The color is pretty good but it's too bad it needs a full sand and repaint. The PO painted in his garage and it is coming off and peeling. Also did a horrible taping job. I will prolly paint it black eventually. For now it looks good from 8ft away. :-)
Yea, I want some sail panels but I am fixing a few other things before that. Don't really want to put new ones on until I paint it. Prolly by next year
What did you do to the headlight frames to get them lower?
Steve W. NE Grand Rapids, MI 88 Coupe
I copied Tony's idea here with a few little tricks of my own as I went along doing it, like cut down the side covers to cover the side of the light bulb housing. It was a litte tricky but a couple times of trimming and checking and it worked out. After cutting it down and re-assembling it, you'll have to turn them on and off a couple times and see how they pop up. Mine needed a couple trims on the housing to make them flip up smoothly after I chopped them. It turned out perfectly. If you are slightly handy as MOST Fiero Owners have to be, then you should be able to work it out. https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/085387.html The only thing is the headlights from Ebay, the bubls are trash and are hardly bright enough on high beams. You would want to get some brighter bulbs which I intend on doing eventually.
Oh, also... I didn't use Tony's idea with the 4 bolts. here I DID use the plates JB welded to the bulb housing and painted to look factory and then I just made slightly extra large holes for the BOTTOM(moved from the top) and side adjusters to screw through. It actually made the headlights line up perfectly to the street. It was a fun project and looks great now. ------------------ Car Threads 86 Fiero 2M4 Silver https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/115701.html and 86 GT https://www.fiero.nl/forum/F...ML/085541.html
[This message has been edited by jwrape (edited 10-08-2011).]
For some reason, the more I drive it daily the better looking it gets. I think cause the bugs are getting worked out and the little things are becoming nicer and funner to drive. Got it aligned the other day and it made it MUCH more of a joy to drive Here is the night I took my daughter out to the movies and Chinese.
Well I finally STOPPED my transmission leak for $7. I replace the side cover gasket last night. It wasn’t too hard to do. I took some pics to share although most of the tranny pics are just holding my phone near the transmission and clicking cause I couldn’t get my head down there to see in person. Anyways, here are the pics just for reference.
Well, I have started the repainting of the GT with "The Don's" assistance. Here is the Drivers side replacement fender. It turned out great with a lot of Sanding and hard work. http://youtu.be/iKWEJu-UkAY
I am working on a hood as well but haven't gotten too far with it yet. I am trying for perfection on the hood and Deck lid, at least, due to that is where you look first when looking at the car. It takes time and patience, patience I do not have. LOL! But it will get there eventually.
So I started working on re-painting my GT, with the help of "The Don" I got a couple of body parts that I needed to replace on my GT due to the PO sanding with a chain saw on the hood and the fender being cracked and mis-shaped. Here is what I started with. The fender only had two little chips on it to fill and a little wet sanding and it was ready to spray.
Then I have spot puddied and sanded the hood. Just starting to paint it. Trying to get it perfect.
Oh yea, I put on a almost new EGR Tube. The idle went down and it seems to run smoother BUT the Check Engine light comes on still after driving for a while. It does take a little longer than it used to but still comes on about 10 minutes into driving.
Well I'm getting closer to painting the entire car piece by piece. I have the hood and the driverside fender done. The past couple days I have been working on the Deck Lid and I painted the passenger side headlight cover to see how it would turn out. So far it looks great. I am waiting for the fiberglass and then Putty to dry to fill the spoiler holes. I plan to re-install the wing but at a further back position. I am also considering figuring out a Duck bill spoiler instead. But I am not sure at this time which I will choose.
THe Light lid turned out BEAUTIFUL
I have also started working on fiberglassing for the first time EVER. I am attempting to mount Trans Am Heat Extractor gills into my side lower quarters. So far it's going well. I will see when I start removing extra Fiber glass and adding filler to make them look right. Fiberglass is a strange animal.
Threads like this one make me feel like my formula is being neglected being in storage all winter.
I like your shift plate solution. To make it look a little more finished, I would suggest something like bloozberry has done:
quote
Originally posted by Bloozberry:
Looks great ferrobi! That sure looks like an F355 center console insert... can you actually use the gates?
