Most Fieros suffer from weak, and brittle skeletons. For those of us that may have replaced the radio, you know what I mean. This is the third one that I had to repair. After taking it out of the car, the lobes for the radio and AC were broken, and stripped. My method is to use plastic welding epoxy. I put a little vaseline on the threads of the screws, and place them in the holes. Then I tape off the front of the skeleton to provide a dam for the epoxy. Pack the epoxy into the void to fill it up.

Let it cure for a couple of hours before removing screws, then after at least six hours, I sand it, paint it and it is as strong as it was the day it came off the assembly line.

I have used super glue, cyroacrylinate (sp) and regular expoxy in the past, but it never held as good as this plastic welding stuff.

Tony,
Have you stripped the vinyl completely off the skeleton here? How do you re-attach it? Thanks for the tip, I have a few parts I need to repair on my 84 and I am afraid of what I will find when I get behind the after market radio in the 87. The mechanical skills of the last owner have not inspired much confidence so far! I think I now truly understand IYAAYAS (he was an ammo troop).

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Dwayne Mohr
84 SC Red
87 GT 5sp Silver
(Formerly FieroSoul, member since 2001)

Actually the radio surround, shifter console and center console are attached to the skeleton with screws. If you take the cigarette light bezel out you will see two under it, there are two inside the center glove box thingy, two under each ashtray, three under at the bottom of the radio surround, and two between the radio and AC control head. after taking the screws all out, the surrounds simply lift off of the skeleton. The skeleton is attached to the frame of the car with screws in similar locations, plus some of those annoying push fasteners, that always break when you try to take them out. Be sure to have new ones on hand.

The car that I just bought had the typical warpping vinyl, so I took it all out to repair the warppage. The skeleton was falling apart, so it came out for repair as well. The dash is coming out as soon as the new one arrives... the one in it now has badly broken corners on the passenger side.

As far as what to find behind aftermarket radios... I understand. My second Fiero was owned by a Vehicle Maintainer, and he had all types of wire mods under there that were useless, and looked horrible. It took me two weeks to rip it all out, and restore it to orignial.

While you are in there, you might want to try this too. There is a metal support that can be seen through the A/C vents. While I had my 84 apart I sanded teh surface rust off of this support and painted it black. Looks much better in my opinion now. I can get picks if you want but I think you can see what I mean.

Yep found the usual wiring rat nest in the 84 when I upgraded to a factory GM CD player. I always wondered why my instrament light dimmer knob wouldn't work. Previous owner had connected two hot wires together, one was the instrament lead.

Take care shirt.