My daughter will be turning 16 in about 6 months.
I made her a deal, she can drive one of the Fiero's if she helps get fixed up.
The biggest part of this deal is she will be working as the lead mechanic and I will be working more as the banker/supervisor.
I have left it up to her to decide if we work on the car in her free time, to date she hasn't let a day go by that we haven't done some project on the car.
With that being said her are some of the photos of the projects she has tackled so far.

The first project she picked was the electric windows.
They didn't hardly move and with the AC condenser missing she thought the windows needed to come down.

Here Ashley is removing the door panel.


Drilling out the rivets on the door skin so we can work from both sides


Sorry but I didn't remember to get pics of her actually cleaning and lubing everything back up.

The next project she decided to take on was the headlights. She didn't care for how Sherri winked at everyone coming down the road.
She is trying to remove the right front headlight so we can replace the motor.


After getting the light assembly out I showed her how to solder and made her swap the plugs from the Fiero motor to a set of Camaro replacement motors I had.


Finally got everything solder up now time to get the motor back in the light assembly.


I think she was pretty happy with the final results.

Very cool.
Good luck on the build.

The first big project she decided to take on was a hood vent.
She had seen some pics of other Fiero's with hood vents and wanted to know if she could do that.
I handed her a tape measure, sharpie and a jig saw. She looked a little dumb founded so we went out and started drawing on the car to give Sherri , the daughters name for the car, a new smile.

Trying to find the center of the hood.


Verifying our center mark from both sides.


We drew out a grid so she could lay out the smile. She is just like me in the fact she can't draw a straight line with the assistance of a ruler so the grid helped her find the curve she was envisioning.


Starting to remove some material for the vent.


Both sides open now


After making the cuts she sanded down the areas we would be glassing to for the vent.
She loves her dust mask!!! Just look at those eyes cant you feel the love


Sanding away



We held the hood in place with a few C clamps and a piece of plywood so the corners could be glassed in and get the basic shape of the vent.



Ashley being a goof and admiring Sherri's smile.


Here are a couple of different angles making sure we have proper clearance for the vent with the hood down.



Ashley is learning how to work with Fiberglass and use a mold to make the front of the vent.





Here we have Ashley's part from the mold attached to the hood, just waiting on the resin to cure.


Ashley is sanding the under side of the hood to prep it for some crack repairs and the inside glassing of the vent.


Here she is fixing the cracks and putting on the back side glass for the vent.



She kept telling me she didn't see how her vision was going to work with what we were doing so I did a quick mock up of the vent in card board for her.


Doing some front side glassing of the vent.



Sanding down the glass so we can smooth it out with a little bondo.


First coat of bondo laid down and curing.

[This message has been edited by NeoNot (edited 06-18-2014).]

This a great project! Awesome work! Can't wait to see what the next you guys do next!

Very cool.

Wow! Great project!

Great job! Shes got the Fiero bug, and already modifying
Looks like a qwik learner too.

This brought back some good memories. My dad won a Fiero in 1985 in the Mac Again, Back Again Sweepstakes. I always loved the car (even though I wasn't even 5 yet when he got it). When I was 18 and decided I needed a "cool" car to keep up with my friends, a ride in a friend's V8 Fiero sealed the deal and changed my designs from foreign (Mitsubishi Eclipse type cars) to Domestic - Fiero. I knew I wanted a Fastback and lucked into a very nice 88GT that I decided to keep stock. 2 years later, I lucked into my 85GT and the best father-daughter project ever.

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/090584.html

Ashley is lucky to have a dad who is working with her on the project. My dad did the same thing - working on the car was my choice, and I did so every day once we got the process started (there is a funny story in that thread about it). Now 14 years, a marriage, house and my own newborn daughter (Ashleigh) I still have and love that car.

~ Jen

A photo for the ages!!! Oh and get a gun!



Jim

[This message has been edited by jimbolaya (edited 06-21-2014).]

quote Originally posted by jimbolaya: A photo for the ages!!! Oh and get a gun! Jim

Photo for the ages - check
Get a gun/guns - check
Seeing her boyfriend's face when he came out for the first time and I had my hand guns out because I was going to go shot and he had to accompany me before they could go out- priceless!!!

