Hello PFF,
New member here from Oregon with a newly purchased '86 GT. This is the second Fiero I have owned, as I had an '86 2m4 about 7 years ago which was sold when we decided to start our little family and realized we couldn't afford a project car too. Fast forward to now and I have my hands full of a project fiero.

The car:
'86 GT that was last licences in 1997. Allegedly it was running and driving back in March of this year, however I purchased it with a broken clutch line, so I can start it and that's all. After sitting for 20 years it needs a lot of help as you can imagine.

Short list of problems:
Clutch line - Rodney repair kit should solve
Engine stumbles on idle/high idle - cleaning out TB, and re sealing IAC ports.
Front Brakes seized -maybe due to lack of use.
Shifter action very difficult - any ideas on this?
Ebrake cables rusted per usual.
Cracked windshield

Goals for the vehicle:
1- get it road worthy and able to pass autox tech
2- bigger, vented brakes. Maybe change bolt pattern at this time.
3- wheels and tires
4- consider engine swap.

If the car was sitting outside, the left to right shifter action difficulty is probably caused by water getting into the select cable. That's the cable that comes upward to the transmission. The front to rear, or larger cable action should be OK?

A Rodney Dickman Select Cable is the way to go.

Front caliper pistons are well known to seize when the car's been sitting for years. Just grab a set of rebuilt loaded or semi-loaded calipers. Makes the job quick and simple. You probably should remove the front hubs and clean and repack the hub and bearings with some high temp synthetic bearing grease while you're at it. BE sure to get all the old petroleum based grease out.

See my Cave, Brake Service, Rear Brakes and other pages.

------------------
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

DrivenNation, if you are in PDX area you might want to contact Lucas Murk for used parts. He parts Fieros that are beyond the roadworthy stage. He can be contacted at fierolucas@gmail.com or I can send you his phone number via PM. I think I saw that car on Craigs List recently. Good luck on your project.

quote Originally posted by fierofool: If the car was sitting outside, the left to right shifter action difficulty is probably caused by water getting into the select cable. That's the cable that comes upward to the transmission.

Keep in mind that this only applies to the 5-spd Getrags. Depending on when they were built, the early '86 GTs had 4-spd manual trannys with different shift and select cable routing.

[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 12-03-2017).]

quote Originally posted by bjc 350: DrivenNation, if you are in PDX area you might want to contact Lucas Murk for used parts. He parts Fieros that are beyond the roadworthy stage. He can be contacted at fierolucas@gmail.com or I can send you his phone number via PM. I think I saw that car on Craigs List recently. Good luck on your project.

Thanks, I work out of PDX so I will probably hit him up as I find more wrong. And you probably did see it, I watched it for a month+ on there before picking it up.

FieroFool: you have the problem pegged. Horizontal movement takes a Herculean effort> it's a 5speed. Thank you for the easy diagnosis.

Rodney' s kit came in Friday. Really straight forward installation. I fought bleeding the system for an hour... Had the back still up on jack stands... finally searched the forum, lifted the nose and gravity bled it with no issues. Car now moves under its own power which is awesome.

I took the TB out and cleaned it/ the IAC and threw a new gasket on it. Now it idles even higher. Fail. So I will be replacing vacuum lines next. As I'm sure they need it/I bumped something.

I didn't have time to do the front brakes or bearings so that will be next weekend.