Even though your console looks awesome, I'd like to suggest something that might improve yours even more... depending on what your tastes are. Rather than being able to see all the wiring and cables down through the shift gate, I learned a little trick with my 308 kit a number of years ago. I cut out a thin rectangular frame out of a sheet of aluminum the same size at the shift gate with just a rectangular hole in the middle (ie no gates). Then, I loosely stretched two layers of black nylon stocking material over it and got my wife to sew it like a pocket completely covering the frame. Next, she sewed a button hole with her machine in the center of the nylon to allow it to slide over the shifter once the ball was removed. Finally, I mounted the thin metal frame underneath the shift gate so that the only thing seen is the black nylon. The nylon material easily stretches enough so that no matter which position the shifter is in, all you see when you look at the gate is blackness. It also prevent things like coins etc from falling into the console. Here's a couple pics with the shifter in reverse and first... note that there aren't even any wrinkles in the nylon.
Just watched the youtube video you posted above and gotta say that paint does look outstanding. Can you quickly explain your painting process please? Also the previous owner of our 86 did a shaker can paint job and it hasnt held up at all in 1 year. Any ideas how your paint job might hold up?
Just watched the youtube video you posted above and gotta say that paint does look outstanding. Can you quickly explain your painting process please? Also the previous owner of our 86 did a shaker can paint job and it hasnt held up at all in 1 year. Any ideas how your paint job might hold up?
Great looking work!
Well I had been looking at the $50 Paint Job for about a year now and was really too scared to try it until I had some extra parts to try it on. I looked around on the "Rolled On" forum here http://rolledon.forummotion.com/ So I just tried it.
First I have used the Industrial Spray can of Rustoleum which worked perfectly for the fender. It was especially easy. I wet sanded my fender with 400 grit wet/dry sand paper to smooth and also level out any bad paint. I then cleaned it with Denatured Alcohol and wiped clean EVERYWHERE . I hung the fender from my garage door and put on a light base coat. No Primer needed with Rustoleum, it sticks really well. after the paint flashed (slightly dried), about 15-20minutes later, I sprayed another coat and continued to put pn about 4 coats. I then let it dry over night and wet sanded with 1000 grit paper and cleaned and sprayed it again with another 3-5 coats. It turned out great and I plan to buff it shiny after it's on the car since the fender is pretty hard to buff on a table without scratching it. You can see a little orange peel in this pick that was easily sanded out before the final coat was layed
THe Hood, that was a different animal. I originally sprayed it and it turned out ok but there were a couple of spots that showed wrinkles in the paint. So I wet sanded it back smooth and cleaned it and then tried the Roll on Rustoleum. That works good too but is more sanding and work to make it smooth. I basically added Acetone to the paint and thinned it down to pretty much a water consistancy. I used a Foam roller and rolled the paint one coat every 15 minutes for about 7 coats. Then let it dry over night. Came back the next day and wet sanded with 400 grit and re-applied paint in about another 7-8 coats again. I let it dry and sanded with 1000 grit and painted another 5 coats. Then wet sanded with 2000 grit and finally the hood is ready to be buffed after drying for a couple weeks and hardening. You can see a video I posted where the hood wrinkled due to poor preparation on my part (I think) http://youtu.be/6jkmQvPD7lE Another where I was still having wrinkle issues http://youtu.be/oO15XCb86W4 I finally got it clean enough where it stopped wrinkling and took the paint after sanding it back down
The headlight cover was simple. I cleaned it, sanded it and sprayed it. It lookes perfect in every way. Looks Like I painted it in a Paint booth.
The Rear Deck here is sparyed like the fender and I think I am gonna try to spray all the other panels too. Spraying is the easiest and with the Large Industrial can of Spray can Gloss Black the paint lays down perfectly with little to no Orange peel.
The whole process was all an experiment that took a lot of trial and error that I didn't mention because it doesn't really apply to the process, it was more errors on my part with cleaning the surface.
Let me say, it is absolutely necessary to clean the painting surface perfectly and get ALL dirt and grease off the body pefore painting at all. The Hood gave me a lot of trouble trying to get it clean.
After Spraying a Large surface you will need to wet sand with 2000-2500 grit paper to clean off any dust or dirt that might have fallen into the paint while drying.
After you are happy with your coating and let it dry, you will have to buff, polish and wax for a perfect gloss shine, but it you get a good coat, you really don't have to buff it if you don't want to cause it actually leaves a good shine, but if you are going for a show shine then buffing is necessary.
It's very gratifying to paint your own car for pennies on the dollar. I alwasy say, I'm not gonna pay $3000 for a paint job for a $1500 car.
But I will pay a couple hundred to paint it. :-) Good Luck.
Car started idling and running just a little rough. I already had new plugs for it but hadn't put them in because I was really scared of the rear plugs being seized in the head.
