Ok, so me and a buddy were laughing at all the rigged up stuff on his 87 coupe the other day. He did NOT do any of the hilarious rig jobs to his car, the PO did. There are quite a great many of them on his car. ggfoster is the dude here on PFF. I laughed so hard at one in particular that we thought starting a new topic on this is very very warranted. If he has at least 6 diff insanely funny rig jobs on his car there are bound to be thousands out there just waiting for a pic to be taken.
So here is the very 1st one, and its ggfosters. He should post up all the rest, its his project... I mean Fiero.

I hope to see many many more for our laughing entertainment. If you look at it and laugh or get mad because it is so stupid please post it here!!!

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Put the blow torch down please, its just a Fiero.

The list is almost limitless. Just a few below when I bought my 88.

- lower ball joint wedged in with a Pepsi can scrap and then wrapped with duct tape. (Lower control arm hole was sloppy. I ended up welding it in.)
- in stead of putting screws/fasteners back in. He used urethane/butyl caulk. (Interior trim, outside mouldings, etc...)
- repainted the car in a cheap, cheap, urethane enamel. Painted over everything. Badges, sail panels, mouldings, lock cylinders, wheels, ect..... (No, not the glass or lights)

Mostly everything is fixed correctly and up to date. What a job, but worth it.

Rice burner 'cold' air intake. Replaced with stock components now.
Vacuum hose plugged using a golf tee. Replaced hose and connected to where it should have been.
Alarm system wiring and alarm LED but no alarm. The wiring is still in there. I'll gut it eventually.
10" full range speaker stuffed in a box, set behind the passengers head on that little shelf and used as a subwoofer. Removed/replaced with a real subwoofer and NOT behind the passengers head.
Speaker amp power wired direct to battery. And he didn't wonder why the battery kept dieing?
Stick on 'wood grain' that's now peeling/warping/discoloring. Another 'eventually' job. Yeah, this really isn't 'rigged up' but I think it's stupid. Glue on 'wood grain' in a SoCal car? Yup, that hot ole sun baking a car won't soften the glue enuf to make it slide/warp/discolor. Right?

[This message has been edited by n7vrz (edited 03-20-2013).]

Oh I can play at this game.
-Corvette seats were installed but they cut the studs off the floor and used carriage bolts that spun when trying to take them out. They wired the seats to the non-fused amp wire that ran behind the passenger seat but only twisted the wire together and there was a nice size burn mark on the back panel. Cut part of the metal structure under the shifter to mount the 6 way seat controls, crooked I might add.
-drilled holes in the ledge beneath the rear window to install a 5 point harness and only bolted it to the sheet metal.
-cut holes in the trunk wall to install computer fans to keep the MSD ignition box and there were traces that the stereo amp was previously mounted there.
-installed 2 extra trunk lights that they riveted in and they didn't even put them in straight.
-installed a chin spoiler using the skitime flipped GT nose but had about 20 visuble fasteners showing including rivets, plastic rivets, bolts, screws, and some goofy piece of metal with some rubber lawn edging.
-"molded in" fog lights in the nose by cutting holes and having large visuble bolts showing. They don't even point at anything and the lenses are inscribed with "Ford".

I know there were probably others but those are the ones that came to mind immediately. I almost have it all straightened out.

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Not today but merits posting here... Tack/contact paper for cabinets, tar paper for roofing, sheet of plastic and some vinyl headliner!




Gotta love those dreaded PO's!

Mine had new automatic-transmission cooler lines fabbed up by a certain now-defunct central-Illinois Fiero-specialty shop. They were mostly OK except where they make the turn at the front of the car and curve up toward the radiator. Bob used the swaybar as a bending jig, and the cooler lines were tight against the bar where given enough time and miles they were sure to leak. Also found a variety of non-factory fasteners all over the car, mostly hardware-store bolts which didn't really want to fit properly. Probably weren't even metric.

I've seen a lot of weird stuff in junkyards. Too much to remember.

Some of the 5 car alarms that were installed....one on top of the other:

When I bought my '87 SE (in 1998), the PO had replaced one spark plug wire with a piece of solid core residential wire. He also replaced the dogbone with a piece of a lawnmower blade. He basically cut a lawnmower blade in half, and drilled 2 holes for the bolts. He said he did that to make the shifts feel more crisp. (Oh, and the lower motor mount was trashed... wonder why?)

