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Fiero(355)

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Donor (before)
Carcass (naked)
Rough Fit
Painted
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Future Projects

  Phase 1 Plan
  Phase 2 Exterior
  Phase 3 Interior
  Phase 4 Power


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Project Log:   Milestones are in bold


16-Oct-2004 - 1988 Pontiac Fiero GT purchased.

10-Feb-2005 - Deposit mailed to Air Dynamics for one 355 coup body panels. Today, the project starts.

17-Feb-2005 - Purchased complete light and emblem kits.

18-Feb-2005 - The lights and emblems arrived today. This project is starting to feel like it has started. I know that I spent a lot of money on getting all of the real lenses for the turn and rear lights, but they look really good. I also prefer the look of stock lights compared to the aftermarket ones.

04-Mar-2005 - Mailed out a check for the SI Interior.

21-Mar-2005 - The SI Interior kit arrived.

10-Jun-2005 - I flew out to visit the Air Dynamics shop with Ron and Chris this weekend. We went out to see how John builds the fiberglass. All three of us were amazed by Johns work. He is a professional and artist. His shop is truly quality over time. I have never seen fiberglass so clean out of the mold. Beside getting to know two great guys, I learned from the expert on how to assemble this kit.

26-Jun-2005 - Found Saturn pop-up head lights at Pick-N-Pull and purchased them.

27-Jun-2005 - Purchased the OEM fuel door and the front mount battery box.

05-Jul-2005 - Purchased Autoloc door popper kit from eBay

06-Jul-2005 - Front mount battery box arrived

07-Jul-2005 - Ordered #2 battery wire

10-Jul-2005 - I fell victim to a steering wheel on eBay today. I wasn't going to touch the interior until after the build, but a moment of weakness hit. I also pulled out the interior door panels. I plan on cleaning them up and selling them.

13-Jul-2005 - Lots of packages showed up today. The battery wire, door poppers and steering wheel arrived in three boxes.

15-Jul-2005 - Mailed away final payment to John for kit and pre-paid for the paint job.

26-Jul-2005 - Today I went to pick up a used engine. I did not want to get a rebuilt engine because I knew that someday soon, I would be upgrading. All that I want now is a running engine. Do to last minute planning, I had to rent a truck from Lowe's Hardware and go to a friends to pick up a running 1988 Fiero engine from a manual transmission car. When I arrived, the engine was from a 1987 automatic. I was heart broken. I am out of time now, so I bought the engine. Hopefully we can make it work. My only fear now is if we can get the car back before August 5th.

01-Aug-2005 - I read somewhere that stress is caused by actions or events out of one's control. I have to admit, things are out of my control, but I am not stressing yet. The first day of the build is August 6th and we are missing a couple of items needed for the build: Body Panels, Wheels and the car. The body panels were planned to be shipped out on July 29th, but due to the weather in GA and other events out of anyone's control, the new ship date is August 2nd. With a 4-5 day delivery, this means that this weekend (Aug 6-7) will be tear down only. I assume that it is going to take two days to deconstruct the cars, so we are not set back too much. My Fiero is supposed to be out of the shop and fully running by August 2nd. The guy working on the car had to go to a funeral and therefore, the car is not done. I am hoping that the car will be finished by August 5th. The wheels have been on back order since early July and are finally available. I ordered the wheels today with the hope of a Friday delivery. Sure, enough there was a problem with my delivery address with the credit card and the wheels will not be shipped until tomorrow.

02-Aug-2005 - Due to a misscommutation the body panels were not picked up today. Tomorrow will be the day, I am told. I am not worried because I really need the body panels for the Aug 13-14 weekend. I also finished fixing the issue with the wheels and was told that they would also ship tomorrow.

03-Aug-2005 - The body panels were not picked up today. The guy we hired to pick up the crate and deliver it to FedEX wanted to do it tomorrow for personal reasons. One day is not going to effect us.

04-Aug-2005 - No, the pick up did not happen today. When they went to load the crate it started to bow in the middle. I can imagine loading the crate on a flat bed tow truck and seeing the thing bend. I have full faith in John and his decision to stop and fix the create. Hopefully tomorrow the create will be reinforced and pick up. As for the car, we are in the same boat. The main mechanic is still away in Mexico for a funeral. I was told that it should be done on Saturday. Today realization came when I could not find the registration. I will have to contact the DMV to check the status.

05-Aug-2005 - I have no word if the crate was delivered to FedEX or not. No news must be good news right? I did hear back from my mechanic. The Fiero will not be ready till Monday. The fuel injectors or wire harness did not line up. They are going to have to pull the injectors from the blown engine. This action is going to take another day of work. Just for fun, I also went to check on my registration. More fun news. Since I stated the process of getting the car off of NonOp, the registration was in limbo waiting for a smog check. This limbo state meant that the registration laps with out the DMV mailing anything to me. I will have to go back and pay penalties. It's now Friday night before the start of the build and I have no car, body panels or wheels. Somehow I am still laughing and look forward to starting the project. Who ever said that building kit cars was easy did not build one.

09-Aug-2005 - The wheels arrived today and I am happy. I also took the rest of the week off of work and went shopping for the build. I pick up a cheep set of "baby turbo" side mirrors for $15 each. I want better side mirrors, but this will work until I can find some. I also pick up conectors for the battery wire and a battery cut off switch.

10-Aug-2005 - The word is in and the crate with the body panels was dropped off at FedEX today.

11-Aug-2005 - The Fiero is finally running...then the water pump exploded. They are working as hard as they can to get me the car today. The plan now is to head up to Chris's Friday morning. I went to the DMV and paid my late registration fine. Next I was off to the junk yard looking for plugs for the 3rd break light and the front turn signals. The turn signals take the generic Bosch/AMP plug and I found them everywhere. The bad news is I have no idea about the 3rd break light. I spend an hour in the sun looking for break plug before I gave up and went for tacos. mmmm tacos.

12-Aug-2005 - The Fiero was suppose to be done by 10am today. When I showed up at my mechanic, I saw somebody mopping up coolant from under my car. Not a good sign. The timing cover is bad and will have to be replaced. I am now waiting for them to finish around 5pm. My plan for the day was to pick up the car and drive to Chris's to work on the car today. At 6pm I got a call and the car will not be ready. They had a hard time finding a water pump gasket kit with out the water pump. The new plan is to have the car ready by 11am. I checked FedEX and the crate of body panels is in New Mexico with a delivery date of August 17th.

