Put in a bunch of hours this weekend and got it all put back together. Whew, what a hassle - no wonder Fiero clutch jobs cost so much. Took the car out for a drive this afternoon / evening; taking it easy because this is the first it's been driven in a couple of years. It's running good, the new clutch is working perfectly and the transmission shifts very nicely - thanks to synchromesh fluid and a Rodney select arm rebuild kit. I also used his exhaust manifold studs when I redid the rear manifold (extracted broken bolts). The rebuilt alternator is working fine, as is the rebuilt subwoofer speaker.

Of course, while driving it around I noticed a few more problems so the fixit list is getting longer again. No show-stopping problems, though - just a bunch of small, easy to solve (for a price) things. One by one I'll get them taken care of.

Time to start thinking about where I'm going with this car, I could restore it back to like-new condition, or I could improve it here and there. Changing the color is tempting; that light gold isn't my favorite Fiero color. And what about the stereo system - the "performance sound" system sounds pretty good when all the speakers are working but the factory stereo has some issues (to say the least). I could rebuild it, but it only plays cassettes. Or I could update it to a later model Pontiac CD unit, or just forget the factory look and put in a Pioneer unit or something of similar ilk.

And what to do about the seats... I like Mr. Mike's seats, but his recent price increase makes me want to look at some other options. He makes nice stuff, but it's not THAT nice. That and I'm feeling a little irked by him using pictures of my red Fiero on his web site to promote his products - I would have agreed to this if he'd bothered to ask me, but he didn't. I expected better from him...

I've put about 100 miles on the car now and it's still running great; looks like I got a good one. While driving in the rain last night I decided that some things needed to be taken care of right away. Stopped off on the way back from work this evening and bought some new wiper blades and a set of SilverStar headlamps. Ordered 20 PC194 bulbs and a new headlight switch today; they'll be in tomorrow. Only light that still needs to be dealt with is the third brake light; I'd like to have it working but the bulb is now only available by special order. I'll check around some more; someone probably has one on the shelf. I'm sure I was driving a little too fast last night, but with no working lights in the speedometer it was hard to tell...

Also found last night that the lock on the driver's side is futzed. Thank goodness the passenger side still works; I thought for a moment that I'd locked myself out on my first drive. Need to check with my friendly local locksmith tomorrow and see how much he'd charge to rekey a door lock. I only need one and can get a new one for $12 - but if it's impossible to rekey or too expensive to do so then I'll end up changing all the locks - lots more money and added hassles; those door locks aren't real easy to replace. The driver's door needs to coma apart anyway; time for new dew wipes and stabilizers. The passenger side already has new parts in it; the PO apparently replaced a broken window on that side recently and put new dew wipes in at that time.

One thing I'm noticing is that parts that were easy to get a year ago are becoming hard or impossible to get. Hope my luck holds out long enough to get this car done.

Got some more done this evening; picked up the new headlight switch and dash lights and installed them. In case you're curious, to relamp the instrument cluster and the aux gauge pod takes 19 bulbs. Discovered while working with the lights that one of the headlight motors is on its way out (sigh) so I guess it's time to order some motor rebuild kits from Rodney. Guess I'll wait to install the new SilverStar lamps and do it all at once. The instruments all light up nice and bright now, so night driving won't be so mysterious.

The center radio / AC section was still pretty grubby so I decided to give it a good cleaning. Pulled the radio to facilitate cleaning and to check its condition; it has some issues and I was wondering if it was worth repairing. Discovered that the radio isn't the one that came with the car, it's one from a junkyard - and it's been repaired by some butcher along the way. Not worth repairing; too much wrong with it and too many broken / missing parts. That eliminates one of the stereo options I was considering; refurbishing the original stereo. Now it's either a CD radio from a newer Pontiac or a aftermarket stereo. Not a lot of choice in DIN and 1/2 size.

Putting a few more miles on the car today and shaking out the flakies; discovered that the fuel and temperature gauges have issues (hope it's not the sender in the tank). Also noted that the radio finally gave up the ghost; it's been flaky all along but now it won't pick up any stations. Guess that moves up the stereo replacement plans...

Been doing some research into the various options for getting the stereo system working. Not much available that fits the hole anymore; only aftermarket stereo made in 1 1/2 DIN right now is the Pioneer unit like I have in my little red car. That one sounds good, but the controls are a bit user-hostile; I'd like a better option.

Also finding more problems to fix; the fuel pump relay is kaput and the oil pressure sender is well on it's way to sensor heaven. Time to do some more parts shopping...

That headlight motor that was acting up seems to have settled down and is working for now. So I went ahead and installed the new SilverStar lights - wow, what a difference from those old tired stock bulbs.

Also came to a decision on the stereo problem. A late model Pontiac Monsoon stereo fits the same opening and can be adapted to the Fiero wiring pretty easily. That'd give me a CD player, much better sound - it'd interface with the performance sound in the Fiero nicely - and it looks just like it belongs in the car right down to the reddish dial illumination. It would also allow me to attach an OEM GM CD changer.

With this and a fresh set of OEM "performance sound" speakers it should sound pretty nice. Not a competition system, but more than good enough for tunes on the road. Fairly inexpensive, too - I'll post the total price once I've got all the parts nailed down.

Here's a tip: a Metra 70-1861 adapter will allow you to plug a newer "21 pin" GM stereo right into your Fiero's wiring harness. This adapter costs about $18 and will save hours of splicing wires...

Did some parts chasing last night, looking for a replacement for the busted door lock cylinder so I'd have everything I need to rebuild the driver's door this weekend. Seems like everyone has it in their catalog, but nobody has one on the shelf (grumble). Finally tracked one down in an out of town warehouse and it's on its way to me today; should arrive here at about noon. Still need to get it to the locksmith so he can rekey it to match the other locks; shouldn't have any problem getting that done tomorrow (I hope).

Went to pick up the door lock cylinder and found that they'd ordered the wrong part. Sheesh; I gave them the brands and part numbers that would work but they decided to "cross-reference" and got it wrong. Checked with my locksmith to see if he had one or knew where to get one; he wasn't any help at all.

Wasn't expecting this to be such a problem - I'll keep looking for a source of supply that has the right cylinder that can be keyed to match the other locks in the car.

The auto-dimming mirror I bought on eBay showed up, so I spent a little time on that this weekend. When I got the car the mirror was in the trunk; the button came off the glass.

Picked up a package of that special mirror glue and reattached the mounting button to the windshield. But before mounting the new mirror I thought about something - the control switch on these is illuminated - with green light. Sure would be nicer if it lit up red instead, and since the green light is coming from a LED or two a change to red LEDs shouldn't be too difficult.

Sounds easy anyway. After looking this Gentex mirror over very carefully I can't see what holds it together. Strongly suspect it's just snapped together, but the seam offers no clues as to which way to pop it apart. Even tried searching with Google for information on how to get inside but came up with nothing. Haven't given up yet but am lacking inspiration at this point...

I have a GM door lock cylinder from the dealership new in the box. I changed my mind and just went with remote locks rather then tear my door apart. I never had it keyed. Want it?

quote Originally posted by stimpy: I have a GM door lock cylinder from the dealership new in the box. I changed my mind and just went with remote locks rather then tear my door apart. I never had it keyed. Want it?

Is that a GM 12398559? If so, YES I want it. Those doggone things aren't easy to come by...

Yep. That's the one.

quote Originally posted by stimpy: Yep. That's the one.

Great! What's it going to take to get it away from you?

Say please?

PM me your address, and I'll send it on it's way.

*** Please ***

PM is on it's way to you; thanks!

Well, you can fix your door lock this weekend. Put it the mail today.

Great! I've got a few parts to change in that door; dew wipes, stabilizers, power lock switch, and lock cylinder. Once all those are changed and the remainder are cleaned / lubricated it'll be good as new again. I've already got all the parts except that lock cylinder; it turned out to be a little harder to find than I expected. Trying to do it all at once to avoid going back into the door again and again like I did with the last one...

See how easy that was? Why waste time searching for a part when you can just ask for it on the forum?

quote Originally posted by stimpy: See how easy that was? Why waste time searching for a part when you can just ask for it on the forum?

Thanks again; much appreciated!

My replacement stereo arrived today; a Pontiac Monsoon unit from 2001 that's freshly rebuilt including a new CD transport. Picked it up on eBay for 120 bucks, already got the GM wiring adapter for 25 bucks and rebuilt the subwoofer speaker with 20 bucks worth of parts. Grand total so far: 165 dollars.

Installing it wasn't as easy as I'd hoped. The wiring adapter doesn't account for the subwoofer power so a little cut and splice action was needed; all the changes could be made to the adaptor so the car wiring remains unmolested. The install - well, this head unit is about an inch deeper than the original Fiero radio so you'll have to remove the rear support bracked from the radio opening and also remove the support pin from the back of the radio. There's a 12 pin connector bolted to the center rear of the radio opening; it's in the way too. Unbolt it and reroute that harness out of the way. Now with carefull manipulation of the various wiring connectors and harnesses you can hook up the adapters and slide the new unit into place. One last gotcha; you'll need to put 3/16" spacers behind the radio mounting ears to get it to line up with the trim plate. So much for those who say that the newer CD radios are a "drop in" fit in a Fiero...

