I have an 88 fiero. It did the old fiber timing gear strip once I replaced it with a metal gear from the fiero store. I’m in the process of swapping a 3800 supercharged in mine. It was my first car mine has the lotus designed suspension it handles like a dream.
Easy fix! Remove the iron duke. Find a healthy 3.8L Buick from a fwd. Replace the half shafts with aftermarket half shafts that fit. (you can find them) Make sure your brakes are in great condition. Try to drive conservatively but don't forget to have some fun!
@@Mauscmkwk My bad, I should have mentioned that. I do know that a 3.8L supercharged Fiero is a pretty quick car, no, very quick. Search ' 3.8L Fiero on RU-vid '.
Had one of them in 2005. A fella passing through town bottomed it out and punctured the coolant tube thus overheating it and blowing a head gasket b4 he realized anything was wrong! He brought it to me to fix and after I told him parts and labor he said never mind. Told him it would still be $150 for the time I had in tearing it down to verify head wasn’t warped and putting it back together! He signed the title over and left it in my mailbox with a bill of sale! I replaced the coolant tube and replaced the head gasket after having the head resurfaced. Ran like a champ , sold it for $900 and a 89 s10 that also needed a head gasket !
JT, Always liked the looks of the Fireo. Yours seems to be in pretty decent shape. I have spent a lot of hours in these vehicles during development in the 80's. The steering is most defiantly the Armstrong type. Blind spots are well designed into the P body. Also make sure the drivers floor mat can't slide. They had a tendency to wedge under the acc pedal and hold the throttle full. Good luck and hope it works out good for your daughter. What a dad. Boe
Not sure if anyone has already mentioned it, but there is a RU-vidr named Ronald Finger that did a TOTAL tear down and rebuild of a Fiero just like that one! It might be helpful to you to watch his trials and tribulations as he did his project.
Well JT, I seem to have the same mental affliction as you. Yes, although I've never had one, I've got a soft spot for the Fiero. My son's first vehicle was a Sq Body short bed I picked up for $300. Bent, rusty wore out😢. Replaced doors, straightened the vent box side and painted. Then the inline six went. Swapped for a 72 Impala 400!😮 Then the tranny went😢. Rebuilt that. Tires, brakes, suspension,....... I bought my daughter a 82 Regal with a rod knock 😢. Believe it or not I was able to "clam shell" the engine and transmission and drop the crank, with the flex plate, out the bottom. Ran like the devil until she totaled it in the snow!😢 Anyway keep at it and she'll always remember the experience. She may hate you but she'll remember!!😊 Thanks for sharing!
Right on! I sure miss the older vehicles, and am thankful that I can pass my knowledge along to my kiddo. She may never use it, but makes me feel good!
Nice to Have a BOND with an Offspring....TRACTORs🚜🚜🚜🚜jUst weren't Cutting-It for Her...My Uncle was a Designer for Transmissions&Rear-Ends @ the GM PROVING-GROUNDS...and Back in the Day He Brought the BEST of Them to FARM and His BUDDYs @ Work RACED-Them @ Tracks👍🤣
Well, unfortunate it came to that but you will get it running again and your daughter will love you for it and that is the most important part. Never owned one but had a high school friend that ended up with one many years ago. It was fun to ride in.
I saw a Fiero up on Lansing have the front end get rannover by a 2.5 ton Army truck. I was following in another one when he did it. Needless to say that car was trashed.@@jtsbarnngrill6873
A coworker bought one brand new. She put three bags of groceries behind the seat and they were half cooked by the time she got home. Might look at adding an extra layer to that firewall while you have it apart.
Owned one loved it. The ac could almost make ice cubes in the middle of the summer. The stereo was fantastic with speakers in the headrests the ride was fantastic. Never had a problem with the cab getting hot, behind the seat, maybe she put groceries in the trunk behind the engine.
Check the junkyards for a sunfire turbo and rebuild that engine. it fits right into a fiero and makes it pretty zippy without mucking up the balance of the car. Fieros are made for mountain roads.
Good Morning J T, Hey I'm really impressed, you are a real MECHANIC ! WHAT A GREAT PROJECT. I can't even spell MECHANIC ! 😅 Can't wait to see the rest of the SAGA. By the way, I find that I get sidetracked and confused on a daily basis. Have a Great Weekend. 😊
Great video and it’s good to see your daughter helping on har car to many girls don’t want to get there hands dirty and most can’t even change a tire keep up the good work
Win some lose some. That’s what some will say, I say what a great Dad and daughter project. She is lucky to have an old man that has enough grey matter up top to get her a cracking car that’s also going to be reliable and safe. Great channel J.T keep them coming fast & furious 👍😁
Excellent video JT :) , your daughter :) help on her her car and bet newer model motor and plus to ! Also JT don't feel bad my late mother had brand new in 1994 she bought out hard working job money saved and strange part she had 4 motor jobs in up till 2009 when got rid of it! Also so many things had that car go wrong with it and was big lemon ! But 3 others vechiles her and my dad bought were better one's! But can win them all that correctly said!
