LF Advice on taking fiero apart

[87se_fiero]

I have recently purchased an 87 GT parts car. My grand winter/spring plan is to take the GT portion off and bolt it onto my 87 SE to transform it into a GT! I'm wondering if there would be anywhere either on the net or some books where there would be some comprehensive instructions on taking the car apart and putting it back together again? Can you recommend any such references?  The two cars are different colors of course, the donor black and mine maroon. I'm assuming that the best time to paint it (all black) will be when the body panels are all off the car... is this correct?

Your advice appreciated.
Etienne.

[Kevin]

  I haven't taken a GT apart but I would get some of those ziploc bags and a permanent marker to keep your parts in. I took the clip off my notchie with only a bit of trouble and it wasn't that difficult. Give it time and you will have all the advice you need maybe we could get a group together to do the swap. I think putting the GT rear on it will require some wiring as well. I have heard of people running into trouble doing a panel off paint job because the paint goes on in different shades. I think you would be best to paint it on the car at least the final coat to get it all the same. Kevin

[dguy]

Regarding the disassembly in general...  what Tinker said. 

The tail light wiring in a fastback differs from that of a notchback, but it should be a relatively painless switch.  Once you have the body panels out of the way, the entire rear lighting harness can be removed in one piece.

Painting...  I've heard two opinions on off-car vs. on-car.

If you're going with a solid color, many people seem to get good results painting the panels off-car so long as they paint them all at the same time.  In other words, don't do your hood today, the rear clip a week from now, etc.

Certain types of metallic paint apparently have a bit of a grain to them, and it's adviseable to apply these paints on-car so that the grain matches on all panels.  Kitten might be able to explain that better than I, given that it's an area of interest for her.

[Kitten]

well like Don said, there are some that say paint the panels on the car, while others paint them off the car....

If you are just doing a basic solid colour painting the panels off the car is not a problem.  If you were painting with a metalic or a candy it is better to paint those on the car because those paints do have a "grain" and in order to get the paint job to flow properly from panel to panel the panels should be on the car.

The problem Tinker mentioned about different shades on the panels can happen even if all the panels are on the car.  This can be attributed to not so great quality paint, not so great paint application, more coats on one panel versus another, and a number of other things..... 

When you buy your paint make sure you buy enough to do all the pieces because if paint get's mixed by different shops or different people the colour can come out differently.  You'd be amazed by how many shades of black there actually are...  actually a friend got a door panel painted a while back now on a mustang he had, the shop thought the car was black so they painted the door black.... the car was actually a really dark green that almost looked black....

If you aren't planning to repaint the already black panels take one of them into the shop with you and get them to colour match it.  That way you'll be less likely to end up with different shades of black on your car.

There are a couple of really interesting threads on Pennocks about painting actually... here is one that has some good info if you want to know more...

http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/055660.html

good luck...

[87se_fiero]

Here are a few pics of the GT after taking most of the body panels out. Taking off the clip was most challenging, as you predicted. This was an extremely useful reference: http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/054499.html There's a place in the post where he circles a part in bright yellow. That was really useful!

I'm still not up to thinking about painting yet (on or off body), although I am getting curious as to what preparation will be involved to get those 'star patterns' out of the thinner plastic body parts like the bumbers. If I were to consider off-body I would have to take off the rest of the roof (front part). I read that a heat gun was a very good tool to tackle the nasty tape holding it in place

Take care,

Etienne