Wow, did it ever take a long time to take out the rear cradle bolts. My dad and I ended up drilling out the head on one side, while a drillbit broke off in the other head, forcing us to use the cutoff wheel. We sat the cradle down on some blocks off wood and used a come-a-long to raise the body up, placed two jacks under the cradle and moved it out.

I'm going to swap in a 3.1 out of a 94 Lumina so it should be a bit of work. I have a running Duke if anyone is interested around the STL area. It needs some work though, it burns oil pretty good but has good compression. Im guessing it needs valve guide seals. Anyway, my next step is to sandblast the cradle and paint it and clean up the transmission. I also noticed my drivers side frame rail on the body has a 6" hole rusted in it that needs fixed. I might as well remove the rear clip while I'm at it and fix as much rust as I can. If anyone has some 3.1 swap related info, let me have it! I need to get moving on this so the Fiero is sitting around TOO long.

[This message has been edited by toadson (edited 10-30-2006).]

what year duke is it?

86. It has somewhere around 90k miles on it. I wouldnt put it in a daily driver unless I rebuilt it or worked out the kinks. It ran, but smoked a lot.

I dont have his contact information as he moved and didnt give it to me, but I have seen one of these on the road. It ran well and would go anywhere, he used the donor computer and tapped the tach wire, he did it over a weekend so it could have been that bad. But he did have a lift

The only thing he had an issue with was the dog bone, he didnt have one

PM Fiero Finale about that engine. I don't know for sure if he sold his car or not, but he was looking for a close cheap engine a while back.

Will do. Thanks for the information. Toaster Man, we should meet up sometime after I get this thing going. It might be a while though if I decide to take off the rear clip to fix the rusty frame rail. Are you attending SIUE? I just got accepted to the School of Business and should be going there in the spring. It seems like you've mentioned SIUE before and just thought I would ask.

I am at SIUE studying to be a mechanical engineer (third year). I haven't had much luck getting the local guys together in the past, but I still like the idea. Let me know if you want a hand working on the car, I'd love to check it out.