Painted the washer bottle black and the coolant bottle aluminum since they were vitually opaque anyways.
This is the beginning of my plan to dress up the front compartment that all non-Fiero folks ask to see...

Had a local sheet metal shop build me a custom battery box that I clear coated.
I will be fabbing a mount for it to sit where the spare used to be.

Picked up this battery relocation kit at a local speed shop designed to mount the battery in the trunk of your Camaro.
My logic suggests I can use it for my opposite install although I won't use the full 16 feet of cable...

I accidently broke the antenna off at the base last summer, so I removed it from the front fender and will fill the hole.

Then I remembered that I bought a power antenna that I had planned to install in the rear fender but never got around to it - hmmm, maybe I will use it if I can find a spot that I will be happy with.

Rather than rubberized undercoating, I finished the underside with more truck bed lining spray I had left over

I had a couple pin holes in my fuel filler neck so I trying buying a used fuel filler pipe from a local shop - they just had to remove it from the car.
When I went to pick it up, the guy had cut it in half because he had "trouble getting it out"!
Rather that have a new one made with my ends, I cleaned mine up to bare metal, filled the holes and then heat shrunk the pipe.
It came out quite nice, and saved me a few bucks as it just took patience to get it done.

The cradle was replaced two years ago as it was rotten in one of the front corners - here is a shot of it out of the car this time, pretty nasty looking...

One of the things I wanted to try was the bump steer improvement as outlined in the High Performance Fieros book.
It involves reversing the toe link mounting tabs and shortening the rods by 2 inches - here are a few shots of that mod

After all the surface rust was grinded off, I sprayed it with truck bed liner to give it a tough finish

The control arms were also grinded, sanded recoated after drilling out the stock riveted in ball joints

Here is a shot of the links after they were shortened (by a local weld shop), new ball joints installed, heat shrunk and painted...

Next, it was time to install the new Prothane polt kits in the cradle and the rear control arms
I burnt them out and highly recommend doing this outside - "note to self"
I used the freezer method to shrink them a little before greasing them and installing the new poly bushings - here are a couple completed pics:

The new ball joints were bolted on the rear control arms and the hardware I got from an 87 GT was painted aluminum and installed with the cradle mounts

Next I am deciding what to do on the suspension...but at least I'm ready and prepped to receive the motor back, hopefully in a couple week's time.

Ryan

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1986 Fiero2m8 (LT1 NX / 4T60 Roadster in progress)
My build thread - http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/071642.html

With the rear supension, I managed to remove a coil without complete disassemby and then grinded, sanded and repainted the rear struts.

Before:

After:

Upon closer inspection on the front suspension, it was quite apparent that the original shocks were still in place!
Once I removed them I confirmed that they were strictly ornamental, as they operated as freely as a trombone

Here are the poor guys beside the new KYB's:

Next with the sway bar links removed and to be replaced, I took 1-1/2 coils out of the front springs without removing the suspension.
In order to do this you need to use a 4-1/2" cutoff grinder.
Step 1 - cut at the 1-1/2 coil mark from the bottom .
Step 2 - remove the unwanted piece by cutting in into 3rds and pulling out.
Step 3 - remove the front bump stops.

Here is the spring ready to be cut:

Pieces of front coil removed:

This is the front passenger suspension with shortened spring mod, new KYB shock and sway bar link installed

Next winter I plan to do a front poly kit, upgraded sway bar, and bigger brakes.

Soon I will be starting the engine/tranny swap which should attract some replies...
Until then I'm going to be working on the body, interior, and front compartment.

Fiero2m8

Harry G was looking for some pictures of my custom made billet aluminum remote oil filter adapter - here they are.
It provides a strong seal with rubber O-rings instead of a gasket and provides addtional clearance to the starter.

A + for you!

The governor – speedometer assembly is located on top of the transmission above the passenger side axle shaft coupling on both the 4T60 and TH125C.

There are 3 variations of speedometer assemblies that I have seen on 4T60 transmissions. One type is almost exactly the same as the one used on the TH125C transmission and will plug directly into the Fiero speedometer connector. A 2nd type is almost the same as the first except the speed sensor (item 1) has been replaced with an assembly that screws into a mechanical speedometer cable. This type can be used if reassembled with speedometer sensor from your old transmission. Both the mechanical cable and sensor type speedometer assemblies are held in place by a 1-inch wire clip on the top of the governor cover. NOTE: The TH125C governor cover (item 3) is NOT interchangeable with the 4T60.

A 3rd type is an electronic pulse generator assembly that looks quite different from the original TH125C governor speedometer sensor. The electrical connector and more importantly the signal generated by this unit are not compatible with the Fiero. If your transmission has one of these units the entire assembly must be replaced with one of the previously mentioned types. CAUTION: Check with the supplier or rebuilder of the transmission before changing parts on it to avoid voiding any warrantees.

It should be noted also that while the governor assemblies from various 4T60 transmissions look the same, there are small differences in the fly weights that control the shift points. The governor assembly's weights are matched to the final drive's gear ratio. If you change the final drive ratio make sure the governor assembly you use comes from a transmission with the same ratio. Using a different governor will work but the transmission may shift at too low or too high a rpm for optimum performance.

I'm wondering how may rpm the shift point will change by going from a 2.84 to a 3.33 ratio.
Also would the shift points get higher or lower in the rpm band?

A couple ?'s for the engineering minds out there.