.. had an Iron Duke in my '76 Pontiac Astre(Vega)....2bbl, 4spd....owned it 9 years...sold it with 109k miles....never used oil....replaced the rear main seal, timing belt, water pump, radiator.... made 5 trips across the US.... a few years after I sold it, saw it still on the road.....
No war is won without a few lost battles. Replacing a motor? In 40 years of projects, maybe 2 or 3 didn't need a motor swap. Motors were my "thing." Strip 'em down, build 'em up, Better. And for everyone else. Anybody other than me think, "Wow! JT has a ponytail!" Also, I think the V^ was the better engine in those cars. Pretty sure that's what a co-worker had, but it was a little newer, '87 or '88? Good work JT and "Little Miss JT", we're waiting to see it rocket down the hardtop.
Great video as always,I bought a brand new S10 in 1986,it had the same engine.At 42,000 km a head bolt broke and blew out the head gasket,2000 km over the warrenty and the dealership said tough luck and would,nt fix it under warrenty so my father and I fixed it ourselves.
I had one for a brief time never did get it to the point of being road legal but did do some gravel road driving with it and they are terrible to handle at any speed over 40-45 mph as the front end is so light it wouldn't stay planted to the road. I did plan on fixing it up but a friend made me an offer I couldn't refuse and i still regret selling it.
Nice one j.t. ok the engine is bad. Ok not great but saying that I would say that's great. Because you know the engine you're going to put in should last a long time. But if other one did run then went bad just after you're daughter starting to enjoy driving it then it let go not great for her. So saying it was bad luck but to me it's a great time for it to happen. So when you get done she can enjoy the car fully. All good really.if you think about it. From Andy in uk
look at the throttle body as you crank it . if its pisin gas it's flooded. unplug the fuel pump fuse crank it till it starts riuns and dies then put the fuse back in. it'll start.. It'll start uintil the next time it floods then you have to do the fuse thing again. This sounds dumb, but the temp sensor is probably bad. that's how we solved the non start issue on mine. Never had problems again after we changed the sensor.
My son in law has 3 of those cars, he and his youngest son are still trying to get one of them working. His cars have V6s there really hard to work on. No room.
I think this is a cool project but totally off the subject; where can a guy get some of those red tractor Christmas lights like you have stapled to the beam in your barn? Looking forward to the collaboration with Bendin’ Wrenches. 👍🏻👍🏻
It's got a gallop when you are turning it over showing its compressions issues on two of the cylinders. Could be valves not sealing or struck open somewhator piston rings
You can here the bad cylinders when turning over,,take out the iron duke engine and put in a 1.3l hyabusa..In a small car like that,,It would be peppy,,,
From what I’ve seen it was because of the oil pan being 3 qts and it ran low, spit out a rod and caught fire on what was left. This one will be checked daily
One recall was for oil leaks from valve cover getting on exhaust manifold and catching fire because of low airflow in engine compartment. The exhaust manifold on this car has the deflector that was part of the kit installed so recall was performed. Be sure to replace the timing gears when freshening engine. They were a real problem on that engine as you mentioned. Worked at dealer 87 to 92 did several of these plus grand am's kept us busy. Worked all the problems out by 88 and then couldn't sell them. 88 v6 5 spd was pretty fun to drive. Good luck.
Do the 4.6 Northstar swap. Well not exactly a swap but big performance upgrade. Just make sure the 4.6 either had the head studs redone or it was a later one that wasn't prone to the problem.
2.5min in and you start talking about nylon timing...that was my imediate thought when you said, dead on road, will almost start, but wont catch. had a 307 back in the day with nylon timing that did the exact same thing. now lets watch the rest and see....guess i was wasnt wrong, i was way wrong
The 1984 Fiero suffered the same issues that the 1960s Corvairs had... they were highly susceptible to Overheating.... the cooling system was not in a good place... the engine was a great engine but not in the fiero.... that is what probably happened to this engine... I kinda had a suspicion you might have to replace that engine...
JT, u almost got the motor to start, butt u wasn't holding ur mouth the right way.. oh well, so it was a bad head. toush in another head and let's see if it will start.. did Fluffy like the red Fiero??
I like the fellas idea of the robust V6 install but seems to be a lot of figuring out.. my only recommendation is DITCH that stupid TBI and go with a carb.. She will runs better..longer and less headaches for 1980's computing power..
I would definitely like to see your daughter's arms and hands doing a little bit more a little bit more hands on I know she probably don't want to be seen on TV with those easy way to get around that just film her arms and hands doing things does kids nowadays need to learn this stuff they're so far behind God forbid if anything ever happened to this country they wouldn't know what to do
@@jtsbarnngrill6873 I'm glad to see she's out there most kids sit in the house all day on their phone I was born and raised a farmer so now it's like with me watching kids nowadays just makes me sick do they have no ambition unless that damn phone is in their hand you know exactly what it was like because you're about the same age as me I'm a little bit older than you Louise to go play in the woods and go fishing and be outside riding our bikes and nowadays it's takes too much ambition
