After months of lurking and ogling craigslist, I took the dive and bought a silver Formula with 78k miles on it. Cosmetic issues aside (a headlight motor, fading paint etc) everything seemed okay and checked out. Pretty much right up until I made the purchase. After buying and getting myself better acquainted with the feel of the clutch, a metallic tapping noise started up, and quickly got worse, progressive into a grinding that sounds like a shovel on pavement. It's most noticeable at idle, but also sometimes/somewhat while in gear and goes away if I give it some decent throttle. On soft accelerations it tends to remain, on hard accelerations it's gone completely. Obviously this is disappointing to me, so after roaming the internet it seems it's either the pilot bearing or throwout bearing (depending on how is answering). My question is, how could such a problem be totally dormant right up until I make the purchase? While I didn't test drive the car myself, I had the owner run it through the paces for a good 20-25 minutes (though I did note that he tended to drive it hard mostly, which seemed normal at the time), and there was no sign of that sound at any time including during extended idle. I really like to think it's a bad coincidence and not willful deceit on the part of the owner... but I'm not experienced enough to say.

Anyhow, I hope to get it resolved soon and get this car confidently driving (and also hope the repair doesn't burn straight through the bottom of my now much shallower pocket). Fingers crossed, knock on wood.

[This message has been edited by rednotdead (edited 11-07-2014).]

Welcome!
A silver FORMULA... mmmmm one if my favorite Fieros. A rarer one at that. Must have a very early Vin #. Probably built in '87...
The grinding noise: While it is most likely a larger issue,check your trans fluid immediately! The '88 Fiero has a trans dipstick,so checking will be easy. If it is low/out fill with 5/30 oil. Synchromesh is the best stuff to use,but reg oil is just fine. Its a 2qt fill.
If you do find that the trans needs filling,check you axle seals immediately to see if they are leaking. This is usually the culprit!
Good luck,and I'd love to see more pics! Great looking car!
Soon I want to build/restore a silver or yellow FORMULA from the ground-up.

Mark

Try removing the dust cover on the underside of the bellhousing. This is a common source of grinding scraping sounds in the rotating mass of the clutch assembly. it would also give you the opportunity to look for metal filings, possibly from the bad clutch fork or throw out bearing.

[This message has been edited by rpro (edited 11-07-2014).]

Nice car. Best of luck!

Transmission fluid is clear, full, and blessedly free of swarms of metal filingsl. I took it to a mechanic this morning and had him look it over briefly - he immediately told me he could tell the car had been sitting for some time, that the throwout bearing had settled (not his wording, just the jist I got) and his advice was to keep driving it for 300-400 miles before getting it looked at again. Somewhat annoyingly he also gave me crap for my choice of a Fiero in general, and having paid more than 1000 for one (which my payment exceeded greatly). So it goes.

Is this diagnosis reasonable? It surprised me, for sure, but I'm not familiar with anything beyond a general understanding of how a transmission works.

I'll take a look at the bellhousing dust cover - if that by some slim chance is really the problem, I'd be so relieved.

[This message has been edited by rednotdead (edited 11-07-2014).]