I've been lazy about this continuation post, probably because I didn't get anything much done on it last weekend. I probably won't this weekend either, but wife and babe are going to visit family early next week...I predict ten days consisting of little sleep and lots of Fiero.

Getting on with it. I had a couple of other things to the engine before mounting it back in my SE. First of all, I wanted that shifter bracket mounted up again. Just FYI for anyone else who might do this: the crossover pipe is widest right where the corner of the bracket wants to be. Of course. They couldn't have put that flexing part just an inch farther down, could they? I ended up notching both the corner of the bracket and the heat shield to get it to fit, like so:



There's little chance I can mount the inner cable in there, but at least I won't be trying to make the bracket fit flush after the engine is in the Fiero. That would be a serious test of one's patience...I must have had that heat shield off three times to get the notch just right and the bracket just as many. I didn't want to take off any more metal than I had to.

The second thing to do was also for making the engine work with it's new application. If you look closely near where the EGR pipe connects to the exhaust manifold, you'll notice the pipes/hookups for the heater hoses are on the wrong side of the engine to easily connect to the Fiero's heater hoses. And, up above on the intake plenum, the brake booster vacuum port is too. Well, actually, one of the heater hoses on the original V6 comes out on this side too - there's a pipe running down the side of the engine bay for it - but I won't be using it for the heater hose. First, I removed a 4" or so section of the pipe that runs from the water pump, through/past the throttle body and out to the heater hoses, thus:



I will run the heater hoses to either side of this pipe, one inlet and one outlet. This puts the heater hoses on the right side of the engine, near where they need to be, rather than running hose all the way around the engine bay twice. And for the other end of the pipe where it use to come out, I did a rough mock-up. I'll get a proper U bend later for it:



This will loop the coolant back in to the lower intake manifold or wherever it returns to. All i've done is re-arranged the order of the flow. Instead of going from the water pump, through the throttle body and then into the heater hoses before returning to the lower manifold, now it runs through the heater hoses before going into the throttle body. I don't forsee any issue with this, unless I try driving it in -40º weather. Yeah, right.

That was about it for things I felt I needed to do to the engine before mounting it all in the Fiero. But, not wanting to do it half-assed, the engine bay needed some TLC. Or a lot of TLC. I stripped it of all the vaccum lines, cansiter, hoses, wiring harness and heat shields. Well, actually, I did this all before finishing prepping the engine, but hey. I also stripped out the old fiberglass insulation, except on the firewall. With everything out, I degreased the hell out of it, cut the dogbone mount metal out completely(won't be using a dogbone, thank you very much) as if it were never there, cut out what was left of the battery tray and sanded down the rusty spots. Then it all got a coat of rust-killing/converting paint before being painted with iron-grey engine paint. Afraid I don't yet have any pictures of the results, but I like that dark metallic grey. Oh, there was one other thing that had to go:



The ugly heat-protecting coverings on the shifter cables. It would stand out against the clean paint of the engine and the engine bay; I cut it off.



I'm not sure if everyone else is cutting theirs off and just leaving it like that, but wherever my cables come close to a source of heat, I intend on wrapping the cable in header-wrap. I'll roll it length-wise into a tube/sheath around the cable and clamp it in place with the same stainless steel ties that come with the header wrap. That should do the job, look good and not cost much of anything (esp compared to replacing the cables altogether just to get that heat wrap).

That was the last thing I did before dragging the engine/trans/cradle out of my shed and getting it ready to mount:



I had to jack the back end of the chassis up another 6" or so higher than I had originally to get the 2.8l out, seeing as I had no heads of intake on the original engine when I did it, let alone an alternator that sits another inch or two higher than even that. I'm not going to go into how I managed it with just one floor jack and a set of jack stands because I don't want anyone else to try it that way. Someone wouldn't be careful enough and would end up squished under the car when something shifted. Needless to say that I was beyond careful when I did it. I was very patient and careful lowering the chassis down to meet the cradle:



Over all, it didn't take long to get the cradle bolts in. Some day will replace the mounts with poly or even solid mount it, but not just now. Reclaiming my work space in my shed takes pripority over that! When it came to small tweaks to get the front cradle bolts in, I put my other - tiny - floor jack under that corner of the cradle to lift or lower it until the bolt went through. Once they were both in, I jacked up the back end of the cradle and the rear bolts just twisted right in without a fight. Oh, I anti-siezed them first, so I won't have any issues next time they come out. They were pretty stuck in there originally. Here's the engine in the bay:



Silly me. I had remembered to remvoe the dogbone mounting metal before putting the engine in, but I hadn't notched the deck-lid or even left it open while I was mounting it all in. I heard a bit of a crunch as I tightened up those rear cradle bolts. I didn't have any time to do much about it, so I releived the pressure a bit by removing two of the hinge bolts on the decklid before calling it a night at 6 in the morning. Mounting the engine/trans/cradle back in to the Fiero took less than an hour, even with my unothodox methods. The deck lid sat like this until the next evening, when I notched it:



BTW, the alternator only needed about half an inch to make it clear the deck-lid...it was the engine lifting bracket, a little further up, that was really holding it up.

This is pretty much where my project is sitting right now. I'm working on the rear suspension and hooking up all the hoses and such next. Plenty left to do, plenty left to enjoy.

[This message has been edited by Stubby79 (edited 08-23-2008).]

Here's a query/curiosity for you guys out there, seeing as I'm working on my rear suspension and all. Everything that wears appears to be original; ie the ball joints are rivited in, the CV boots and the rubber bushings are all date-stamped with '85 or '86, and so I assume the tie rods are original too...and they're all in good, even pristine condition! Not even the finest hairline crack on the CV boots, the ball joints have no play in them, the bushings looks brand new. So the question is: did they build parts a lot better back then, or what? Even the 23 year old struts appear to be original and still work! Sheesh.

[This message has been edited by Stubby79 (edited 09-01-2008).]