13-Aug-2005 - The plan for the day is to get the car running by 10am, pack up the Fiero and then head up to Sacramento. At 11am the car was ready to start. This time the fuel pump gave up the ghost and the ghost took the integrity of the water pump with it. Yep, the timing chain cover started leaking again. There is nothing like seeing green drips to destroy the day. I called Chris to let him know the news. He and Ron were able to strip down the his Fiero. With nothing else to do with the car, I went to the junk yard the half off weekend. I picked up headliners with out the sun roof cut out, one Saturn head light for Chris and the shift box and linkage for Ron. Too bad my car will be ten feet in the air locked in a garage and nothing for me to do.

14-Aug-2005 - With my car in the closed shop and the crate due on Tuesday, there was nothing going to happen on the car today. I am brushing off my frustration the best that I can. This was suppose to be the second weekend of the build and I still have no car or body panels. Usually, I would not worry about the slipping a build schedule, but I did take two weeks off of work to build the car. So far the only good is that I had time to work on the baby room. Then I got a phone call from Chris. He had been talking to the people who picked up the crate from John to deliver to FedEX. Apparently the crate does not have two full cars in it. NEWS TO US!!! On Tuesday we need to go though the crate and see what we are missing. We can start the build with missing parts, but cannot paint until both cars are built.

16-Aug-2005 - The crate arrived in Sacramento and I just got a call that my car is running. The only issue with my car is that the fan will not turn on. For the sake of time and money they hard wire the fan. I did not get the smog certificate. The car would not kick the idol down. I will drive the car around to get the old gas out and try the smog in September. Chris was able to get to FedEX and get the crate. FedEX shipping was great in every way. They could not have help us more. They loaded the crate (which they lovinly call a chicken coup from Gorgia) on to Chris's car trailer would out any scratches. Thank you FedEX.

17-Aug-2005 - The project has been tabled for the foreseeable future. The crate did not contain two complete cars. It only had most of the body panels. The manufacture promised to ship the remaining panels this week, then had a family emergency. We are not expecting the shipment for two weeks, which puts us into September. My lovely wife, who has been supportive in my project is due with our first child on September 11th and they will need my full attention. I do not see anytime for this project until late October at the earliest.

22-Aug-2005 - The Fiero runs again. After playing with it for a while I found out that the tach filter went bad. This leads to mysterious blue smoke coming out of the coil. I'm sorry, a lot of mysterious blue smoke and then brown liquid to drip from the coil. The car runs ok with the tach filter removed, but the tach does not work.

25-Aug-2005 - Chris scored on a good deal for tires. We ordered 225/40/18 for the front and 255/40/18 for the rear. I also made up my mind to start over with the engine. I ordered a long block and new fuel injectors.

28-Aug-2005 - I installed the front battery box. This consist of taking out the spare tire, cutting the plastic panel to fit the fiberglass battery box and bolting it down. I will not run the battery wires until the build.

04-Oct-2005 - The missing body panels were shipped last week and should start arrive next week some time. I will not schedule the start of the build until all of the parts arrive.

28-Oct-2005 - More packages of the body parts missing from the big shipment have arrived. I have have the rocker panels and the doors. The only things missing now are the rear deck lid, front bumper, bumper mounting bar and the bracket for the head lights. Hopefully (as I have been promised) they will all ship next week.

05-Nov-2005 - The Fiero runs again...except for the starter. I purchased a rebuilt starter and delivered it to my mechanic.

11-Nov-2005 I picked up the Fiero today. It runs great. Passing smog was not a issue. It ran super clean.

12-Nov-2005 (build day 1) Today the build begins. I drove the car to Chris's ranch for the build. The car ran beautiful for the two hour drive. We started to take off the body panels today.

13-Nov-2005 (build day 2) We finished deconstructing the Fiero. Not one Fiero body panel is left on the car.

18-Nov-2005 The window guy came the cut the windshield and rear windows out.

19-Nov-2005 (build day 3) We loosely mounted the rear clip, doors and quarter panels. The car in finally looking like something Italian. Now we had to take the trusty saws-all and cut the Fiero chassis to make the rear clip fit. I was amazed about how much of the B-Pillar we have to cut way. Lucky for me very little of the door had to be cut. I started to route the battery wire, when the sun went down. It will be easy to finish tomorrow.
- Loosely mount rear clip
- Cut B-Pillar
- Start to route battery wire

20-Nov-2005 (build day 4) I finished running the battery cables. Not my finest work, but it will do until I get time in the future to rerun the wires. One thing I can say, is using welding wire is key. The flexibility of the welding wire helps running and rerunning wire though the car. Next on the list was the fuel filler. This is one of those areas you do not think about until you start the build. I used the Fiero door and the bracket that goes around the fuel cap. I cut it to shape and used epoxy to glue it the rear quarter panel. I then slowly bent the steel fuel filler tube out to where the fuel door is going to be. I then installed the door poppers on both the driver and passenger sides. The Fiero is a easy car to install door poppers. This would be the first thing that would be easy to do. I did not have time to finish the wiring the poppers.
- Finished running battery cable
- Cut Fiero fuel filler housing
- Glued fuel filler housing to quarter panel
- Cut and bent fuel filler tube
- Installed door poppers
- Started to wire door poppers

27-Nov-2005 (build day 5) I was only able to work on the car for less than four hours, but I did get some work done.
- Finished wiring drivers door popper
- Wired Saturn pop up light pop up motor

03-Dec-2005 (build day 6) This was a big weekend. The weather did not help. It did not rain, but it was in the low 50s.
- Glued in rear clip
- Finished wiring passenger side door popper
- Cut front cross beam for headlights
- Measured for wheel spacers (1" in the front and 3" in the rear)

08-Dec-2005 I ordered the wheel spacers today. I went with 1" front and 3" in the rear.

10-Dec-2005 (build day 7) I wired the rear lights today. Not that difficult because I just copied Chris's car. The only thing weird is that the turn flashers are not happy. The parking, back up, brake and hazard lights all work perfectly. The left turn blinker cause both of the instrument green arrows to turn on and blink slowly. The right turn blinkers also lights up the green arrows, but blinks very slowly. I will have to get a different flasher.

27-Dec-2005 I ordered the Mr. Mikes leather seat covers today. I am not in any rush on delivery and would have waited longer before ordering them, but a $100 off coupon found me and I bit.

03-Jan-2006 The leather seats were made and put into the mail today. I also ordered the OEM rear quarter windows.

10-Jan-2006 The leather seats arrived. I have not finished opening up the box yet, but I did reach in and feel the leather. I can say these seats are going to be great to sit in.

17-Jan-2006 I am relieved that the quarter windows arrived unbroken today. Shipping glass though UPS usually is a really bad idea. I purchased the West Coast Fiero 12" Corvette brake upgrade. I was hoping to install the brakes this weekend, but it looks like the brakes will not arrive till next week.

22-Jan-2006 I could not tear up the nice seats out of my Fiero. I was lucky enough to find that Greg had a pair of ugly seats that he wanted to get rid of. Since I am just going to tear off the old cloth, I could care less about how dirty and torn up the seat cover are. Once I get the seat heaters, I will install the leather covers.

23-Jan-2006 I found an OEM Ferrari muffler on eBay today and got it. I also ordered seat heaters.

28-Jan-2006 (build day 8) I installed the rocker panels today. It is nice to see the fenders and rocker panels on the car. It is actually starting to look like something now. The bad news is that my rear caliper is bad.

29-Jan-2006 I started to install the MR. Mikes leather seats. For some reason it took me four hours to just do the bottom of one seat. I had to set things up at my house and then make two trips to the store to get missing parts. For instance, you will need a 50mm Torks bit to get the top part of the seat apart from the bottom.

30-Jan-2006 I left work early to get home to finish the seats. I am very happy with the way they came out.

02-Feb-2006 I found a rear challenge grill and bought it. The cost was way more than I had planned, but my wife pushed me to buy it. She is right, the grill does have a great look. I was also able to get out of the office long enough to goto Kragen and buy rear calipers and brake pads.

04-Feb-2006 (build day 9) The goal for today was to install the 12" Corvette brakes, paint the calipers, install the spacer and install the 18" wheels. Do to a lack of sockets and three trips to the store I was only able to get the rears done. I do like the look of the red calipers. The bad news was the rocker panels hit the tire at full extension of the suspension. The only thing worst than the tires rubbing, was the challenge grill was bent. I was very disappointed to spend way too much money for a grill and to have in damage. I will have to contact the store tomorrow.

09-Feb-2006 The OEM Ferrari wheel caps arrived today. Not a big deal, but I do like real Ferrari parts arriving at my office.

14-Feb-2006 John was able to ship the rear bumper via Greyhound, the rear deck lid via FedEX 3-day air and the mounting brackets via FedEX 4-5day truck today. The good news is that the rear bumper and deck lid should arrive on or before Friday. The only parts I really need for the weekend is the mounting brackets and they might not arrive till Monday.

16-Feb-2006 Ron really came though today. He was able to drive over and pick up a new challenge grill and the MR2 rear windows. Thanks again Ron. FedEX also delivered me a surprise by showing up with the rear deck lid. It might sound funny, but I love having Ferrari parts in my cubicle at my office.

18-Feb-2006 I dropped by Pick-N-Pull and got some tailgate hinges for an Eclipse. The best part is they were only $3.

19-Feb-2006 (build day 10) I installed the front 12" brakes, painted the calipers, installed the 1" spacer and the front wheels today. Things took a little longer because it was in the high 40s. Burr.

20-Feb-2006 I picked up the rear bumper from Greyhound. One corner was a little damaged, but not enough to concern me.

21-Feb-2006 FedEX found the lost shipment of the front bracket and headlight spacers.

24-Feb-2006 (build day 11) This was going to be one of those big get a lot done days. It turned into more of looking at the car hoping that something would happen. I ended up placing the body parts on the car and taking pictures. Not really productive, but fulfilling. It is actually starting to look like a car now. Near the end of the day, I was able to cut the rear clip for the tabs of the MR2 window.

25-Feb-2006 (build day 12) This day started out with Noel and me looking at the car waiting for it to build it's self. Then stuff started to happen. We started with mounting the front bumper bar. Ok, it was four bolts and done, but it was progress. Next, we worked on alining the door panels. Lucky, Noel was there to help out. The doors now open and shut with out hitting the fender or running board.

26-Mar-2006 (build day 13) The sight of the gold lug nuts got to me and I went out and purchased and installed nice silver ones. The question of the day came from Robin when she asked if changing the lug nuts is like changing finger nail polish. I had nothing to say but yes it is like finger nail polish. The next four hours was burned trying to get the body panels to align up.

07-Apr-2006 (build day 14) I test fit the lower fender brackets. The passenger side looks good. All that is needed on the passenger side is a little more dremel action to the fender lip. The drives side does not look so good. The door opens into the bracket and still hits the fender. I had to do a lot of dremeling to the fender and the lower fender lip to get the door to open. The bracket for the driver side will have to be rebuilt.

08-Apr-2006 (build day 15) I was able to finish the lower fender bracket and the aligning of the passenger side door and fender today. The total time on the passenger was about 40 minutes. The rest of the six hours was on the drivers side. The drivers side fender does not align to the curve of the door. The lower fender bracket must hold the lower fender in place and push up on the fender about 1/8 of an inch to bow out the fender. The bracket must also go toward the front of the car to not have the door hit it when opened. Ron and I ended up building three brackets before getting it right. The bracket goes forward about 10 degrees. Next we installed a piece of metal front the top of the car down to the bracket. The piece of metal had a bolt hole 1/2" above the bracket with a nut and bolt to the bracket. This way when you tighten the nut, the bracket is pulled up.

09-Apr-2006 (build day 16) I finishing installing the drivers side lower fender bracket and aligned the drivers side door. I still cannot believe that the passenger side took 40mins and the drivers side took the other 20+ hours of the three day weekend. The good news is that the doors are aligned to 1/4" of the rear clip and fenders. I was hoping to start fiberglassing in the rear light panel, but ran out of time and clear sky. Ron and I were able to drill the mount holes for the outer rear lights and that was it.

06-May-2006 (build day 17) Lucky for me my Dad flew into town to help with the build. The main focus today was on the front end. We started by on installing the lower half of the hood. We played with the Fiero hood hinges until everything aligned up. Next we installed the hood latch. Thanks to the Watson kit, the hood shut and latched on the first try. We then placed the top part of the hood to the lower part and drew on the lower panel of the overlap. Once the overlap was grinded away, the hood looked great. To keep the hood aligned, we used some sheet metal screws. We then tackled the mounting the front bumper. We were able to get the front bumper tack kittyhaired to the fender brackets. Tomorrow we will ask Chris to help with the fiberglassing the bumper to the fender brackets. Next we worked on getting the rear inner panel to align to the rear clip and Challenge grill. I was amazed on how much of the rear panel had to be trimmed away to get the light to sit in the proper location.

07-May-2006 (build day 18) Chris applied three layers of fiberglass to the front bumper and fender brackets. While he was working on my car, I was working on the door alignment of his car. When Ron showed up, we all tackled my hood. Chris started by laying a bead of liquid nails to the middle of the lower hood. Not so much for strength, but to keep the hood pieces from rattling. Chris then mixed a hugh amount of kittyhair and we all had to rush to mixed and spread it around the top part of the hood. With only three minutes to mix, spread and apply the kittyhair, we all had to move very quick. Once the kittyhair was spread out, we jump up and placed the top hood on the car and inserted the alignment screws. Ten seconds later, we were placing weights on the hood and clamps around the edges. Ron was thinking quick and grabbed some jumper cables for a spot that we missed. The last action was to keep working on the rear end. We tried aligning the rear panel and found that the wholes drilled for the outer tail lights were not correct. Tired and exhausted from the busy day and heat, we packed up the cars and went home. I was very happy with the weekends progress. Hopefully Memorial day weekend, we can finish installing the body panels.

27-May-2006 (build day 19) The first thing we did today was to take the car out of the garage and remove all of the weights off of the hood. For the most part, the hood looks good. Apparently, placing 60lb bags of cement in the center of the hood was not the best of ideas. The is a noticeable We attached the rear end today. After aligning the inner panel to the rear clip, Chris spot fiberglassed it in. The back of the car is now on piece.

28-May-2006 (build day 20) The first action today was to drill out the inner tail light holes. Next was to align the outer tail lights to the challenge grill once again. This is about where we noticed that I sucked at aligning the inner tail panel. It was visibly off. The passenger side was over and inch forward and the drivers side did not line up with the grill. The passenger side looks good, but the lights are a little forward. Where the drives side lights look good, but there is a 1/8" gap between the grill and the side of the car. After some less than choice words, I put the lights on and installed the challenge grill. I then called over my wife and asked her what she noticed about my rear end. She opened by saying that I have not been working out. I then asked how the back of the car looks and what she noticed. Although she did not notice the lights, she did point out the gap on the drivers side. We all agreed that cutting out the inner panel would be a lot of work and once painted, the gap might not be noticeable.

29-May-2006 (build day 21) We started the day a little hung over from the night before. Thanks Ron and Robin for "forcing" me to drink. :) The other issue we had to deal with was my eight month old daughter. How do you tell a happy infant to hush because mom and dad hurt themselves the night before? As for the car, I built the brackets for mounting the deck hinges.

03-Jun-2006 (build day 22) This was our first hot day working on the cars. Not only did we get stuff done, it was 92 degrees with no wind. Lucky for us, my wife purchased a cheap tent for us to work under. The first action was to align the 3/4" square tube metal bar to the deck lid. Once that was done, we JB Welded the it to the deck lid. For fun, Chris and I drilled sheet metal screws from the deck lid bar to the hinges and test fit. Everything worked and the deck lid opened perfectly. I then finished drilling the challenge grill for the side bolts. I was then in such a great drill mood, that I attacked Chris's challenge grill and drilled out all of the bolts, then aligned it to his car.

04-Jun-2006 (build day 23) Today was hotter (94 degrees), but a cooling breeze helped. For some reason, I have been dreading installing the head lights. I built two brackets and the drive side light was in. The passenger side light took more effort, since I cut away too much of the car. Ron had to come in and save me with one of his super brackets. He then built brackets for the rear bumper. Thanks again Ron. The big thing for me today, was to get the car out of the garage and take the rough fit pictures. It was nice to see the car out of the garage.

I need to say something about the horse. I have nothing against horses in general or even the horse that is sharing his stable for these car builds. What is getting old is the humor the horse has. For some reason, he like to "dump" next to the fence where I am working on my car. I usually hear it first, then he laughs and runs away. I use to wonder why he went away, then my sense of smell kicks in. The funny thing, this not the only animal helping with the build. There are two goats, that if they get out, love to run for the garage. There is a big dog that wonders down the street to "help" us. There is nothing like working on a car to look up to a big lab that wants some loving. Oh, and the social chicken. After all, how can you build a car with out a chicken following you around? And, last the ten thousand spiders. I am not a big fan or spiders or the hide and seek game that we play with each other.

10-Jun-2006 When building a kit car, you sometimes need to stop working on the car and go hang out for others with the same desire as you. This weekend we packed up the family and flew out to Georgia for the gathering of AD 355 builders. Like last year, we had no one show up with their car, but we did meet some new faces and exchanged some really good information. Last year, I asked questions almost the whole time. This year, I was able to help answer and direct people. We had a great time and will hopefully make it back to Georgia next year.

17-Jun-2006 (build day 24) Lucky for me my Dad flew into town for Fathers day and we headed out to keep the build going. Today's big task was the deck lid. After aligning the deck lid we fiberglassed the hinge plate to the car. The bad news is that the deck lid only opens 45 degrees. It does not fully open, but I do not think that this is going to be an issue. Next, my dad worked on more brackets for the back end of the car, and I tackled the head lights. The head lights do not open, but the light switch does shot them. I will need to work on aligning the head light for a long time. This is not going to be fun.

03-Jul-2006 (build day 25) I worked on the head lights today. The first thing was to raise the pop up units. In order to do this, I had to take off the fenders and cut the Fiero chassis back about 2". When I had the fenders off, I found the two ground wires not attached. Once I bolted the ground wires down, the head lights when up and down again. I still need to attach the head light covers, but I did not have any bondo. The bad news for the day was realigning the fenders. I spent a couple of hours, but could not get the fenders to align to the hood or the door panels.

