Life has been breathed back into the DieselFiero. As some of you may recall, I had an accident with my DieselFiero a while back. I smacked the nose on her.
I stripped her of everything usable and scrapped her carcass. I found another Fiero body. It was an 85 4 cyl, stickshift. Luckily I had salvaged everything I needed to convert it to an automatic Fiero. (Not really lucky, I planned it that way!)
I am now done transplanting DieselFiero's heart and soul into the new body. I had to remake the alternator and the A/C brackets and added an idler pulley to make the serpentine belt tensioner work better. So far so good! SHE LIVES! MY CREATION LIVES!! (shades of Frankenstein...)
I did the "Grand Am" brake conversion on the front brakes and left the stock brakes on the back to keep the parking brake usable. I had to replace the two inner tierod ends on the front and a ball joint in the back so they could do a good 4 wheel alignment. I got 4 new tires on her too.
Her body panels are mostly OK but she needs a paint job. I guess that I will be learning to paint plastic body panels this summer! Any hints for me?
I have to fix the headlight motors next. Then the headliner. And she will be looking pretty good.
I also have something weird happening, when I turn on the ignition key, the windshield wipers wipe once. Anyone have any ideas as to what might cause this?
Headlight motors, buddycraig has videos on youtube and a great thread on here. Again Rodney sells the kits to fix them once you figure out the problem.
open your images in Paint and go under 'Image' and "stretch/skew" the images down equally in the horizontal and vertical until their size is under 512k.
.... when I turn on the ignition key, the windshield wipers wipe once. Anyone have any ideas as to what might cause this?
If you have the talent to put a diesel in a fiero, let me try to help you quickly solve your phantom wiper problem. The 2 problem areas are the wiper motor (some of the electronics on the circuit board are screwy) and the switch IN the steering column. Quickest and easiest fix:
1. Get a "known good" wiper motor and replace yours. When I had phantom wipers, i got a "known good" wiper motor for $20 by placing an ad in The Mall.
2. If you still have the problem, get the switch from the 87-88 model year and replace the one in the steering column.
About the only thing that would be left is the turn signal stalk, but according to the info that has been posted on the subject, this is rarely the cause.
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09:48 PM
Apr 7th, 2009
jsketcham Member
Posts: 434 From: Meadville, Pa, USA Registered: Jan 2009
yeah .. pictures, little background on the engine, tranny, gas mileage, ect.. sounds interesting, what diesel did you put in it. does it have smoke stacks coming out of the rear deck lid? interesting.. that would look neat.
I have a few pics but it said I could only post a pic of 512k size or less. My pics are 778k.
How do I post them?
DieselFiero
Or even easier, just open an account with Photobucket.com (free).
When you upload the pictures it will size them down for you (you can set the default size you want) and then you just copy the link under the picture and paste it into you post... Easy!
See RWDPLZ's response near the top. I will only add that it is a problem common to all Fieros and probably all old cars with intermittent wipers. A series of capacitors provides the delay and old capacitors often leak and need replacement. My 88 does it too. Don’t change your motors or switch, just get Rodney’s kit.
Awesome. I still want to find a crappy coupe with a blown engine and somehow end up with a 4- or 5-speed biodiesel running on WVO. =)
quote
Originally posted by gem1138:
See RWDPLZ's response near the top. I will only add that it is a problem common to all Fieros and probably all old cars with intermittent wipers. A series of capacitors provides the delay and old capacitors often leak and need replacement. My 88 does it too. Don’t change your motors or switch, just get Rodney’s kit.
My 86 had a "phantom wipe" and was losing its ability to delay, but it was from a funky wiper motor park switch. I took off the motor, located the general area of the offending contacts, and sprayed the heck out of it with WD-40. With the combination of the little red straw and the foaming, it got to the right place. Put it in, let the wipers go for a while, and viola! It cured the phantom wipe and got the delay function back. I can't say if these contacts are your problem though.
DieselFiero seems to be running good. We will be driving it to Huntsville, AL for the Swap Meet tomorrow.
I got the headlight motors rebuilt. The left one was working but I had the kit so I put it in. It was on its last leg, so it was good that I rebuilt it.
For some reason the dome lights and the power mirrors don't seem to have any power going to them. My power windows are working fine. There is a secondary junction block up above the fuse block. It must not be getting power to it properly. I have not seen this junction block in any of my other Fieros so I am not sure how it is supposed to be wired. Any info out there on this junction block?
The beauty of diesel engines is that they can use Biodiesel without any engine modifications; in other words, your car's life will live on as long as we can produce maize and sugarcane
The beauty of diesel engines is that they can use Biodiesel without any engine modifications; in other words, your car's life will live on as long as we can produce maize and sugarcane
Uh, Biodiesel can't be made from maize and sugarcane, that is Ethanol. Biodiesel is made from the oil from seed crops like soybean oil, canola oil, etc.
DieselFiero seems to be running good. We will be driving it to Huntsville, AL for the Swap Meet tomorrow.
I got the headlight motors rebuilt. The left one was working but I had the kit so I put it in. It was on its last leg, so it was good that I rebuilt it.
For some reason the dome lights and the power mirrors don't seem to have any power going to them. My power windows are working fine. There is a secondary junction block up above the fuse block. It must not be getting power to it properly. I have not seen this junction block in any of my other Fieros so I am not sure how it is supposed to be wired. Any info out there on this junction block?
Rick M.
aka DieselFiero
My son and I drove DieselFiero to Huntsville,AL and she drove just fine! Nice to meet some of you guys there. I got 36 mpg driving about 75 mph with the 125C auto transmission. My next DieselFiero2 will have a 4 speed OD transmission and that should push it over 40 mpg. My wife found a donor car, a 1988 Fiero Coupe, 4cyl Auto. The body panels are without any damage but needs paint(surprise!!) The 4 cyl is locked up.
I am going to transplant a sunroof onto it. I have a cradle from an 88 GT that I think I will build the drivetrain onto then slide it into the donor car. I also have a winged decklid from an 88 Formula to put onto it. I am trying to decide what color to paint it as well as color of DieselFiero1.
My wife also wants me to build a Fiero Nose/Tail trailer. I think that I will install an extra fuel tank in the trailer so that I can drive from here to California(maybe) without having to buy fuel! The trailer will also give us much needed "trunk' space. I guess that I have my work cut out for me for quite a while!!
DieselFiero
Rick M.
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10:19 PM
PFF
System Bot
fieroguru Member
Posts: 12539 From: Champaign, IL Registered: Aug 2003
I was going to take a picture of the Diesel 4.3 and the 4.3 CPI Fieros sitting side by side at the Fiero Factory, but never got around to doing it. Loved the diesel 4.3 and taking the path less traveled!
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10:27 PM
Apr 27th, 2009
Will Member
Posts: 14285 From: Where you least expect me Registered: Jun 2000
The 2 problem areas are the wiper motor (some of the electronics on the circuit board are screwy) and the switch IN the steering column. Quickest and easiest fix:
