well i am sitting here and thinking what do i do for a none stock interior as far as the dash and door panels and center console do I buy one that fits as much as i would like to it is the most expensive i think or is it so i ask you how much do you have in your bought dash ,swapped dash or custom made dash and how hard was it for you to do your project
[This message has been edited by engine man (edited 12-09-2016).]
I opted for a more stock-appearing black interior swap. Found a perfect dash at a junkyard, learned how to pull it, which is easier than most would think. Painted it black. Bought new black carpet, and the fiero store's ABS door panels with speakers, as well as their rear firewall speaker panel, which are already black. Then it was Mr. Mike's black seat upholstery, and the rest of the trim was sprayed with SEM Landau black, same as the dash. Love how it turned out. The seats were the pricey part. The interior envelopes you when you sit in it. A neat feeling compared to my other Fiero, which is still all original (except the Pontiac cd player).
The dash was all of $40 at the yard and the experience gained from pulling it was worth it to me.
It is very easy to spend $5K - $6K on an interior if you include custom components, sound insulation, upholstery (anything from cheap vinyl to high grade leather), carpet, new instrumentation, and wiring. This is with you doing much of the labor yourself. If you have to pay someone else to do the installation, expect a significant price increase. Wiring associated with adding VDO instrumentation to the new interior was the most time consuming for me on this install. I did partially document mu Amida F355 interior in a PFF thread if you want to get an idea as to how the process went (https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Archives/Archive-000002/HTML/20160323-1-083377.html). I did run out of time and hired extra help the last week to complete the car for a show in Florida.
Nelson
[This message has been edited by hnthomps (edited 12-09-2016).]
I just finished an entire interior swap from an 88 beechwood parts car. I found the car on Craigslist and bought the entire interior for 400, which came with Mr. Mikes seats. It's not the best granted, there are still a couple cracks in the dash and the seats are a little worn, but for 400 it's still pretty clean, much better than my previous interior. If you can find a car someone is parting out with a clean interior, I think it may be the cheapest way to get all interior components for a swap, the biggest issue would be trying to find an interior from a parts car that would be up to your standards and worth pulling/reinstalling.
I finished my swap over my Thanksgiving break from college, but it wasn't the only thing I did over the break so it took me probably 4 or 5 days to completely finish, granted the door panels aren't in yet, but everything else is. Its a pretty straightforward job, done mostly with a basic toolbox from Walmart. Two of us pulled the interior from the parts car in about 3 or 4 hours. Only thing we left was the headliner. I took my time getting my interior out and putting the new one in. I would say if you go this route you could probably be finished in 2-3 days, just depends on how quickly you work on it. I also spent a lot of time cleaning the interior pieces. Dash revive, gluing cracked and warped pieces, etc.
Fair enough! Mine really isn't anything special, just a run of the mill interior. I wish I had some before shots to show the difference, but trust me, it's a whole lot cleaner. I'm sure some others have some much more interesting custom interiors! You can see how faded the dash was. I swear by two things after doing this job, turtle wax trim restore and Loctite superglue(Credit to 2.5)
[This message has been edited by Dylpro (edited 12-09-2016).]
I put approx $500 into my interior - but a lot of the parts I got for nothing (they were damaged so the auto wrecker couldn't really sell them). For me the damaged areas were removed during the process of making it fit. Cost was mostly things like a new shifter knob, paint, fiberglass, foam and some smaller parts (switches, etc).
Took me many hours to the finished project - no real number as it was broken up over time. Dash and console done one month, another month for the doors (panels actually have been built and rebuilt a couple of times until I decided on the final look) with other minor things over a couple of years (HVAC controls, etc). Mostly just worked on it weekends and the odd day after work. Don't be fooled it was a whole lot of work.
[This message has been edited by Mickey_Moose (edited 12-09-2016).]
Mickey_Moose that is a Camaro dash and door panels right i do like that look as i am looking for a none stock interior sorry i should have said that in my first post and i will go fix that
The firebird gauges work very easily in the Fiero because they were actually designed for the 1990 Fiero and were reused on the Firebird after the Fiero was cancelled. It s pretty much plug and play once you configure the connectors. Which is partly why the Firebird dash is popular, it's easy and represents what the Fiero interior would have looked like had it it lived into the 90s.
has any one tried one of the Fiero Fiberglass dashes i see the price is attractive but is the dash after it is finished pleas share a photo if you have installed one style 2 is $265
I kept my interior mostly stock in design, but had things upholstered, put in new carpet, headliner, ect. I highly recommend Mr. Mikes for seats and Russ for upholstery. Under $2000 for everything. Not including the sound system though.
engine man - the Firebird swap is not for the faint of heart - it was fairly time consuming making the dash fit and custom build the door panels using parts from the Firebird panel. If it wasn't built specifically for the Fiero plan on spending a good amount of time to modify and fit one from another car (not a "weekend" project). That is my advise.
You can read though this thread as it has most of the info needed on the Firebird one (yes it is long). I jumping into the madness around page 14 (posted some gauge mods on page 18 if needed). The majority of the work was done by jscott1 and mrfixit58: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum3/HTML/000119.html
IMPORTANT: the server that I have all my pictures on will be shutting down in the near future - so if you want to keep this as reference, download the pages and save as a word file so that you have a copy of any of my pictures. Sorry, no I will not be going through all the posts (editing them) and relocating the pictures to a different location.
[This message has been edited by Mickey_Moose (edited 12-14-2016).]
For anyone interested I normally only build the firebird plug and play wiring harness on demand specifically for a customer. However, I have one in stock for immediate delivery.
I put approx $500 into my interior - but a lot of the parts I got for nothing (they were damaged so the auto wrecker couldn't really sell them). For me the damaged areas were removed during the process of making it fit. Cost was mostly things like a new shifter knob, paint, fiberglass, foam and some smaller parts (switches, etc).
Took me many hours to the finished project - no real number as it was broken up over time. Dash and console done one month, another month for the doors (panels actually have been built and rebuilt a couple of times until I decided on the final look) with other minor things over a couple of years (HVAC controls, etc). Mostly just worked on it weekends and the odd day after work. Don't be fooled it was a whole lot of work.
What did you do for the HVAC controls? Slammed is doing a custom interior that is reusing the stockers. If the swap to something that gets rid of the cable system is something fairly easily attainable it might be worth updating that.
What did you do for the HVAC controls? Slammed is doing a custom interior that is reusing the stockers. If the swap to something that gets rid of the cable system is something fairly easily attainable it might be worth updating that.
Not to speak for Tim, but he built an electric system that moved the cables, but his car doesn't have a/c so it's not a general solution for the 90% of cars that have a/c. I was in the process of developing a system for a/c, but I ran into a lack of knowledge on the actuators used in the setup. The ones Tim used were more of the "bang bang" variety where they are either open or closed. To regulate flow in a meaningful way would require some programming. Until I have time to learn the Arduino micro controller I'm kind of stuck. I was hoping maybe an analog solution would work but there are so many different actuators I'm not sure which would lend itself to that.Then I got busy and set it aside.
Not to speak for Tim, but he built an electric system that moved the cables, but his car doesn't have a/c so it's not a general solution for the 90% of cars that have a/c. I was in the process of developing a system for a/c, but I ran into a lack of knowledge on the actuators used in the setup. The ones Tim used were more of the "bang bang" variety where they are either open or closed. To regulate flow in a meaningful way would require some programming. Until I have time to learn the Arduino micro controller I'm kind of stuck. I was hoping maybe an analog solution would work but there are so many different actuators I'm not sure which would lend itself to that.Then I got busy and set it aside.
Maybe reach out to Rice burner, he has the Ac controls down pat.. I have had him help me with a few different project Robert is a really good guy.. just always very busy.
quote
Originally posted by jscott1:
Not to speak for Tim, but he built an electric system that moved the cables, but his car doesn't have a/c so it's not a general solution for the 90% of cars that have a/c. I was in the process of developing a system for a/c, but I ran into a lack of knowledge on the actuators used in the setup. The ones Tim used were more of the "bang bang" variety where they are either open or closed. To regulate flow in a meaningful way would require some programming. Until I have time to learn the Arduino micro controller I'm kind of stuck. I was hoping maybe an analog solution would work but there are so many different actuators I'm not sure which would lend itself to that.Then I got busy and set it aside.
Maybe reach out to Rice burner, he has the Ac controls down pat.. I have had him help me with a few different project Robert is a really good guy.. just always very busy.
Exactly, I've talked to him about it. He spent a lot of time and money working on custom a/c controls but at the end of the day it wasn't profitable. He doesn't really have time to devote to a low volume non-profitable solution.