04-Jul-2006 (build day 26) Today started out slow. Sofia did not have a good night and all three of us did not get any sleep. The original plan was to start working on the car by 9am. We did not get to the stable till noon. To top it off, we were all sleep deprived from the hard week before and last night. Somehow, we got focused and got some good work done. Chris worked on filling in the deck lid hinge and he did a fantastic job. I spend the first part of the day building deck lid brackets aligning his deck lid plate. I then built the running board brackets. I found some 1/2" aluminum pipe laying around. I smashed both ends and drilled holes for the bolts. This bracket had to be very stiff because it was over a foot long. The flat stock flexes too much for this distance.

08-Jul-2006 (build day 27) Chris worked on the deck lid hinge plate to the rear clip area today. He filled in the gaps and made it look like one piece. I then had to grind away the hinge plate on the passenger side. The passenger side still rubs if the deck lid goes above 45degrees. Then by noon the temperature broke 100 and we called it a day and went to Reno for a late lunch.

09-Jul-2006 (build day 28) I spent the morning getting Chris's car ready for fiberglassing in the hinge plate. He finished filling and sanding the hinge plate area. He was also able to lay a coat of primer on it. I have this bad habit of scaring spiders and today was not different. When I arrived this morning, a spider had a 6 foot web from the car roof to the ceiling. This in it's self is not bad, it was the size of the black window that made me jump. There is something about being six inches away from a large black window that I just do not like. Behind glass, I think that black windows are beautiful animal, but within striking distance...

10-Jul-2006 (build day 29) We only had a couple of hours to work on the car before it got hot. I worked on the rear bumper brackets. The goal was to get the brackets cut and ready for fiberglassing next work weekend.

12-Jul-2006 I ordered the linear actuator for the deck lid today from Figelli Automation. The linear actuator is going to raise and lower the rear deck lid via the internal switch or the truck button from the key fob.

13-Jul-2006 I went to Pick-N-Pull for head liners and a switch from a Mazda 626. We are going to need more than one head liner per car and the junk yard had two in almost perfect condition. I found the the head light, switch on a Mazda looks OEM. I picked one up to see if it will work.

16-Jul-2006 (build day 30) Drilled and installed rear bumper brackets. Now all four rear bumper bolts have brackets to the car. Then by noon it was over 100 and we were done for the day.

17-Jul-2006 (build day 31) Today's focus was on getting the rocker boards finished up. The drivers side stuck out over half and inch and the passenger side sat to low. Now the rocker board sit sticking out a 1/4 inch and each bolt has a bracket to the car. Then by noon it was 115 and we could not work any more. The linear actuators arrived in the mail today.

18-Jul-2006 (build day 32) Exhausted by the tempature and the lack of sleep, this morning was not the most productive. We were able to install the bumper support and that was it. Oh, and by noon it was 103.

21-Jul-2006 The header panels arrived today. The header panel are the parts that go on the hood to cover the vents next to the windshield. This means that all of the parts we have paid for have been shipped and have arrived at the ranch.

25-Jul-2006 I finally broke down and purchased APC 4" (505007C) clear fog lights today.

29-Jul-2006 (build day 33) Finally a good work day. We were able to put in a full days work on the cars. Twelve hours of focused progress. We got the swooshes installed on both sides. I built and installed the final brackets. I got the front end bracketed. Now the car feels a lot more solid. The next project was to install the leaner actuator for the deck lid. We built the top bracket that will be attached to the deck lid and the lower bracket that spans cut out trunk floor. The deck lid bracket will need to be finished because we used zip tires just to see if it would work. It takes 12 seconds to raise the deck lid. Not the fastest, but it is not so slow either. Chris was able to kitty hair the bolts to the front hood panel. Now the front end is ready to be assembled.

30-Jul-2006 (build day 34) The burn out day. Sofia just could not get to sleep last night. We spent most of the night trying to get the most happy and giggly baby to go to sleep. The car working was little. We were able to get the metal bars and the wire mesh needed for finishing the deck lid. I was able to run the wire from the linear actuator to the stock Fiero battery box. Next I will need to finish the circuit for controlling the up and down of the deck lid.

31-Jul-2006 The APC fog lights arrived today. They are clear glass and look great.

05-Aug-2006 (build day 35) Chris filled in the deck lid to rear clip today. He did a great job. The gap is now better than OEM. In exchange, I wired the front end of his car. By the end of the day, his car had functional turn signals, parting lights and head lights.

06-Aug-2006 (build day 36) Today I focused on the lights on the front of the car. I really wanted to finish the front bumper, but ran out of time to finish running the wires for the fog lights. Even though I was tired, I still got a lot done.
- Wired headlights
- Wired turn signal and parking lights
- Installed turn signal lense to front bumper
- Drilled out holes for side marker lights
- Installed mounting brackets for fog lights

09-Aug-2006 Work sucked today, so went to the Summit Racing web page and ordered under hood insulation.

11-Aug-2006 The under hood insulation arrived today. This stuff is going to work perfectly for the area between the engine and the rear deck area.

12-Aug-2006 (build day 37) Even though I was thinking about finishing the back end of the car before starting on the front end, I spent today working the front bumper to get ready for the head light covers.
- Wired in fog lights
- Installed fog lights
- Painted head light extender plate
- Cut out and installed header panel
- Installed front bumper
- Installed gas filler tube (I now can add gas to the car)

13-Aug-2006 (build day 38) Chris used his kitty hair and bondo skills to attach the head light doors. This is where having two people really helps, because I spent the day installing brackets on his car. The sad news is that I smoked the Dremel. I was happily grinding away when the Dremel stopped, followed by mass amount of smoke billowing out of the vents. I looked like a Ghostbuster holding the trap.
- Installed head light doors (Thanks Chris)
- Installed jack nuts for license plate bolts
- Finished gluing down deck lid mesh (I will have to go over some spots again later)

19-Aug-2006 One thing I have learned from the project is that you have to take a day off and go have a good time. We packed up the trusty Outback and went to the Historic Races at Laguna Seca. This was my and my wife's first time at a race track and we loved it. There were cars here that you only read about. The challenge for the day was to find classic cars that have driven in Le Mans. After a while we got board of this challenge because it was too easy. I would like thank Harlen for pushing us to go.