Once it's in there it looks just like it belongs there; same color and style as the rest of the controls in the Fiero and it lights up the right color. Only a Fiero person would be able to tell that this radio didn't come with the car from the factory.

How does it sound? Great! With the stock (and original) speakers and my rebuilt sub the sound is amazing; good highs, plenty of kick from the sub. I put a Pioneer head unit in my other Fiero and a full set of Pioneer 3-way speakers to match; that car sounds good inside but this one sounds significantly better. Wonderful; better than I expected and not very expensive at all.

Operation "repaint the instrument needles" started off well. Used some Goof Off and Q Tips to remove the old paint from the backs of the needles, then gave them a nice coat of red model paint. They came out looking great! Spent some time reattaching the needles, applying power to the gauges to drive them to known positions before putting the needle in place.

Wow, looks like a new instrument cluster now. But....

Went out for a drive last night to see how things looked at night. The needles light up that nice Pontiac reddish color and match the gauges perfectly. So perfectly that it's almost impossible to tell the needle from the dial markings - oops. Looks like I'm going to need to do this over again...

Lessons learned: Goof Off will attack the plastic needle itself if you're not very, very careful. And red is NOT a good color for Fiero needles if you want to read the gauges at night. I think I'll try a bright yellow or maybe even white next time.

When I went to install the modified mirror into the car I found that it was kinda wobbly on the mount; no good. Checked it out and found that where the clip mounted to the mirror base was riveted and the rivets were loose. No problem; I'll just stake them down and it'll be fine. Tap, tap and the first one was snug. Tap, crunch - the pot metal mount broke when I tried to stake the second one. Oh well; back to square one on the mirror project. Reinstalled the factory mirror for now; it's a little tacky but better than nothing. I'll just have to track down another Caddy auto-dim mirror and just swap my modified circuit board into it.

Not wanting to touch anything else for fear of breaking it (grin), I decided to spend some time cleaning the interior. Amazing how much dirt you can clean off the dash and still leave it dirty; after about 4 times over with Simple Green it's much better but still a bit dirty. I'm going to give a Magic Eraser a try and see how that does.

But first, I've got to take a business trip to beautiful Harrison, Arkansas. Won't be back until next weekend, so this afternoon I dumped a bottle of Techron into the tank and filled it up, then put about 25 miles on the car to distribute the cleaner all through the fuel system. When I get back it'll have had plenty of time to dissolve the gum that built up during this car's long nap.

Man, I love this thread. Oh, and BUMP:

Hello,

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Returned home today; Harrison is a nice place to visit but I was sure glad to get back to San Jose today.

Took the little car to the store this evening; it's running a little rough - probably because of all the crud that Techron treatment broke loose. Everything was fine until I went to play musical cars to get it into the garage for more new parts tomorrow - when I turned the lights off the right headlight motor stripped its gear. Oh well; I've been meaning to rebuild those motors...

Ordered up some rebuild kits from Rodney and also a competition short shifter; the stock shifter in this car is just too long.

Got a bit more done today; finally tightened that doggone alternator belt so it doesn't squeal at startup. Installed new shock absorbers; a nice set of Monroe Sensa-Tracs. The ones I removed were the ones that came with the car; one was bad and the other was a complete disaster. The car should drive a lot nicer now...

Picked up some wheel cleaner while I was at the parts store and gave the wheels a cleaning. With the cleaner and a small brush I was able to get about half the crud off of them; they show promise but it's going to take some more work to get them clean.

Drove the car to the Golden Gate Fieros meeting last night; that's the first "long" drive this car has made in years. No new surprises; the "to do" list is still long but not getting any longer (yet).

Lots of parts on order, hoping some of them show up soon...

I've got a few more parts to install this weekend; a competition short shifter, a new right side halfshaft, a new ignition switch and two headlight motor rebuild kits (thanks, Rodney!)

The short shifter is in already - it's a quick and easy install. Works well but I wish the shifter was a little farther back on the console; third is a little bit of a reach for me. I'll get used to it soon enough, it's much better than the stock shifter. Next thing to do is pull the car into the garage and get started on installing the other parts. It's all pretty straightforward stuff but nonoe of it is what I'd call easy.

Tonight's project was to rebuild the bad headlight motor. It went well; Rodney's replacement parts are top quality stuff and fit perfectly. The only real problem was cleaning out the remains of green bumpers and sticky grease - Rodney suggests rubbing alcohol but that didn't do much for me. Finally tried Brakleen and that did the trick; all the crud just rinsed away when I used that stuff. The other motor is still working - but I bought two kits and I'll be ready for it when it fails.

I'll do the halfshaft and the ignition switch tomorrow - I think tonight I'll take the red one for a nice little drive...