Oh yes, this is getting good. Great ones y'all !!!!!
How about a power cord from an indoor stand up heater or something running around under the pedals coming from somewhere in the stereo area to around some where to the fuse box area. Idk what that is yet exactly, waiting for the dude to come over so I can trace wtf that is. I noticed it when I was doing a quick fix on his hotwired coolant fan to fuse box via a jumper that was soldered to a 10 amp fuse for ecu. Can you believe that??? SOLDERED to a 10 amp fuse in the box. baahahahahah. Temporarily fixed it with new fuse and running jumper with a new male connector to batt slot in fuse box. We were at our Fiero Club meeting he limped into lookin like his Fiero had caught fire. So he could at least have a running fan.

I will add some pics of those when I get them. Or he could.....

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Put the blow torch down please, its just a Fiero.

IN the 86 I just picked up for the kid, there is a door bell switch under the dash to run the wiper pump, and in the engine bay there is at least 2 different alarm systems i need to figure out how to remove. in my choptop I found a ricer cold air kit and in the maroon 87 I had they had shag carpet for the headliner.

my face hurts!

Hate it when you can't close the trunk? Just hack a bit of the vents away - looks stock!

in fact, most of my parts car seems to be cobbled together a bit haphazardly. The crazy thing is that it actually wan't that poorly done, and the car was apparently driven like this for quite some time.

That pen's mine Haha! Unfortunately there's stupid things like that all over the car lol

YOU GUYS ARE JUST PUPPIES !!!!!!...wait till you see THIS !!!!..go to Craigs list..Chicago or Kenosha-Racine ( Wisc.) look up Feb. 25 listing of " 4.9 Fiero with camaro hatchback glass $7000 ( Trevor) pics. ( Trevor is a 10 person town in Wisconsin) GUYS....YOU AIN'T GONNA BELIEVE THIS ONE !!! LOL LOL LOL

quote Originally posted by seth1972: Hate it when you can't close the trunk? Just hack a bit of the vents away - looks stock! in fact, most of my parts car seems to be cobbled together a bit haphazardly. The crazy thing is that it actually wan't that poorly done, and the car was apparently driven like this for quite some time.

Was that the 2.HATE ??? Every time that Fiero cranks up an engineer dies somewhere in the world.....

I simply have to abuse this thread a tiny bit, because it's too good to pass on. It wasn't on a Fiero, but tops my list. My nephew had a truck that would run like a top, but just wouldn't start after sitting a few hours without a prime. He put gasoline in the windshield wiper resevior and ran a hose to the intake breather. And left it that way for a couple of years!

quote Originally posted by weaselbeak: I simply have to abuse this thread a tiny bit, because it's too good to pass on. It wasn't on a Fiero, but tops my list. My nephew had a truck that would run like a top, but just wouldn't start after sitting a few hours without a prime. He put gasoline in the windshield wiper resevior and ran a hose to the intake breather. And left it that way for a couple of years!

Danger danger, but just brilliantly funny. That is certainly thinking outside the box for real.

My "rig" wasn't anything so obvious, but it was almost as good.

A few years ago, I bought a wrecked Formula for the drivetrain, so I could swap it into my Duke coupe.
The engine turned out to be really tired. Developed a bit of a rattle when it was warm.
I then decided to take the tired 2.8 out and swap in a rebuilt 3.4.

That left me with a worn out 2.8 on the engine stand.
I sold the engine stand for like $40, and threw the engine in as a bonus. (The buyer knew exactly what he was getting.)
When the buyer took the engine apart, he found that one of the heads had been replaced with the low-po S-10 truck head. The one with the itty-bitty valves.
As if that wasn't bad enough, a sizeable chunk of one corner of the head (on the top, where it meets the intake manifold and valve cover) had been broken off. (I still haven't figured out how one would go about breaking the corner off of a cast iron head.)
A replacement corner had been molded out of JB Weld and was used to fill the gap.
I think he said he realized what had happened when he had the head hot tanked and the corner dissolved.

quote Originally posted by ggfoster: That pen's mine Haha! Unfortunately there's stupid things like that all over the car lol

I still like the F-Bomb sticker.

I want one.
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Raydar

[This message has been edited by Raydar (edited 03-20-2013).]

More pictures to this thread would be nice.

Let me see... so far on the '86 I've found the entire exhaust system replaced with plain old hotdog mufflers, one of the T-tops replaced with a piece of pitted acrylic, seats out of a Toyota Paseo (they don't fit by the way guys...), orange silicone sealant to replace the completely missing TBI gasket, drilled out seatbelt receiver holes in the floor, fuel pump wiring cut out and replaced with a piece of five-core trailer cable, collapsed heater line next to the fuel tank, heater core bypassed and reasonably severe damage to the floor as though it'd been on a two-post hoist and lifted... by the floor.

The '87 has escaped with nothing more serious than having a second pump connected to the washer bottle, even though the stock one was fine and minor weird electrical gremlins.

I think I've got some photos somewhere of some of the tomfoolery, I'll have to take a look later.

I saw one in the junkyard on which someone had installed a sparkplug wire set that obviously was meant for a much larger engine. All the wires were much too long and were draped all over and hung way down below the exhaust manifold. The distributor-to-coil wire was so long the guy had tied a loose knot in it to take up some of the slack.

Another car (or perhaps the same one) had some hacked up wiring where the "bundle" of wires were supposed to be located between the valve cover and the intake plenum. Perhaps to replace a valve cover gasket, someone had yanked that wiring bundle out and cut and spliced it with new longer wires which were now routed the long way around the lower part of the valve cover. All the splices were done with wire nuts and tape.

quote Originally posted by tntcary: Here it is and it is amazing someone was stupid enough to actually really do this. http://racine.craigslist.org/cto/3643131734.html

There is s thread on this forum about this car, looks like he gave up on it.

Saw an 88GT in a local garage that the owner had rebuilt the engine with all GM parts, replacing all the internals. This was found by The Fiero Factory when they bought the car. It was in the garage because the owner couldn't get it running after the install.

The car went to the parts lot because of all the butchering. I don't remember all of it, but the major thing that stood out to me is that rather than disconnecting harnesses, he cut all engine to body wiring including those from the front bulkhead and from the connector at the battery. When he reinstalled the engine, he took butt connectors and Scotch-Lock conectors and put them back together. I think Ed Parks also said that some of the connecting rods had been installed backward, too. For that reason, the engine wouldn't turn but a few degrees at a time. The new GM crank had been destroyed.

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Love my Fieros, S-curves and speed.
It's what driving was meant to be.

The preceding was sent on my 6 year old Dell Dimension 2350 desk top.

quote Originally posted by seth1972: Hate it when you can't close the trunk? Just hack a bit of the vents away - looks stock! in fact, most of my parts car seems to be cobbled together a bit haphazardly. The crazy thing is that it actually wan't that poorly done, and the car was apparently driven like this for quite some time.

I'd try my absolute hardest to get that back on the road...

Back in the 80's I had a 72 Dodge van with 318 cid. When it got tired I pulled the engine and had a professional speed shop rebuilder fix me up. Got a reasonable bill for all the parts and machine work and I dropped the rebuilt engine in. Startup was great and I put another 50k or so on it. When the time came to retire the van and upgrade to a newer one I salvaged some of the old parts and out of curiosity I decided to pull the engine apart just to see how the old girl held up.

I was shocked beyond belief when I discovered that all the rod caps were installed backwards. As some will know these only go on 1 way so they must of used an air gun to drive them home which visually distorted the caps. I couldn't believe my eyes so I had a neighbor up the street who is a auto machinist look at it and he couldn't believe it either.

Now for the good part. This engine took me across the country twice. Over mountains, across deserts and even forded some high water in the middle of nowhere. Pa to El Paso Tx. and PA to Las Vegas without a problem or worry. Just goes to show all that stuff they teach you in tech school about putting the same push rod in the same hole and same piston in the same bore, etc,, can be thrown out the window. Chrysler deserves a thank you letter and to this day I'm still scratching my head on this one.