The side mirrors arrived today. I was really getting worried about what to do about the side mirrors, then Ron can though with some reproduction units. Thanks again Ron.

20-Aug-2006 (build day 39) Since I did not wear sun block yesterday, I had a nasty sun burn on my face and arms. Furthermore, last week was really hard on me with work and life and I had not had a full nights sleep in a long time. Just showing up to work in the car was a true test of my dedication to the build. I could not say that Chris is doing much better than me, but some how we still got some work done on the cars.
- Finished hood gaps (Thanks again Chris)
- Drivers side door popper
- Started on side mirrors
I really like the door popper button. We installed the button in the top of the door scoop. It is a natural motor to reach into the door scoop and push up on the door popper button to open the drivers door. This was one of those projects that works perfectly the first time.

26-Aug-2006 (build day 40) There is something about installing electrical wire that takes more time than it should. I was able to install the circuit for the linear actuator. This included the down push bottom in the trunk. I was not able to install the interior up down switch or hook up alarm trigger to open the trunk.
- Install linear actuator circuit
- Installed down button in trunk
- Filled in gaps between hood pieces

27-Aug-2006 (build day 41) I thought that I was done building brackets. Then Chris did the old fiberglass push test. You go around the car looking for any edge that you can push and see movement. Sure enough, the front bumper had a couple of areas. We built brackets from the rear of the front bumper (next to the front wheel) to the car and from the middle lower edge to the car. The front bumper is now very solid. There are 14 brackets on the front of the car.
- Build/install rocker panel brackets
- Build/install brackets between front bumper bottom to car
- Build/install bracket from lower fender to car

One of the traditions we have is to have something go wrong the weekend before the NCKCC kit car show on Sept 9th. On Monday, the lawn mower tried to eat my thumb. Lucky for me, I still have a left thumb, it is not broken and they could fix the gash with super glue. I prefer the glue over stitches. I am waiting to see what else comes up.

02-Sep-2006 (build day 42) Today started when we drove by the electric company trucks on the road to the ranch. I did not think anything of it up I could not get the garage door to open. Then it dawned on me... Yes the power was out. I then worked on applying the glue to Chris's deck lid. With out power, there is not much we can do. This is about the time when Chris showed up with a 95 purple LT4 Corvette. Poor Chris, Carolina and I needed to get the one liners out before we could even say high. Lucky for him, it was not his. We did not have power till 3pm.
- Measure and cut MDF interior deck area

03-Sep-2006 (build day 43) Today I was grumpy. Not at anyone or anything. Just grumpy for the sake of being grumpy. My dad had half a day to help out and he worked on removing the first attempt of applying the deck lid screen. On a positive note, I was able to finish applying the deck lid screen to Chris's car. The plan is to finish my deck lid screen tomorrow.
- Painted rear bumper brackets
- Installed vertical alignment to passenger side fender bracket
- Worked on gas door
- Removed deck lid screen and reapplied
- Installed split tube looming on all rear linear actuator wires

04-Sep-2006 (build day 44) After two day of working on the cars, I was in no rush to start this Monday. So, we went to IHOP and filled up on a big breakfast. The rest of the day went pretty smooth. - Drilled out side marker lights to sit flush with car
- Wired in side marker light
- Install gas door
- Finished gluing deck lid screen
- Glue in rear window

06-Sep-2006 I found another muffler. The first muffle I bought off of eBay did not arrive. Thanks again Bob for selling me your muffler.

01-Oct-2006 (build day 45) Chris finished my deck lid today. He ground down the sloppy liquid nails adhesive used to glue down the screen. I could not believe how messy this was. He next installed the linear actuator mount bar with JB Weld. After it dried, he welded in the support bars. Once the support bars were in, he place one sheet of fiberglass over the linear actuator bar. This thing is going no where. The final result was impressive. The only thing left is to apply the paint. For all of this work he did, I built four more brackets for his car.

02-Oct-2006 (build day 46) I was able to build four brackets and removed the carpet today. I first built the A/C radiator brackets, then I built and installed two more brackets for the head lights. Now the headlights do no move at all. The OEM muffler and some bonus interior parts arrived also.

07-Oct-2006 (build day 47) The plan for today was to arrive early, load up the car and drive it over to the muffler shop to have them installing the muffler. So....we did not arrive too early. The good news is that Chris bought a used toe truck. It is a lot easier to put the car on a toe truck and loading it on a trailer. Once we get the car out of the garage and up on the truck, Chris points out that we do not have the muffler. After a couple of calls to the muffler shop with out anyone answering, we come to the conclusion that they are not open and the lack of the muffler was never an issue. Since the front of the car was in the air, I took the opportunity to work under the car. I went and checked all of the bolts on the brackets to make sure that each nut has lock-tight on it. I also found out that the finished deck lid weighs 38lbs.

08-Oct-2006 I fell victim to a stomach flu today. There was no way for me to work on the car when the only energy I had was used to get my poor body from the bed to the bathroom and back. Some how all that I could think of is how I was wasting a good sunny day and that I let Chris down. I was planning on finishing the electrical for the linear actuator on his car today. I really do not like being sick, but who does?

13-Oct-2006 (build day 48) I took the day off of work to relax and work on the car a little. I tried to finish the circuit for the linear actuator for Chris's car. After two attempts, I gave up and installed rubber bumpers for the deck lid. My deck lid now sits flush with the rear clip. I did find out that the linear actuator sit 1/4" too low. I am going to need to raise

14-Oct-2006 (build day 49) The plan was to arrive at the ranch at 9am, load up the car and toe it to the muffler shop. My precious year old daughter woke up at midnight screaming. It turns out that there was nothing wrong, but she was awake. We tried everything to get her back to sleep. She finally gave in to the sleep eyes at 5am. It felt like as soon as I closed my eyes, the alarm went off. Even though I had been very excited about getting the muffler installed, it was hard to roll my body out of bed. Somehow we arrived at the ranch on time.
- Had the muffler installed
- Welded A/C brackets
- Fixed rear bumper bolts
- Built lower rear bumper bracket
- Finished installing deck lid.

