused by the parking break being stuck part way. other then that the car is in relatively good condition.

[This message has been edited by fiero al (edited 08-23-2010).]

well with a few minor tweaks and some minor repairs. the engine is in the car [fully assembled] and is now running. at first it didn't seem like it was going to run. what i mean is that it turned over and ran but it was making a bad noise and didn't seem to be running right. but once i got home from school my dad had it running and it seem to run ok now. what the problem was was that the little clip that goes between the starter was moved out of place and was hitting the fly wheel so it was kinda like a baseball card in a bike wheel [ a little worse though]. with that fixed it worked fine. drove the car around to see how it work. the new struts are a definite diffrence but its out of alignment so it feels funny sometimes. i will need to change the frount shocks as well as the brakes which are alittle worn and when pressing the brake peddle, they are alittle soft so you have to push it in a bit or pump it. im surprised its soft becuase we had flushed the system before and haven't touched the lines since. we might have not did it completly enough to get all the bad oil out so we might try it again and see how that goes. the trans work fine as far as a can tell. i haven't really opened it up yet to see if it work but in the low speed it works and shifts fine. i will have to take it out later and see how it works and a more open road.
but like i said so far everything is working as it should except for some oil leaks but i can fix those. [ mostly around the trans oil pan which just needs to be trighten down. and around the speed sensor which i might have fixed by tighening the cover.] here are some pics of the engine in diffrent stages of installation

the fiero gt sticker didn't get put on yet but i can do that later.


the paint on the valve cover and intake look really nice but the pic kinda makes it look funny so ill try and take better pics of it when its all done with the sticker on the intake

[This message has been edited by fiero al (edited 08-25-2010).]

Looking good Alex! Glad you got it running! That always brightens a day!! I look forward to seeing it myself!

thanks for the compliment and its good to see that you have become a member of the forum.
well today i was able to take my car to school today and it drove fine. idled perfectly and it sifted nicely but there are some problems like with the suspension being half done [shocks haven't been done yet. maybe over the weekend] and out of alignment so it rides somewhat funny but its not terrible. there are also some small leaks but im in the process of fixing [mostly tightning some bolts around the pans and lines]. with the exhaust being open more kinda makes it rumble a little more but it's not terrible ether and kinda makes it sounded bader in the good way.

I drove it! Glad to see my automatic was fixed, it works a lot better now. Engine runs great too.

today, after school, i decided to take a look at the front end of the car. so i took off the front wheels and take a look at the shocks and the bushings. i didn't change the shock yet but i will tomorrow when i get them but i did change the bushings in the sway bar and the tie rod ends. i also greased up everything so that it ran smoothly. i then took the car for a test drive to see what it would do. it seemed to have made the steering easier but i can't be sure intil i change the shocks and get the alignment done. also while test driving the car i was able to see if the over drive work. i got the car up to around 45 or 50 and the over drive engaged perfectly. i still have the problem with the parking gear not engaging sometimes but it doesn't bother me much becuase it isn't stoping the car from working and i don't plan on take the engine out just to fix it when it only happen once in a while. plus matt told me a way to avoid it. he said that if it does this, you have to shut the engine off and then put it in park to get it to park. it seemed to work so i will use that till i decide to fix it. which wont be for awhile [ probably when i decide to do the 3.4 swap or some other project over the next summer once im out of school]

i didn't get much done today because i didn't get my shocks yet and wont get them till tuesday but i did tak a look at some of the leaks around the engine. i tried to fix the one leak on the speed sensor but i need a o ring for it and i found out that there is a coolent leak but i cant tell what coolent line is leaking. it might be the one up against the fire wall [heater hose] but im not sure. the oil pan on the engine is still leaking a little around the area by the trans and around the oil drain plug. i also went over matts house today to help work on thier cars. they got some parts [spark plug wires, spark plugs and some other parts] for the 88 and tested them out. we also tried to find the oil leak on the engine but we couldn't see it. the engine ran fine but with some bad bushing causes the engine to rock back and forth when it idles. along with this we also found out that they needed a new rear brake caliper. so we went up to some stores to see if they had any but the most we could fine was one at auto zone and it wont be in till tuesday so the car still can't move.

today i was able to change out my old shocks. the old ones were somewhat bad so these should improve the suspension. i haven't tried them yet but when i take it to school i will see how it handles then. i also help matt get his engine in his car. got some of it connected back to the car but still needs some work. still need alignment done which i hopefully will have done friday before taking it on a trip down to my grandparents. with this trip, i should be able to see how well it handles.

today i was able to fix the coolent leak that was coming from one of the heater hoses. i wanted to fix the oil leak on the oil pan but theres not much i could do becuase the bolts were already torqued and couldn't be tighten. it seem the leek is around the lip by the trans and by the timing cover [ were the cover meets the oil pan] so i might have to redo the sealing when i change the oil. i also had the time to wash my car. now its nice and clean for my trip down to my grandparents. after i did this, my dad wanted to test drive my car so we took it for a spin around the block. to him it seemed to run nicely but it does need the alignment. so i hope to get it done friday before i go on my trip.

Awesome job Alex! Glad things worked out for you. I'm sure you're grandparents will be pleased. Have a good weekend & thanks to & your dad for helping my boys with our fieros. I really appreciate it.

well i am back from my grandparents. i came back yesterday night. while on my trip i found out that my rear control arms bolt became loose and cause the car to sway alittle but it was controlable. when i got to my grandparents i took the wheels off and tighten the control arms but i wasn't able to torque them so i would have to take them off later to do so plus put the wheel wells back on. while driving the trans seemed to work fine. it shifted into overdirve well and through the other gears just as well. other than the swaying, it handled preaty good. today i was able to torque the control arms and the ball joint. hopfully it will hold and wont come loose. i also put the wheel wells back on. i forgot to mention that i also, while down at my grandparents, i was able to put on the fiero gt sticker.

Glad tranny worked OK for you Alex. Sorry about the control arms. I will have to make sure mine are torqued enough.

i've noticed today that my one rear brake is not working right. it makes a scratch noise and doesn't change whe brake is applied so ether caliper doesn't work or its not sitting right. i will have to check it out some time. when i do get around to looking at it i will have to go and fix the heater coolent line becuase it seems to be leaking agian. i can't see why becuase i just fixed it not to long ago but i guess i didn't tighten it enough.