That young man still calls me sir every time he comes out

Just awesome! Nice to see kids do their own work.

quote Originally posted by Fierochic88: This brought back some good memories. My dad won a Fiero in 1985 in the Mac Again, Back Again Sweepstakes. I always loved the car (even though I wasn't even 5 yet when he got it). When I was 18 and decided I needed a "cool" car to keep up with my friends, a ride in a friend's V8 Fiero sealed the deal and changed my designs from foreign (Mitsubishi Eclipse type cars) to Domestic - Fiero. I knew I wanted a Fastback and lucked into a very nice 88GT that I decided to keep stock. 2 years later, I lucked into my 85GT and the best father-daughter project ever. https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/090584.html Ashley is lucky to have a dad who is working with her on the project. My dad did the same thing - working on the car was my choice, and I did so every day once we got the process started (there is a funny story in that thread about it). Now 14 years, a marriage, house and my own newborn daughter (Ashleigh) I still have and love that car. ~ Jen

Well Jen I think I am lucky to have a daughter like Ashley.
As a father you always see the best in your child and want to gloat over them but I truly admire a lot of the things she has been able to accomplish.
The one thing I admire about her the most is what a determined person she is.
She is one of the most driven individuals I have ever met. It just so happens she is my daughter as well.
I am not sure where she got it from because I am not that way unless it is something I want to do

If nothing else comes from this project I hope she learns that dad enjoys her company and just likes spending time with her!
Just looking over the photos brings a tear to my eye because it makes me realize how quickly she has grown and I don't know that I am really ready for that.
That is why I let her make the choice to work on the car because then it becomes her choice to spend time with the old man

We took a day off last week and decided to hit up the local auto parts store to look over some paint chip books and pick up some new pads for the brakes.
We should be doing those sometime this week and hopefully start on the bushing kit as well.

Now she just has to decide if we are going to paint the chassis and trunk areas
I hate to tell her they all have to be sanded to do that!!!

quote Originally posted by NeoNot: The one thing I admire about her the most is what a determined person she is. She is one of the most driven individuals I have ever met. It just so happens she is my daughter as well. I am not sure where she got it from because I am not that way unless it is something I want to do

She must have some creativity too, to have the vision of what she wants at the end, and even doing tasks that are unpleasant for a short time to accomplish the end

What a great project!

[This message has been edited by MAFOA Events (edited 06-23-2014).]

We got back to it Monday, working on the brakes.
Things are a little crusty in there right now.


I also realized I hate working on the rear brakes and hated it even more due to a rusted bleeder valve!
I have heated, quenched, beat, cussed and a few other things at this damn valve but still couldn't get it to move.
It was time to walk away from that problem for the time being or I was going to wind up buying a new caliper!
Anywho Ash is back at it working over the front brakes.


Ash cleaning up a little surface oxidation from the calipers, collapsing the caliper piston to get the pads on, checking out the brake lines and reinstalling the caliper.





We switched back to the hood today trying to get that project finished up.
Ashley sanding down the hood repairs and bottom side of the vent.




We found a couple of spots that the glass was a little to thin while sanding so we will address them tomorrow.


While sanding one of the discs came loose and before we noticed it the sander was rubbing its hooks on the fiberglass and basically burnt them all away
This led to a trip to the local lumber yard to pick up a new hook pad for the sander and while we were there we ran across some paint that I have been reading about, Plasti Dip.
I am not sure if anyone else has seen this or tried it yet but I figured I would give it a quick sampling to see how it works and in case you are wondering yes this is the same stuff that you use to coat your tools with!

Here is a quick shot of the car before we painted it.


One of the things that caught my attention with this process was the minimal amount of prep work needed. You just degrease and wash your car. Then mask off the windows, headlights, tail lights, etc...
We are using a rattle can to do this test area so the color isn't extremely even but it gave us a good idea of the color and how the product would finish out.
Base paint a semi matt finish.



Here is a close up of the Glossifier coat applied.


What appealed to me about paint the car with this system is your ability to change colors.
If you aren't happy with the color........

Just peal it off, wash the car and go again.


I was quite surprised how durable the finish of the Plasti Dip really was. I figured it would come off with a little scratch of a finger nail but it doesn't.
Granted this isn't a show quality type paint but it gives Ashley the ability to try out the different colors and schemes she likes for about $15 a panel.

Things have been a little slow the last week or so. Ashley has had to baby sit her cousins but she left me with orders to rework the dash in the colors she has selected for the car.
Here is what I have come up with.


If anyone needs the files I have these converted into Adobe Illustrator format for easier editing.

It's been a few months since our last post.
Ashley started practicing with the high school fast pitch team and needless to say that left her with almost no time to work on the car!
Then to top it all off she decided to slide into home about 6 weeks ago and broke her left stick!!!
That had her hobbled up for a while but couple weeks after the cast was removed she came to me and wanted to work on the car again.
So we are picking the project back up from where we left off.
The left front suspension has been removed to install new shocks, bushings and receive a good power washing to remove the dirt and grime built up in there.

Ash doing some power washing.


A reminder of what it is she is working towards. Not sure who's ride this is but hope you don't mind me using it for our photo shop coloring.