25-Oct-2006 I purchased the third brake light gill from Ferrari of Silicon Valley today.

27-Oct-2006 The third brake light grill arrived today and I dropped by the dealership and picked it up.

28-Oct-2006 (build day 50) I started the day (around 11am) by working on the third brake light grill. As it turns out, it was easy to install but again it took longer than it should have. Next I wired in the third brake light. Now here comes the fun part. My new battery is dead. So, I have no way of testing the third brake light. The next thing that bothered me was the rear bumper alignment to the Challenge grill. There should be around a quarter inch gap. I have a little less than half an inch. I will have to work to get this gap smaller. With that I leveled the deck lid. From what I have seen and done today, I can say that the rear end of the car is built and aligned.
- Installed third brake light grill
- Wired third brake light
- Leveled deck lid

29-Oct-2006 (build day 51) One of the things that really bugged me has been the hood alignment. The gap between the header panel and the front bumper is over half and inch. When you look at the front of the car you can see the hugh gap between the header panel and the bumper. It should be around a quarter inch. The gap between the hood and the header panel is also over half an inch. When you look down at the front of the hood, the gap is large. The first thing I did was to adjust the brackets to raise the bumper a quarter inch. That was easy. Next was to move the hood forward. I started with moving the headlights forward. To do this, I had to rebuild some brackets and adjust others. Now both headlights are installed the same way with the same shape brackets. The drivers side took about 3o minutes to adjust and the passenger side took two hours. I swore, I could hear the horse laugh at me. I could not move the hood forward on the hinge. This was going to be a task for power tools. I used my trusty Dremel to grind larger holes in the hood hinge. The end result is almost a quarter inch gap between the header panel and the hood. The hood also aligns to the fenders and the little area near the top. I also found time to build the rear bumper brackets from Chris's car.

04-Nov-2006 (build day 52) I brought the battery charger with me today. With power, I was able to test the third brake light and it works. I then looked at the inner tail panel and noticed that I could wiggle it. I keep thinking that the rear end of the car is done and it is not. I then build four nice brackets for the inner tail panel. Happy with my work, I lowered the deck lid to notice that the two outer brackets interfere with the deck lid shutting. This lead me to designed non interfering brackets. Next, I worked on the gas filler tube. Installing the 1/2" hose took me over an hour and lead to two major gashes on my hand. It turns out that there are two exposed screws behind the gas door and "touch" my hands when installing the tube clamps.
- Checked third brake light (it works)
- Mounted Linear Actuator
- Installed 6 bolts into rear clip at the door area
- Built 4 brackets from inner tail panel to Fiero
- Installed 1/2" hose for fuel filler

06-Nov-2006 The antenna arrived today. I plan on installing it next weekend.

11-Nov-2006 The time at the ranch has come to an end. I spent today packing up all of the parts and tools to move them to Ron's house.

With great regret and great sadness, I must announce that the social chicken has passed away.

14-Nov-2006 The Fiero came with gray seat belts. After some research, I came to the conclusiong that I did not want to dye 20 year seat belts black. So, I order black seat belts today.

17-Nov-2006 One year anniversary of car assembly.

18-Nov-2006 The Fiero was planed to be moved before this weekend. Due to many circumstances the move did not happen. The good news is that the car was moved from the Ranch to Ron's house. We did not get the car to Ron's house till after 3pm. With this, very little got done. I was able to redesign the battery tie down. Hopefully tomorrow a lot gets done.

19-Nov-2006 (build day 53) The plan for today is to finish aligning the front end. To do this, I need to raise the hood, align the head lights. First, we unbolted the hood. What we noticed now is that the drives side headlight coved the hood hinge a little bit. I went to cut off the headlight overhang, when blue smoked started pouring out of the Dremel. This is the third Dremel I have destroyed for the people counting at home. I am almost embarrassed to show up at Sears to process the extended warranty. The truly bad news is that I needed to Dremel to finish the front end. With out the Dremel, I had to look for other parts of the car to work on. One thing that has bothered me for a while is the ground connection. I drilled a 1/4" hole into the stock battery box and bolted the wire from the battery in the front to the stock ground connection. Ron and his daughter sanded the fuel door to sit flush.
- leveled fuel door
- smoked Dremel (third Dremel)
- linear actuator does not work anymore
- ground bolt
- one more bolt for rear clip

09-Dec-2006 (build day 54) Winter is finally upon us. Today was 60 degrees with rain and wind. We here in California consider this cold and horrible. To make life nicer, we hung a large tarp in front of the garage door to block the wind and rain. Today was the third work day that my wife and daughter did not join me. Lucky for me my father was able to help out. The first thing we did was to work on installing the seat belts. We decided to use the lower seat belt attachment for both sides of the lap portion of the seat belt. The real question came down to the upper anchor. The seat belts came with a mounting plate that fit perfectly on the B-Piller. The mounting plate for the seat belt had four holes around the plate and one big hole in the middle for the seat belt bolt. We drilled out the four holes and installed a reinforcement angle iron. Now the seat belts are ready to be installed once the car is painted.
- Installed shoulder seat belt anchor (seat belts are ready to be installed now)
- Drilled out and reinforced hood hinge to raise hood
- Built battery box ledge

10-Dec-2006 (build day 55) The last car work day of the year started out cold and raining. Since it is the holidays, we had to finish by 2pm. This did not leave a lot of time to do everything on the list. We started with fixing the hood panels that I broke. All we did here was to glue them back together. Being in a good mood, I grabbed the two cans of foam spray and filled in the gap between the Fiero roof and the rear clip. The roof sounds a lot more solid to the thump of my hand now. Next we moved to filling in the A-Pillars with kitty hair. I tried to squish the kitty hair in with my fingers and failed miserably. This is when my dad had an idea from watching the Food Channel and building a squeeze paper like icing a cake. We had a blue trap laying around and cut 2' squares. Then we mixed half a can of kitty hair on the tarp. Once mixed, we rolled the tarp into a cone and cut off the end. I twisted the back of the cone to get the kitty hair to flow out of the tip. This turned a four hour job into 45mins. Thank you Food Channel.
- Packed kitty hair A-piller to around windshield
- Liquid Nails hood pieces back together
- Foamed in roof between the Fiero metal and the kit fiberglass piece s

15-Dec-2006 The interior B-Pillar parts arrived today. They are going to make the interior look really good. I do see some work to fit them though.

