I have seen You Tube videos saying that the frame was made from Magnesium and some more that said it's cast iron . Which is it . I am trying to learn all I can about these cars since I a newbie owner of 2 of these great cars . I have always wanted one since the 80's and finally acquired 2 .One I am leaving stock and the other I am wishing to play around with . So I will probably be asking some stupid questions and I hope you great people will have some patience .
The Fiero spaceframe, front and rear cradles and doors are steel. The spaceframe has certain stampings that are made of high strength steel alloys and are difficult to drill into, particularly the large crossmember across the lower front of the engine bay and the fuel tank tunnel. To promote corrosion resistance (they really don't rust easily) the entire assembly was spot welded together, then cleaned and passivated in a multistage dipping operation, and then electropainted by dipping into an electrically charged tank of paint. The process completely encapsulated the welded up spaceframe (even in the areas of overlapping stampings and inside the A pillars) in a very corrosion resistant paint coating.
Underneath the plastic body, the space-frame is regular sheet steel......The only magnesium that I know of was the rear deck grill on the 1984s. My 85 Fiero only has surface rust but I live in CA where salt is not dumped on the roads in the winter.
------------------ "Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne." - Kurt Vonnegut
I've talked to a bunch of people that says the Fiero is a Magnesium chassis . According to the pic posted on here I don't see a drop of magnesium .Yet another wide spread lie or misinformed about the Fiero . I have heard a lot of lies about the Fiero . It's amazing that Fiero lasted the 4 years it did with this many uninformed or non truths said about the poor lil cars . The more I learn the more I like them period .
I've talked to a bunch of people that says the Fiero is a Magnesium chassis . According to the pic posted on here I don't see a drop of magnesium .Yet another wide spread lie or misinformed about the Fiero . I have heard a lot of lies about the Fiero . It's amazing that Fiero lasted the 4 years it did with this many uninformed or non truths said about the poor lil cars . The more I learn the more I like them period .
No magnesium in the chassis... it is stamped sheet metal. 5 years of production: 84, 85, 86, 87, 88
Yes....We hear on this sight all NO the reel facts about the Fiero.....Like that only the GREEN Fieros had a fire problem- ALL of them caught fire and burned...and that is why you never Cee a (Factory)green Fiero!
(Be careful to filter what you "Here" about the Fiero.......)
(Oh and did you know that A) Magnesium is rarely used in cars because of it burning at high temp and creating extinguishing problems...But that B) They now have an alloy that is non-flammable....So we could have Magnesium wheels that would weigh....say 8-10 lbs for a 16 x 7 size?)
[This message has been edited by cvxjet (edited 04-29-2019).]
I've seen some people on the internet say that the Fiero's frame is plastic. Of course those aren't car people, but they watch cars on TV and they slept in a Holiday Inn last night. The slightly smarter people think it's a rebodied Chevette.
It's kind of sad that the way the Fiero was constructed made it stronger, safer in a crash, heavier, and more expensive to build - but the common perception has always held that it's flimsy and a death trap. So from a marketing standpoint, nothing was accomplished.
If that's what people were bound to think anyway, then GM might as well have made it a standard unibody. Would have at least been lighter and cheaper that way.
Three big problems that were insurmountable for the Fiero; A) The magazines after 1985 were on the take from Toyota (Read R&T and MT road tests of 85 GT, then read any later road test in any mags- Car & Drivel was the worst- it was so blatant!) B) That first year, they had the fire-situation in a total of 5000 of the the 110,000 made- and only 260 caught fire; That doesn't sell Newspapers tho, so at one point they were claiming "One in Twenty Fieros had caught fire!!!!!!!!!!" and the last big problem; C) Chevrolet did not want competition for the Vette....Hard to imagine the Fiero being comparable, but then the early C4s were not that good....Too bad they could not understand the "Stepping-stone" concept of buying a cheaper, lower performance car first, then later getting the "Big boy" when income finally opened the door.
