World's slowest Fiero/Quad 4 Swap (Page 28/48)
Quadfather NOV 27, 07:35 PM
Can’t do much reassembly while I wait for parts. My eBay timing chain tensioner arrived this afternoon.



I also need a new bearing for the timing chain idler gear/water pump drive. I pressed out the bearing the other day to check it, then ruined it when I tried to reinstall it. Can’t get a replacement until Monday at the earliest.

[This message has been edited by Quadfather (edited 11-27-2021).]

Quadfather NOV 27, 07:49 PM
Waiting for parts gave me time to work on other projects. As I’ve mentioned before, the Quad drives the power steering pump with a pulley on the intake cam. Since it’s not needed in the Fiero I decided to remove the pulley. The downside is that leaves the nub sticking out of the cam housing and also causes concern about the oil seal being unprotected.



Some of the fellas in the Quad 4 Facebook group are racers who say they just leave it off and it never causes problems. One guy said he cuts the nub off and polishes the end so it looks better.

I decided to make a little cover, remembering my experience with making my own center caps for my GTZ wheels. Here’s the thread about that:

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/095502.html

The cam housing has a couple of bolts on the end, presumably to hold the seal in place but also to hold a bracket for the fuel lines. I made another bracket to sit on top of that one.







The Grand Prix centers seem to be the best fit. I tried using a Fiero one but most of the teeth broke off.

[This message has been edited by Quadfather (edited 11-27-2021).]

Quadfather DEC 03, 10:24 PM
The timing chain is installed. Took me a week to track down a bearing for the water pump sprocket/idler. It doesn’t have the groove like the OEM one did, but the bearing store dude and I don’t think it will matter.





Took me about three hours to get the timing chain installed and dialed in. Timing a Quad begins with turning the crank 90 degrees off TDC. Each cam gear has a hole for an 8 mm bolt that aligns with a hole in the housing. Once those bolts are in place, the crank can be turned to TDC and the chain placed on the cam gears, then the crank gear, then the water pump, making sure the chain stays tight between the crank gear and the intake cam gear. Once the chain is tight around the three gears, you can install the tensioner and the guides, then pop the temporary wire off the tensioner. If you’ve done it right, you can remove the bolts from the cam gears, turn the crank twice and stop at TDC, and then be able to easily slide the bolts back into the cam gears.



I had a heck of a time getting the chain tight between the two cam gears. Even when I did and then turned the crank 720 degrees, the crank gear would be one tooth off of TDC. I was so frustrated I thought Rock Auto had sent me the wrong parts. I was in the process of boxing them up to get a refund when I noticed one cam gear was stamped “4” while the other was stamped “5”. The book says you should mark the cam gears before removing them, but these new parts didn’t come with any instructions. I swapped them and tried again and it worked.



[This message has been edited by Quadfather (edited 12-04-2021).]

Quadfather DEC 05, 06:24 PM
Got the timing chain all buttoned up. The gaskets for the timing cover are reusable but I didn’t hang on to the old ones and new ones were included in the engine set I bought back in the day.

Kinda cool that the gaskets match the body color.



I also installed the rear main seal. The kit did not include a new seal but the old one looks great so on it went.



The engine is pretty top heavy so I thought about leaving it upside down overnight, with the oil pan just sitting there.



I eventually took the pan off and rolled the engine back upright, then added the trash bag to protect the bottom end.

[This message has been edited by Quadfather (edited 12-05-2021).]

Quadfather DEC 05, 06:35 PM
As reassembly of the engine wraps up, the next big step will be cleaning up the transmission, painting it and mating it to the engine. The GTZ Getrag is bolted to my second spare Quad which is currently installed in the Fiero.

The shop would be very cramped with a third Quad in it, so today was cleanup day. I took 90% of my spare parts to the storage unit.



Still have to move some other non-Fiero items but I can’t decide if I’ll try to sell them, move them to storage or just dump them.

