Long ago (20 years or so) I put a northstar in my 86 GT, eventually it blew up and the car sat in the corner of the shop until recently. I got a replacement cradle as it was easier than modifying the V8 one and in the midst of installing a 3500 V6.

The A-Arms and tie rods are original to the car, the cradle is new (to me) but the tie rods seem too long. Can anyone tell if the mounting bracket's been moved? I didn't see different part numbers for 84-87 tie rods, so I'm at a loss.

Thanks.
J.McCreery

Looks like they cut the tab off and flipped it 180 degrees.

https://images.fiero.nl/2011/Bare_Subframe2.JPG

Weren't the toe link brackets changed at some point? Seems like I read "after 84", but I could always be wrong.

Here’s my 85 with the tie rods installed.

Thanks guys, upon closer inspection it has been cut and welded (not sure why). I have to pull it all back out anyway, so no big deal.

Thanks again!

JM

The 84-87 rear suspension has one glaring mistake- the tie-rod is way too long; On a strut suspension the length of the tie-rod is determined using a triangle- the top is the top-of-strut, and the two bottom corners are the ends of the lower arm.



Obviously, with the tie-rod being ABOVE the arm, it should be SHORTER than that arm- instead some "engineer" made it longer ("I'll just make it really long so it won't change length during suspension travel" (Yes, but the lower arm does change length during travel, dumb-bun)

A number of people have shortened that tie-rod using various set-ups...there was even a specially designed tie-rod that mounted in the original bracket but had a rigid extension.

[This message has been edited by cvxjet (edited 11-30-2023).]

Yes someone mod'ed them...
Why?

Several stories in car rags then Push by others claiming "Fiero has horrible Bump Steer problems."
I say Push because like drug dealers several vendors sold product costing a lot of $ that don't fix "the problem." Others "simple" cut pieces etc to do similar "fixing" to shorten the rods.
See https://web.archive.org/web...ierocave/bumpbum.htm

In rare cases... someone mod'ed the whole car to fit a kit or race appearance package like IMSA clone kits & "needed" wider space between wheel not just wider tires. Moving that bracket give extra space w/ OE tie rods so when a rod wears out etc can easily replace them.

------------------
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Jurassic Park)

The Ogre's Fiero Cave