Indy

I have the steering wheel and am not planning on keeping it.

Tilt steering with cruise control.

Please call me at 604-986-8199

Guys

The wiring harnesses that I got from PickAPart are in good condition. However, I am quickly learing that although the difference between AT and MT is a bit important, what are far more important are the installed options, particularly aircon and to a lesser extent cruise control.

The MT harnesses from PAP (both the three C500 associated ones and the ECM) are a good fit for my MT, but the PAP harnesses includes cruise that my Indy does not have and it does not have aircon, that I do have.

I now plan to not install the cruise control, since I see that it is more effort than I am prepared to expend. I am inclined to merely clip the cruise wires, most or all of which go only through C500.

Right now aircon is not important. However the aircon wiring involves quite a few connections to the ECM, via C504, C505, and C203. I can easilly transfer the correct connectors from my now junk Indy ECM harness. However if I use my Indy ECM (that believes it has an attached aircon) and don't complete the aircon wiring, will the ECM view that as a fault and send an unimportant fault message, while perhaps not idenfying a real fault? 

It is not that big of a task to install a harness, so options are to go with what I have for now, or right now find an 84 ECM harness from a car with aircon. If someone for the club does not have access to one, I will try Pennock's.

Am I making it more or less complicated than it is?

One other item. The brown dash from the 84 SE is in perfect condition, unlike the light grey / black one from the Indy. If anyone has a perfect grey / black one, I am in the market. Game plan B is to paint the one from the SE. Is that a good idea?

thanks

Gary @604-986-8199

Year end progress report

The various wiring harness are now installed with just a few bare ends. When I started the engine yesterday for the first time, the "check engine" light went out, so I expect that is a good sign. The engine does sound decent, but it runs for only a few seconds, then dies, but will immediately restart and does the same thing again and again. Part of the hobby. 

I bought a GT front fascia with the later round molding design, and am adapting it to the earlier ribbed molding type that was used 84 to 86. On the later versions the side marker and molding that connect the fascia to the fender are one piece and merely bolt on. On the earlier version, the short molding "piece" immediately behind the marker light is part of the fascia. I cut them off the damaged Indy fascia with a hacksaw and used plastic filler and abit of stainless stell wire to install a small mounting bolt. see photo below.

The SE dash has now been repainted and installed in the Indy. Looks very good. I did a small repair to a crack in the upper corner using body filler, after gouging out the soft foam to get to a solid attachment. Pretty much invisible repair.

The headliner was still decent on the Indy otheer than the fwater damaged fabric, but it was very difficult (I am inclined to say impossible) to remove the upper interior door molding with it in place. I therefore cut the headliner in two (see photo) and slid it out, then easily accessed the 6 mm headed machine screw that secures the mounting clip (there will be 1 or 2 of them on each side). Once the molding was off the car I was easily able to remove the spring clip(s) that were still attached to it, then remounted the clip to the body in preparation for re-installation. I fiberglassed the headliner back together and painted to for additional strength. And yes I will drill the drain holes on the sunroof surround.  

In dismantling the brake system on both cars, I noticed that the torx end on several of the caliper mounting bolts were poorly formed and I had difficulty removing them. After-market junk. 

Since the SE parts car is now stripped of everything but the main roof, and since many of those panels are in better condition than on the Indy, I decided to paint the panels off the car and with the aero body parts also removed. A March or April project. I am now wondering how to remount the riveted aero body side molding etc.  since the rivets were destroyed on removal. I will post a separate question about that on the site so that any answers don't get lost in this thread.  

Since this is mainly a one person project, I had difficulty re-aligning the rear suspension after I loosened the two large bolts. By installing a spare rotor backwards, I was able to realign the parts with my floor jack.  

There was some rust under the parts car carpet, (photo) so I will check that on the Indy while the seats are out.  

Gary in North Vancouver @ 604-986-8199

Harbour Freight, you gotta get me an address, my wife and I go to Bellisfair Mall twice a month or so now.  If there is a Harbour Freight anywhere close by, she can drop me off there and I might be done by the time she is done looking through the entire mall.  If she left me with the car I might not be picking her up until the following day.

        Your car is coming along amazingly well.  Funny that hose went bad, as I just replaced one in my now sold 88 Coupe.  Owner thought the motor was blown because it would not run.  I replaced the hose and installed a V6 fuel pump and car ran fine, new owner drove it all the way to Victoria, said it just kept driving better and better the more he drove it.  Aside from an oil leak I think the engine may have been fine.

I'll have to keep that fabric store in mind as I will need to redo the head liner on my 88GT once I get the windshield replaced, as it is leaking badly at the top of the glass.

25psi at hot idle is OK, however I like to see more like 35psi, I would move it up to 10w30 and add a bottle of Lucas oil stabilizer to the mix.  If your tests were done with less than 1hr of run time, I would move to 15w40 Rotella oil.  Its great stuff. and was the only thing GM would put in there Caddy motors.

Indy wrote: I therefore removed the master cylinder, cut the push rod shaft and brazed in a 1/2" long piece of round bar of the same diameter as the push rod... and presto, the clutch now works for the first time.

...

Indy wrote: I also installed a "hydraulic" oil pressure gauge that I will leave permanently mounted in the engine compartment. 25 psi oil pressure. .

What's with the upside-down picture?

Indy wrote: And yes the oil pressure sender photo is from the bottom side. It was the only position from which I could get a decent photo.

Gary, there's this great feature in photo programs called "rotate".

June update

Since the last posting in January, I have made significant progress:

• All of the body panels have been painted off the vehicle, except the two roof sections that were too much of a hastle to remove. I don't have sufficient room in my garage to do the painting there, so I painted everything outside. There was of course the risk of airborne debris (that did happen) plus  natural lighting is not as favourable as light reflected from overhead fluorescent lights.
• The only remaining painting are the wheels and the two roof sections to be completed in the next few days, if the rain god permits.
• New headliner, with fabric from Bellingham. Looks good.
• Drilled drain holes at the four corners of the sun roof.
• Modified the wiring to stop the temp gage from pegging. I followed the procedure that is frequently discussed in Pennock's,  in which the instument panel etc. is removed. It did not provide sufficient access to the connectors that are in the top of the steering column, so I lowered the column and the job went well after that.
• New outer dew wipes. Since the door skin was off the car, access to the two center mounting screws was quite easy, and I merely backed them out, then installed pop rivets to replace them. The rest of the fasteners went back together the way they were originally installed. 
• Bought a used Indy passenger side seat skin (thanks Pennock's) and used it to replace the driver's side skin. Not perfect, but not too shabby.
• The mounting fasteners for the door skins look good, but the plastic "covers" don't tolerate either the Phillips screwdriver (early 84) or the later torx fasteners at all well. I ended up with a couple of frozen fasteners, so drilled them out and replaced the mounting plates. I ground the plastic away from the concealed metal fasteners before I mounted the skins. 
• Replaced the front fascia with one from the now gone Lynden Fiero guy. 
• Bought rebuilt sun visors. They are frequently sold on eBay at far less effort and cost than it would be to do it yourself.

I have registered the Fiero (and the 71 Opel GT) in the July 17 Show & Shine in Edgemont Village, just a couple of blocks from my home in N. Vancouver, so I have imposed a dealine on completion. 

I have a small want list that I will post separately.

Having the 84 SE parts car was a real blessing since the body was in better shape than the Indy, so it provided several replacement body panels and was an excellent source of fasteners, etc. 

Cheers

Gary Hawthorn

Mods, please get this SPAM out of here. Thanks.

[EDIT] Whomever did it, thanks for getting rid of that crap.