So I soaked the plugs in PB blaster for 24 hrs before. I started on the plugs closest to the trunk. They seemed to be a little stuck, basically I tried loosening the plugs and had to put some effort into it and all 3 popped at first and then loosened up. No problems. The farthest plugs, closest to the firewall, were strange to me. I put the socket on and turned loosened the #6 plug. It felt like it was barely tightened. Turns out, it was barely tightened. In fact, all 3 were hand tight. Not even any effort to unscrew them. If I could get my hand down there I prolly could have loosened them by hand.
Crazy! But I got them changed and it's running smoother and a little more UMMF! when I get on it.
The old plugs were worn on the diode but were running a nice light brown color. Motor seems to be running well at 96k miles.
WOW! I stopped by Advance and happen to pick up a FORD Striker. They only had one so I replaced my drivers door striker with it. WOW! What a difference. It quieted down the door rattle and closes MUCH smoother.
Now just have to get another for the passenger side.
Driving to work and hitting the bumps that the car usually rattles over, the driverside was silent while the passenger side rattled like a 25 year old car.
Started the Vinyl process on my Hood on Monday.... It went pretty well, I learned a few things and got a groove for it. It's definately not for the faint at heart, but it works and looks cool. I bought gloss black vinyl but in reality it looks more like a Satin black. In the pics it looks slightly more glossy but it's Satin.
One thing is, IT"S VERY TIME CONSUMING. it took me 2 hours to do the hood. Here's the pics
When I started, my hood looked like this: Black Rustoleum wet sanded and smooth, with the exception of the drivers side light lid You lay it half on starting from the middle and squeegy it out towards the ends. Have it laid here but not all the bubles worked out GOt it laid, 95% of the bubbles out, stretched a little where I had to. I continued throughout the day watching it for bubbles and re-heating corners that might have come up after it sat. I drove it to work today. Looks better after a day of sitting and laying down more.
THe one thing, if there are any un-smooth imperfections on your the body below it, it will show through. I am going to re-do the driverside headlight cover due to rough paint under the vinyl..... BUT it's one and really cool looking. Gonna get some more and start doing the rest of the car. BUT in my case I need to wet sand the rest of the body to get the trash out of the paint to lay the vinyl down nice. I could leave it and cover it but then it looks like a bad paint job with trash all in it and that's what I'm trying to get away from.
I just picked a set of NNNNNNNEEEEEWWWWW! AR Nova VN701's 18x9 offset -34mm. I am praying I can make them work. I know I can make the rears work but concerned about the fronts. They are brand new out of the box. Guy bought them for a Grand Prix and didn't know they wouldn't fit. His loss, my gain. I picked them up for a 5th of the retail price. Check them out. Gonna put them on Monday. Using my old tires. They should work just fine. BUT my main concern is I might have to run a skinnier tire in the front to get them under the fender AND I'm concered about rubbing the A-Arms. my 18x8's aready touch ever so little at full turn. These are another inch wider. Although my old rims are -38mm and these are -34mm. I plan to test fit one on the front this weekend if I get a second free. If not, Monday morning.
I am Super excited!! It's like a different car now. I had not idea it was setup wrong.
Anyways, I pressure washed my engine the other day after a transmission line popped and covered the engine in trans fluid (That wasn't fun at all). After that my transmission started shifting REALLY quickly, too soon. I knew I needed to adjust the automatic Trans cable to shifter. I adjusted it tighter just by guessing where it should sit. I figured I would make it tight and it would self adjust if it needed it. I put it back on and the car has never shifted better in the year I've owned it. Before, in the morning, the shifts were hard and 2nd to 3rd would sometimes require a manual shifting of the shifter to get it to change. Also I had no bottom end. I would stomp it to the floor and it wouldn't kick down. After adjusting that cable tighter, the transmission shifts absolutely perfectly and if I push the pedal down a little extra it down shifts and I get performance again. WOW. What a difference. I have thinking my GT was super slow all this time, now it feels powerful.
Auotmatic owners - adjust your cable if you aren't shifting right. I thought the tranny was old and worn, turns out it was just mal-adjusted
Ok, so I just got my vinyl delivered. I bought 60"x20' long. Hopefully I will be able to to 95% of the car with it. I'm gonna start on it tonight. When I get pics I will post them
I finally got around to fixing my exhaust. My rear exhaust manifold had beep making that common Pap, pap, pap noise when excellerating. I thought it was the gasket but I took off the manifold and found not only was the gasket trash but the manifold was cracked twice on the driverside port. I finally had a reason to pull out my new welder and try it out.
I drove it to work this morning. WOW! I must say, the car doesn't vibrate, doesn't sound like a worn out glass pack and it has more pep and smooth acceleration. It's a new car. Very proud of my fix
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