Spoon

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"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

88 automagic duke with dis ignition. Module on it's way out so the car would just stall at times. rather than install a new module the PO wired up a bypass switch to the switch assembly on the trans so that you could start it while it was in drive.

Same car. Hard line from trans to cooler up front fractured so they repaired it with some rubber tube and clips. Not a problem in itself so except they never flared the ends of the tubes to prevent the hoses coming off. Well, eventually they did, dumping trans fluid all over the car/road, stranding the kid (who was driving it) and trashing the trans at the same time. Thanks dude!

Won't even mention the tin can and bondo/paint repair to the trunk corner or battery held in with a bungee cord because the tray was rotted out!

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Anything I might say is probably worth what you paid for it, so treat it accordingly!

Dave

www.ltlfrari.com

The more I read the more I am shocked.... and the more I snot on myself trying not to spit my drank all over my laptop laughing!!!
I need to pull out the old Dell to read these while having a tasty beverage.

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Put the blow torch down please, its just a Fiero.

Is this a Fee-Dub or really a Viero? http://bend.craigslist.org/cto/3688958970.html

Actually, he did a good job and it isn't jacked-up but I really don't care for the exhaust. If Bend was not 130 miles from me, I'd drive up there to see it.

quote Originally posted by starlightcoupe: Is this a Fee-Dub or really a Viero? http://bend.craigslist.org/cto/3688958970.html Actually, he did a good job and it isn't jacked-up but I really don't care for the exhaust. If Bend was not 130 miles from me, I'd drive up there to see it.

I really don't have words for this..... its interesting I'll give Terry "TJ" Hooker credit for that. Wasn't TJ Hooker an old cop show with the Shatner as star. My god man, was this contraption built by Khan himself ? Hope he changed his shields access codes this time or at least put in an over-ride thats quickly found.
You've got to, misterrrrr!

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Put the blow torch down please, its just a Fiero.

[This message has been edited by tntcary (edited 03-22-2013).]

I bought a 3.4 pushrod converted 85GT that somebody filled in the knock sensor port with a penny (maybe it was a quarter... few years ago now) and a bunch of RTV. Discovered some oil leaking from that spot, kinda dug and it and was shocked.

I bought my '87 Coupe from its original owner in Arkansas two years ago. The headlights were in the up position, so that was the first problem I checked. As expected, the plastic spacers in each headlight motor had disintegrated. But the bigger problem was that the mount on the passenger's side light was broken, so the PO had stuck a piece of firewood underneath the bucket to keep it in the up position. Wish I'd taken pictures of it.

She wore out three seat covers on the driver's seat. How do I know this? Because all three were still on the seat. When one wore out, she just put a new one over it. She also spilled (or poured) a whole bottle of cherry-scented air freshener behind the passenger seat. For the first few months it was overpowering, but now it gives the whole garage a fresh scent.

[This message has been edited by Quad Raider (edited 03-22-2013).]

When I bought the car the 12V supply wire to the ignition coil had a section of the insulation removed and a wire twisted around it... covered in electrical tape, of course. The wire had an inline 20A under dash blade fuse, in an exposed socket. The other end of the wire was connected to the P/N switch on the auto trans. I removed this piece of handiwork and I no longer had reverse lights... sigh.

Someone also tore the tube around the O2 sensor bung whilst removing or installing it, the tear was then patched with something like J-B Weld... which promptly blew off the first time I revved the engine over 3500RPM becuase the cat was partially plugged and the pressure had to go somewhere... sigh.

I have so many stories like this about my car...

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Nothing really bad but I was pretty annoyed at the cheapskate who did a front brake job on my 85 GT and decided it wasn't necessary to use inner seals. No wonder, when I took the brake disc off there was a thick line of greasy ooze running down the backing plate.
I also get annoyed at stupid bling bling items people install like the hideous triple wiper arms with windshield washer bottle hose attachment.
Kit

I saw a turnbuckle used as a dogbone type mount on a V8 conversion.

[This message has been edited by 2.5 (edited 03-22-2013).]

And I thought BMW Guru was the first to do a VW swap
\

How about a tin funnel permantly afixed to the dipstick tube on the automatic transmission? To keep it from leaking the guy used a tupperware lid to cap it off. He claimed it was much easier to fill that way.