fiero308 Buildup thread (LOTS OF PIX!!!! ; ))

[fiero308]

well a quickie then I gotta run. Falling behind in work a bit but I want to keep the fieroball rolling to some degree.

First of all, any 'local' people - I am having a hell of a time with City (Auto) Recyclers in Peterborough. These are the guys who promised me that the 3.4 TDC/trans was out of a runner and that the car was in there because it got hit, NOT because of engine probs.  So my advice is to stay away and to warn anyone else to stay away too.
If they DO make good on getting me an engine I'll post that here.
But I have phoned any number of times and no return call and no action.

I am waiting and hoping for my front stuff to come back from the m/c shop this wk......
but as stated before it isn't a show stopper really; just it would be nice to have WHEELS on it as extra incentive.

I have been working on adapting my engine/trans setup to the fiero cradle. That is pretty much unexplored territory, so I am making it up as I go along.
There are and will be probs but I don't think they are insurmountable.

So after MUCH trying and measuring and adjusting and moving and shimming and hoisting and rehoisting and..........anyway
I got the engine and cradle sitting relative to each other in a way that works and should fit. I must mention that I HAVE to put the engine/trans in based on measurements, NOT convenience or (unfortunately) axle length. This means I will prob have to get one axle modified somehow or other when I get this mounting done. Oh well so be it. The axle itself shouldn't be a weak spot; ie if the 'ends' blow up they can be rebuilt and reinstalled etc.

The other thing is I want to reuse (as much as possible) the true motor mounts that are on the engine/trans - as that is how GM decided to support it, probably with more knowledge of the needs than me.

Guys who commonly do this swap adapt the 2.8 V6 mounts that are on the cradle to fit the 3.4 motor. I don't like this approach, personally, altho I am not sure how many of them have actually had problems.  I know SOME have. Motor mounts have separated and at least one guy had a big part of the motor (some aluminum stuff in front) get busted off by the dogbone.

Anyway
that is my goal and so I am trying to provide mounts on the fiero cradle where the 3.4 setup needs them.
Refer to pic one......
points 1, 2 and 3 are the stock 2.8 mount positions for whatever reason.
Points 4, 5 and 6 are the positions of the stock 3.4/284 mounts. Reverse of the 2.8, or at least not very close, are they?
In addition, the support at point #3 is as shown in the next pic:

The right one is the fiero/2.8 mount at that point. It is a thin support that sits on a VERY bouncy rubber mount (red box). It can't possibly provide much support to the heavier 3.4 altho guys are doing just that. In fact, they even cut it back a bit to make it fit. Standard procedure. On the left is the 3.4 engine mount that goes in the right rear corner. It attaches to the engine in the same 2 places as the fiero mount PLUS one more at the side, THEN has a stiffer mount under it. So as much as possible I am keeping that setup.

[fiero308]

oh yeah; that mount is then connected by a cross piece (that I will keep) to the mount on the other side, just for extra strength.

So in a nutshell; I put the cradle and the engine/trans unit on a very sturdy 'table' so that they are separate and I can move them independently. THen I shimmed and moved etc both till I got them where I wanted relative to each other.

I am using mounts from a '75 era dodge truck 318 V8; I didn't find them; other guys use them and they are VERY compact which I need. I can't afford much movement; I just want to soak up some vibration. First pic shows the heavy 1/4" thick angle bracket that is most of the new right front engine mount. I had to drill AND dimple it to accept the locating 'bump' on the new mount.

I had decided to cut out the chunk of the Lumina cradle that fit the trans mount and reuse it. Well, it is ok ..........NOW. It is so rusty that I ended up doing all sorts of reinforcement on it but it is done.  Next pic shows the trans mount in place and the right front engine mount done too. Both are welded solid.

Next to do is the trickier right rear then the motor is ready to bolt up!  I have to fit and tack everything in place then take it apart
Next is the cradle with mods:
1 is the new trans mount; all done.
2 is the new right front engine mount, all done.
3 is where I had to cut off a bracket from the original fiero engine mount; it interfered with the cross piece that will tie in the 2 dohc engine mounts;
4 is the next area of work; the last engine mount. I also took the opportunity to take the wire wheel to it to clean it up; I will be welding to it in place and don't want to have to try to clean things up then! Any movement would be disasterous....
5 shows one of the tie rod mounts for the toe in adjust. While I don't need these anymore I am not going to worry about them unless they are an obstruction to the new exh system. If so I"ll chop em off.

next shot

[fiero308]

little things......
I have gone thru about 3 boxes of rubber gloves. That is about 300 of course; on my 4th to 5th box.......... no end in sight............ but I recommend them to anyone!

THIS is why you use safety goggles and leather gloves and (I wear) a dust mask and everything you can.
That was a virtually new wheel; you can see a piece of it beside it.... that is how big it was when it let go. No harm; you ALSO have to use it so that you NEVER have the plane of the rotation in line with any of your body, or at least as little as possible.

I found almost 1/2 of the wheel over 1/2 way down the driveway last nite (the garage door was open) so it went a good 30 ft I guess.  Think about it..........

The other pic is the stock 3.4 engine mount bracket; I had to cut away a bit of it's 'vertical section' so I decided to replace it with a stiffener. Never ultimately take away strength if you can possibly help it.

[fiero308]

little update on my consumer protection issue..... (City Recyclers...)
talked to the 'boss'..... yesterday (Tues); he assured me he had a 'good' 94 engine.
That will work but there is SOME minor difference....... I will have to look into it.

Anyway he promised me an answer (on its condition) by the end of the wk or he'll refund my money. We'll see. I don't have much faith in anything I got from him now; the car was NOT a 'runner' like they said.
Oh well. I will pass along what happens.

Today I got around to working on the final engine mount; at position number 6 on the sketch above; it is the right REAR one and not easy to do since the mount is out 'in space'.......
But got it figured out, the pieces made and mostly welded in place.  I have to weld in a few gussets for my own peace of mind is all and that one is done. At that point I will be able to actually bolt the engine/trans to my cradle!!!!

Of note; I had to mount/remove/remount the engine on the cradle a few times during the fitting process and I am VERY pleased with how it lines up on the 2 mounts that are in place. As it should, yes, but no binding and it drops into place nicely. Good.

I have a lot of other commitments the next few days so I don't know if I will be able to get at it much but I am getting closer.........

thanks for looking; hope it is of interest or even some help to someone.
 
gp

[fiero308]

ok so FINally get the cradle done. All that had to be done was to finish the one mount and remove the bushings and prime it, but it took this long.

so first is the right FRONT mount (done before, yes) and next is the finally finished right REAR mount; a bit more complicated as the mount is simply farther from the frame but no big deal.

[fiero308]

and here is the trans mount.......

now all that is left is to remove the bushings. I am going to do a separate little thread; I did learn something on this so will pass it along.

For the record I used the same method as for the control arm bushings: lacquer thinner, flame and a POP.......

but a controlled POP.......

so the separate thread will take up a few pix I won't bother putting up here. Suffice to say that it seemed to help to jam a screwdriver in between the rubber material and the steel sleeve; I am presuming it helped the lacquer thinner get in there and do its job of 'flame promotion'........

and at the end of the day I have a complete cradle, motor mounts done, bushings removed; steel sleeves cleaned out and all primed with a heavy coat of brushed on primer.
It will have to do for now; I will worry about 'pretty' after it is running. And during winter. 

[fiero308]

well I ended up sitting here while Tylers party/meeting went on; rats!!!!! I was not happy but things didn't work out very well and I wasn't happy about it. Anyway.

while I wait for the primer to dry hard (not sure I will bother painting over top of it but prob...... (still lots to do as I am finding out!) .....

I decided to continiue getting ready for the engine to actually go into the car. Cleaning out the engine compartment a bit, but most of all starting to sort out the shifter issues.

Nobody I can actually get hold of has done the 284 trans thing. Everyone doing the Z34 swap has reused a fiero trans of some sort and thus avoided shifter linkage (and other) issues.  So I have to figure this stuff out and move along (pretty soon! )

I don't think I will go into all the detail here unless asked; this is (evidently) a fairly specialized item and so it will be of limited interest.  Not sure yet if I will post anything on PFF..... we'll see.

First pic is a top view; the Lumina that the engine/trans came from obviously was in front of the driver...... so the shifter cables came at the trans from what is now the trunk area and from the centre of the trunk, at that.

Next is an 'end view' from the trans end to give an idea of the linkage itself; there are two parts to any of these "at-the-transmission" shifter linkages and they all seem to work more or less the same. That is good; it should help a bit.

One lever raises and lowers a shaft up/down to 3 positions or levels, and the other lever moves in a horizontal plane at each of those 3 different levels.  What I have to do is figure out how to make the fiero 5 spd shifter match up with the specific linkage position combinations to be able to get each gear.........

[fiero308]

well first things first (HA; when did I ever do THAT properly!?!?)

I got a 5 spd shifter for a fiero Getrag trans from Dan; thanks, Dan! and swapped out the 4 spd that was in there.
Once I got the console plastic frame out of the way (handle CAREfully!!) it was about 2 minutes to swap them; the bolts and cables line up and change easily! Nice to have something work out!!  I also found over $5 down in the shifter tunnel area; fell thru the cracks I guess!!  So now I can retire early!!  About 4 hours early, I think........

By the way, in the confusion of the first pic is BOTH shifters; the stock 4 spd in place and the new 5 spd sitting loose on top of the stripped console.

The second is a 'sample' pic; one of about 60 that I took detailing the shift mechanism at the trans (I dont trust my memory for ANYthing!!!  ) and it happens to show the 5th gear arrangement.

You can see in the pic:
the upper cable/rod (white end) is pushing the raise/lower lever to its farthest; thus raising the shaft as much as possible for this gear combo. At the same time, the lower cable/rod (black end) is pulling the horizontal lever towards the back (trunk) as much as possible.
This is the unique combo that gives me 5th.  Now to play with the gear shifter and see what IT does for me..... etc etc etc for all the gears!!

Obviously I want to change the direction that the cables come at the shift linkage; they are coming out from the 'tunnel' between the seats now and have to connect to the same levers at the trans.   This is about a 135 degree turn from where they are now.

This happens to be a 'junk 284' trans (sort of..... ) that I am experimenting on and so it isn't the end of the world if something goes wrong. .....

[fiero308]

one more pic to give an idea of what I am talking about:
This is from the engine end, obviously; and this is probably Neutral position judging by the horizontal lever. The raise/lower lever is free to move up and down and lets you select any gear from here.  The horizontal lever doesn't engage ANY gear in the middle position; it has to be pushed or pulled at one of the 3 levels. Thus, 3 levels X 2 positions each level = 6 gears (incl reverse) and then 'in between' is neutral.

Then go into my Fred Flintstone mode; (get into the engine compartment for the 500th time) and have my trusty helper row thru the gear positions so I can check and log the cable end positions.

soooooo..... my trusty helper pretending to drive a car that is 3 ft off the floor.......

[fiero308]

so this is the cable end positions for 5th gear...... might as well stick with that one.
The white is the raise/lower and the left is ......gee....... the horizontal select.
Raise/lower is fully retracted and select is fully extended.

There is a very nice pattern emerging here.........  The combos of the cable end positions is matching the combos of lever positions, just not the levers themselves.

So I have to figure out how to connect the cables to the levers and adjust them, but I don't have to invent a new shifter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS is a BIG deal!!!
So that is my challenge. I have to turn the linkages ABOUT 135 degrees to line up and then make a 'cable end bracket' but that is do-able; I just need to figure it out and fab something up.

NICE; I am happy - this will work.

 

but it is sunday and I have to have some work done for monday AM so prob no more car time today. Oh well; I can think about it while ...waiting for the paint to dry......
literally.

[fiero308]

oh yeah; an little consumer update......
my friend (the boss...) at Peterboro's "CITY auto recyclers" didn't call back........

He said he would by friday. That would be a week ago LAST friday. He DID say that if he can't find anything that would work for me, then he would refund my money......hope he meant that because about the only thing I got for my trouble (and taking him at his word) was some hastily cut wiring harness and an ECM.  The trans appears to be dry and pretty much seized up..... the engine was a water pump and it is gone to a watery grave now (right, Brian? LOL)
so we will see if CITY lives up to their promise this time.

They promised me this was a 'runner'...... and that is why I am a bit PO'd.....

gp

[GoFast88]

the engine was a water pump and it is gone to a watery grave now (right, Brian? LOL)

She is in 10 feet of water (mud) in Big Rideau Lake.

[fiero308]

wel a little update on the inactivity....... after a very slow spring and most of the summer things got REALLY busy; and probably will be that way for a bit. But like most of the aspects of this work, it is 'hurry up and wait' at the moment.   My apologies for the lack of updates etc etc to this thread but there are a LOT of other things that ALL come "first", unfortunately.....
But I DID get out for a bit to remind myself of where I was at and DID come up with a solution I think to the shifter puzzle.

There was a guy I was talking to thru PFF who said there was anOTHER guy that HE was in touch with (you following this?) who HAD done/used the 284 in his swap. This other guy was asking something like $1500-ish ($US) for the INFO (alone; no parts!) to do the trans adapting..........

So I am going to do it myself. I checked out the 'other guys' background a bit and there is a LOT of negative feedback via another website for non-delivery and non-performance so the last thing I am going to do is get involved with him....
and it isn't a really difficult thing to do here anyway. Just a bit of fabbing and time.

Anyway.
Upon 're-looking' at my cable and shifter connections issue: I realized that I MIGHT be into a conflict with the cable 'entry angle' (to the trans shift connection point) and the exhaust manifolds/system.
So I installed the exh manifold and a cross over pipe and YEP, sure seems like there could be.  First pic shows the direction I WAS all set to go with before having this 'amazing revelation'......

The 2nd pic shows the approx angle that the cables would be going AT the trans, so that is too close for my comfort. Maybe the height would be different but I don't want the cables any closer than they already have to be.

Soooooooo...............

[fiero308]

the revised cable 'entry' angle to the shifter on the trans will be arranged like this.
I think the cable bending will not cause problems; I held the cables in the proposed position and had my helper 'row thru the gears' a bit and for what that was worth it didn't seem to have a lot of friction or bind.

So that is that. I have figured out the new shifter mechanism AT the trans.....
OF COURSE with the never ending attention of Mr. Murphy and his law(s)... the new shifter angle means that the bolt heads that hold the base plate of the shift mechanism to the trans are DIRECTly in the way of the 'up/down' lever.  (Pic 2)

I have to make a new base plate, new 'up/down' lever and modify the existing 'rotating' lever to adapt to this new angle.

Some little design considerations on that but nothing too difficult; need a few hours is the only difficult part there.

ONE thing (for everyone:)
FIERO shifters are UNIQUE. Don't throw them out, no matter WHAT they are (ie 4 or 5spd). From what I can tell, my (sort of typical) FWD trans is made for a conventional FWD shifter. Sort of like a cavalier, sunbird and a zillion others. The shift pattern of the shifter and the trans is standard and common.  The FIERO shifter is VERY different from any of those.........
And I would say it would be really hard to make one up and I would guess that they are (yes) discontinued like everything else. So while a lot of things COULD be mickey-moused together (various brackets and bits and pieces) there is a very FINITE number of these unique shifters around now and they are going to be a limiting factor in any future swaps.

Just an interim observation.......

Anyway.
I am involved (I think....) in a VERY large project (real, PAYing work).... which is a GOOD thing after the slow time this yr and so I will have to put in a lot of time at that which..... sigh.... means limited to no time on the car again. 

I AM at a point where I could put the engine on the cradle, LEAVE it in neutral, hook it up and try to run it but it would be VERY hard to do the shifter/cable work with the engine in the car. Much as that would be an incentive by itself. But the engine needs some gaskets and seals and I am actually going to fab up a custom intake manifold for it so it is not going to happen in the next couple of weeks....

Gary: you're still safe........    AND in the running.  (for SOME title  )
But getting the shifter sorted out is important of course and I am glad it is finalized at least in my head.

Other news:
Peterboro City Auto Recyclers has promised a refund but "they can't find the receipt......."  I guess I would be less unhappy if they had NOT claimed that engine 'was a RUNNER'...... when it obviously wasn't. 

My front wheels and brake parts remain at the machine shop; it is vacation time but that is over now so I am expecting to hear back before too too long and then I can bolt on the front wheels etc which would be good!! I am a bit concerned that after stripping all the stuff off the front of the car that when I install the new (slightly heavier) engine/trans that the REAR might cause the car to 'teeter' a bit on the supports.  (Still relying on gravity to hold it in place....)

That is it for now.  Next post should show the new mechanism for the cables to attach to the trans.
I am going to do my best to get in a BIT of time each wk to keep it moving.
thanks for reading and being patient and not putting up flames about being so @#(%*@&#% slow!!!!

[dguy]

Just curious--did a custom exhaust with a relocated or eliminated x-over ever enter the picture?