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

1986 Fiero GT/T intercooled turbo

I picked up my door panels from the Upholsterer yesterday. They look great! I went with black micro-suade for the top, and the electric blue on the bottom to match my seats:


He did a bit of nice stitch work to prevent a pleat around the speaker housing:


Here is the speaker, baffle and all hardware ready to attach:


Speaker mounted and installed into the door panel:


Here is an angle from inside the car. He matched the color of the seats perfectly!


Lastly, here is a close up of the panel on the door. I still need to add the caps and hardware to cover the screws.

[This message has been edited by JohnWPB (edited 10-17-2014).]

quote Originally posted by PatrickTRoof: Hi, John! Great work on the build! Any progress with the legal proceeding?

I am still working to settle this out of court with MAACO, but have just about given up with the route that it is going. I am ready to go down and file the paperwork and have the owner and manager served and start the whole process

It was a very, VERY busy weekend here! Too much so to even post much! A few months ago I had gotten a killer deal online to fly Andrew down from Minneapolis. (Can you say under $200!) He agreed to come down and help get the entire front of my car updated. In exchange a free trip to Florida (78 degrees instead of 30 ) including meals, room and board. The schedule was pretty tight as he was here from Saturday morning thru Wednesday night.

It was made worse by the fact that I ordered all the parts needed ahead of time, and in the process they gave me the wrong lower control arm bushings. That cost us a half of days lost work. I went back, upset of course and they re-ordered new ones, but would not be here till 3Pm the following day. at 3:00 PM, when we got there, they were WRONG AGAIN! They actually came out of state, so I could not even drive a few hours to go get them, so that cost us yet another day! Other than that, things went fairly well.

I was able to purchase a parts car for $400. I needed the gauge cluster, as the circuit board on my cluster was so bad the traces were all loose and shorting out. I also needed the ECM, and the throttle body, as the spring on mine was shot. When I got those and a few other little parts, I would call a local scrapper that will come pick the car up and pay $400 for it. Basically breaking even.


The previous owner had a shop remove the valve covers and replaced the manifold gaskets, and some other upper engine work. When he picked up the car, and was driving it home, about 5 miles away from the shop, the engine started making a horrible noise, and he turned around and drove the car back to the shop. When they removed the oil pan to investigate, there was sand in the oil. He seemed to think it got in there when they were working on the car and it ruined the main bearing. The shop would never own up to it, and the car has sat since that day with a cover over it in his yard. Very bad for the previous owner, however it was a major break for me! It basically means that all of the parts installed on the car, have under 20 miles on them! This was easily verified with the mileage on the original invoices (I have all of the receipts for the work done on the car, dates and mileage) Not to mention what looks like zero wear on the brake pads, and the overall condition of the parts, even though it has been sitting outside covered for a few years.

HERE is where my luck had changed for the better for once!

The previous owner had all of work done to the car at the same time the engine was worked on. The invoice I have here shows $2,042.96 in labor for the below work

- Manifold gaskets replaced
- Grand Am Front brakes ($344.95)
- Cross Drilled Rotors ($75.00)
- Rear Rotors ($84.95 x2)
- Left Rear Caliper ($109.95)
- Right Rear Caliper ($79.95)
- Front and Rear Carbomet Pads For Vented Kit ($66.95)
- Stainless Steel Brake Lines ($104.95)
- Heavy Duty Front Sway bar installed ($159)
- Rear Sway Bar ($159.95)
- K&N High Flow Air Filter ($29.95)

That comes out to a whopping $1,291.55 worth of upgrades for a $400 car, that I will be paid back $300 ~ $400 when they come haul it away for me!
Now to some pictures. A few days before Andrew got here, I was touching up areas on the front of the car. I removed the cowl screen, and sanded and painted to protect it from rusting:



After the masking was removed:


One of the small things the donor car had, that mine did not, a jack. It was in fairly bad shape, typical rust and peeling/faded sticker. After some sanding, painting, and one of my reproduction stickers, not too bad!


Installing the S-10 brake booster was FAR easier than I thought it would be. Using a small sledge hammer, it was fairly easy to "persuade" the inner fender to accommodate the new much larger booster. Start to finish, probably an hour job.


Here are the Grand AM brake calipers, Brackets all painted up and ready to install. Stainless Steel brake lines and the new front Sway Bar also in the picture. I did not get a chance to paint the Sway bar.


Andrew installing the Spindle and putting everything back together:


After we bolted everything back up, and went to install the Grand AM brake calipers. It was then we realized the rotor was rubbing and a tiny bit needed to be ground off of the caliper bracket.
The rotor was rubbing:


After putting everything back together, and bleeding the brakes we took it for a test drive. There is still air in the system, and we did not have time to go back and bleed it again, as he had to get to the airport in just a few hours.

All in all it was a great few days, and got a LOT accomplished, all with Andrews help. One thing I HATE about taking the pictures, is the fact that I am always behind the camera, and it looks like I did nothing LOL! Grant it, Andrew did a LOT more work that I did, but trust me, I was right in there as well!
,

[This message has been edited by JohnWPB (edited 11-15-2014).]