[This message has been edited by Quadfather (edited 12-05-2021).]

Quadfather DEC 05, 06:44 PM
While organizing parts today, I came across these letters from one of the Silverados my company owns. When I first moved into the job I’m in now about two years ago, I found these letters in the office. One of our Silverados is wrapped, so the shop must’ve removed the lettering and given it to one of my predecessors who just left the letters in a drawer.

I’ve always liked this font and also noticed that except for the missing “F” the letters are in the same order in “Silverado” as they are in “Fiero”.



These would look cool on the left side of the deck lid. I’d have to modify either an “A” or an “E” to make an “F”.
Quadfather DEC 06, 01:51 PM
Been thinking a lot about the work that's going to be required to get the engine bay ready for the Quad. These photos that I posted earlier in my build thread show how nicely the Quad fits in the Fiero. The engine bay looks OK with a dirty old salvage yard engine sitting in it, that won't be the case when the shiny rebuilt engine goes in.





I need to re-engineer the upper engine mount I fabbed where the dog bone normally goes. More on that later. I'm also wondering if I need to redo the lower mounts so the engine tilts toward the back of the car a bit more. Based on this picture, I'm a little concerned about getting all the oil to drain out of the pan.



Of course the cradle still needs to be stripped or sanded and repainted, as do the rear suspension parts. Sigh. Lots of work. The plus side is this mechanical stuff doesn't intimidate me the way electrical work does.
zkhennings DEC 08, 01:08 PM
Nice progress, I like your idea of oven cleaner. I myself have used LA's Finest degreaser from Dollar Tree. It is $1 per quart, so you can buy a lot of it, I use it in a big storage bin undiluted and I can clean most things in that, just don't leave aluminum things in it longer than 10-15 min before pressure washing. Also Klean and Strip Concrete and Metal prep from Home Depot is cheap phosphoric acid that can be used to extra clean parts after degreasing. Just keep off of sealing surfaces because it is an acid.
Quadfather DEC 08, 09:52 PM
As I move parts around the shop and think about what will be needed to mate the Quad to the Fiero, I remembered investigating the coolant filling process for Quad/Fiero. In the Quad/Fiero swap, the highest point of the cooling system is the thermostat housing, which makes it the perfect place for a cap. Somewhere years ago I saw a thread about adapting the thermostat housing from a V6 Fiero to the Quad. Over the weekend I found the part I had experimented with back then.

The V6 housing has to be mated to a plate that will fit the Quad head. The Fiero housing is steel, the Quad’s is aluminum, so that means fabbing a mounting plate.



I’m pretty sure I gave up on this idea because I’d really need a Tig welder to pull it off but all I have is a Mig (and my skills aren’t good enough). Also, the housing needs two ports for temperature sensors.



The Quad came from the factory with two tubes that circulate coolant to the throttle body. One connected to the t-stat housing, the other to a port in the head just past the t-stat. They’re not necessary so I removed the lines and plugged the ports.

Also, notice the restriction on the fitting for the heater hose. Apparently if you use a regular size fitting there the force of the water pump will blow out the heater core.



I’ll probably use something like this:



Using that would also allow the addition of an overflow jug.

[This message has been edited by Quadfather (edited 12-08-2021).]

Quadfather DEC 08, 10:12 PM

quote
Originally posted by zkhennings:

Nice progress, I like your idea of oven cleaner. I myself have used LA's Finest degreaser from Dollar Tree. It is $1 per quart, so you can buy a lot of it, I use it in a big storage bin undiluted and I can clean most things in that, just don't leave aluminum things in it longer than 10-15 min before pressure washing. Also Klean and Strip Concrete and Metal prep from Home Depot is cheap phosphoric acid that can be used to extra clean parts after degreasing. Just keep off of sealing surfaces because it is an acid.



Interesting. I used some muriatic acid to clean out an air compressor tank and wondered if I could use it to clean engine parts. Don’t know that I trust myself to avoid damaging the parts.