Just got back from my evening check ride. I was wondering if I'd have problems starting it after that degrease / rinse operation; I wasn't being very careful to keep anything dry but it didn't matter - the car started right up and ran fine. That's nice - if it made it through that without a problem then I don't need to worry about it dying in a rainstorm or splashing through a puddle.

However, there's some problems in the instruments that are new - some of the indicators aren't working, and the tach and temp guage are dead. Since the tach's on the stop and not pointing to zero, I can tell that it's not getting power. This accounts for the other problems also; one of the power feeds to the cluster isn't working. I suspect it's the small connector on the driver's side; not seated right or a bad contact. It's not the fuse because other items that also draw power through that fuse are still working. Must have knocked something loose while I was dropping the steering column / changing the ignition switch today. Looks like I'll be digging into the instrument panel one more time.

Replacing the axle seems to have cleared up a small vibration I'd been noticing. The old one had a little hole in the inner boot that had been leaking; when I pulled the axle out I could tell that the inner joint was dry and getting a little loose. If I hadn't changed it, it would have failed in a hundred miles or so.

Checked on the status of my GM Parts Direct order that I submitted on 4/5 - they've shippped it at last and DHL says that they'll deliver it on 4/26. Looks like they're right on with their three week order to delivery time. If they didn't have such good prices... It's not their customer service that keeps me coming back, that's for sure. When those parts get here I'll be able to take care of some little annoyances.

For example, there's a plastic bushing that clips into the top of the "pockets" that the sunroof glass brackets sit in. At least there should be - but if yours is like mine, they're broken and gone. Those little pieces of plastic don't only make the pocket look nice, they also keep the sunroof from rattling on bumps when you've got it open. They're only $2.48 each from GMPD

Its getting a little late tonight, so tomorrow I'll take some pictures and explain the difference between the two different front speakers that came in Fieros. One of them is basic crap - but the other is surprisingly nice; nicer than many third-party replacment speakers. Hard to describe the difference, but pictures will make it clear.

Went to take those speaker pictures and found dead camera batteries; put them on the charger and I'll get the pictures tomorrow.

Dug back into the dash to find out why I lost power to most of the instruments. Looked for pinched wires around the steering column mount; nothing found. Checked the gauges fuse; checked OK. Looked at the small connector on the instrument cluster and it was snapped in tightly. Hmmm... Unclipped the connector and looked at the terminals; they looked fine. Snapped the connector back in and turned the key - everything works now. Connector must have not been in just right. Everything works now except the gas guage - this is either bad wiring (probably not) or a bad sending unit. Wonder where I'll get one of those?

That was easy; decided to take a closer look at the loose end on the spoiler. It's been that way ever since I got the car; one side wasn't attached to the front of the support. Finally took the spoiler off and found the screw rattling around in the support - put it back in place and tightened it and the spoiler is good and solid now.

Here's the latest RockAuto discount code:

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Had a great time at Rally Through the Valley this weekend. This was this little car's first long drive in years and only the second time it's left the immediate area since I've owned it. Decided to check it out thoroughly (and have some fun) so I basically pushed the car as hard as I dared for 200 miles of twisty two-lane road. What a blast; this car runs very well.

However, it's got some problems, too. I can hear a wheel bearing moaning on hard corners; it's on the passenger side but I haven't pinned it down to front or rear yet. The struts are shot and need to be replaced. The brakes - well, there's a bad rotor (warped) up front and I think that the pads are those dirt-cheap organic things; they seemed fine on test drives but under pressure they faded away almost instantly. The sway bar end links are junk and there's at least one bad lower ball joint on the car. And the tires that are on it look good and only have a couple of thousand miles on them. They're not very good tires, though - they'd be fine for driving to work, but they're definitely not appropriate for high-performance driving.

I was trying to keep up with some of the other hot-footed Fiero drivers and it was difficult; my little red car handles great but this one's going to need some serious work before it's competent for that kind of driving. Thankfully, the engine and transmission are solid and work perfectly so the really expensive parts are OK...

Spent some time shopping for parts online today. Something I like to do is make a list of the parts I need, then check availability and price at several vendors. I find that prices vary widely and no one vendor has the best price on everything.

For example, a rear hub / bearing assembly (same part number at all vendors) sells for:
$111.99 at Kragen
$80.79 at Rock Auto
$66.99 at AutoZone (no stock, special order only)

I didn't check the price at GM Parts Direct, for reasons I'll describe in detail soon.

Anyway, there's a big difference in pricing and it's worth taking the time to check things out. I need quite a few parts, so tomorrow I'll go over the list one more time, pick the right vendor for each item and put together / submit the orders.

Now I think I'll go check on a set of those eBay rotors; I sure do like the ones I got for the red car...