28-Dec-2006 With the money I got from Christmas, I ordered the front and rear speakers today.

Jan-2007 The speakers arrived.

13-Jan-2007 (build day 56) Today was the first work day of the year. The good news is that it was not raining. The bad news is that it was cold...very cold. The high for today was 41. There was ice on the drive way in the morning.
- Took measurements
- Worked on aligning the driver side fender(much better now)
- Installed battery box supports
- Installed hood(again)

14-Jan-2007 (build day 57) Todays high was 47 and felt warmer. I really wanted to finish the front end and get the car off of the jack stands today. I started with trying to align the hood to the fenders. I noticed the the passenger side of the hood was sitting a little low and I could not adjust the hinges anymore. I was using the dremel to notch the hinges, when the dremel started to smoke and then it made that one last pop with a puff of smoke. Luckily, I was able to finish the part before it blew up. I then worked on building new brackets for the drivers side headlight. Next I started on the alignment of the header bar. This is when I noticed that the hood bowes up, the header bar is flat and the front bumper sags. No wonder why the alignment is going so bad. The gap between the header bar and front bumper is to large again. I noticed that the fenders have some mold lines and that this mold line where pushing the front bumper down. I sanded the fenders to be flat. I ran out of day light to put the front bumper back on. - Worked on hood
- Aligned drive side headlight door
- Smoked an other dremel
- Sanded fenders to raise front bumper

I will be building a 10 foot car
I have finally came to the realization that this is going to be a 10 foot car. This means that the car is going to look good from 10 feet way. When I first started this project, I was thinking that I would spend the time to make it perfect. Now I understand how much work that is going to be and that I am going to drive the car regularly, it is not worth the time. I placed a line in the driveway ten feet from my car. When people walk by and point out imperfections, I ask them to stand and the line and then look again. If they cannot tell, then what ever they pointed out, does not get fixed.

03-Feb-2007 (build day 58) We are back to great California weather.

- Routed battery wires around battery box (cleaned it up)
- Installed kill switch
- Added more supports for the battery wire from battery box to engine
- Built new brackets from drivers side head light
- Installed logos on calipers

04-Feb-2007 (build day 59)

- Built front bumper support bar
- Built new brackets from passenger side head light
- Started on headerbar
- Started on interior pieces
- Fixed broken jack nut on front bumper

06-Feb-2007 Today, I went shopping.

- Interior window switches for the doors
- 6 way blade fuse box
- Braided steel ground strap
- LED 194 bulbs for interior foot well sockets
- LED lights for under the doors and to light the trunk area

17-Feb-2007 (build day 60) The weather was great today and I jumped in to get as much done as possible.

- Front wheels are on the floor again
- Fixed hood bolt (that I broke)
- Changed foot well lights to LEDs
- Welded / Painted / Installed front bumper support bar
- Drilled front bumper support bar for header bar alignment
- Ground header bar pedestals for proper alignment
- Aligned doors to rear clip and fenders
- I took the car out for a joy ride

Words about joy ride here.

18-Feb-2007 (build day 61)
- Search and rescue of all nuts and bolts that fell from the car during joy ride
- Installed fuse box to positive side of the battery
- Installed distribution box to negative side of the battery
- Installed pin trigger for alarm and truck light
- Installed trunk light
- Rewired fog lights with a quick disconnect

19-Feb-2007 (build day 62)
- Ran power window wires though doors
- Ran wires for down facing lights in the doors
- Ran wires for front speakers from the doors to where the amplifier will be
- Started adding kitty hair to the header bar

23-Feb-2007 More shopping today. I really liked the look of the LEDs, so I bought some more. I also purchased the 1" drop ball joint from Rodney Dickman. The car will need to be lower 2", so I will still have to get 1" lower springs in the future. I just did not want to get 2" lower springs because that would kill the geometry and shocks.

24-Feb-2007 (build day 63) Today was to cold for fiberglassing. I really need to fiberglass today, but instead looked for things I could do in the cold.
- Bolted in trunk light
- Installed alarm horn
- Fixed jack nut in front bumper. I have got to stop breaking these.
- Build firewall out of sheet metal and reflective under hood foam insulation
- Cut out deck lid vent
- Built B-Pillar shields out of sheet metal
- Installed antenna under fender
- Cut out door scoops to vent to engine

25-Feb-2007 Today was cold (45degrees F) and raining. Furthermore, my heart was not into working on the car. All that I really wanted to do today is sleep in and do nothing. I tried to work on the car, but the first thing I did was to smoke another Dremel. Once it was gone, I lost what little spirit I had and packed everything up.

28-Feb-2007 The lowering ball joints arrived today. It was a nice birthday present.

10-Mar-2007 (build day 64) We are back to California weather. It was "only" 75 degrees today, but it felt warmer. A good day to work on the car.
I ordered the 1" lower springs, poly for the front suspension, front KYB shocks and leather parking brake boot from the Fiero Store. I placed the order from my cell phone on the two hour drive to Sacramento. The plan for today is to take off the front suspension this weekend. Then, next weekend install the front suspension with the 1" lower ball joints and 1" lower springs.
Work done today:
- Removed and packaged front turn signals
- Build and Install center decklid screen
- Filled in rear bumper to wheel area
- Drilled out rear bumper support to move bumper back 1/4"
- Driller passenger door for door popper button

11-Mar-2007 (build day 65) Even with the loss of an hour for day light savings, we still were able to get some work done. I really wanted to get the door to scoop area ready for fiberglassing. This took a lot more time than I had expected. Before I left, we were able to remove the lower A-Arms. This way Ron can get the lower ball joints pressed in before next weekend.
- Prepped both doors for fiberglassing (not hard, but time consuming)
- Filled in front bumper to wheel area
- Removed front lower A-Arms
- Cut 1" from the front bump stops

12-Mar-2007 I ordered the rest of the front suspension rebuild parts today. I ordered the inner and outer tie rods and the upper ball joints from Rodney Dickman. This leaves the steering rack as the only part not be rebuilt.

17-Mar-20007 (build day 66) The plan for today was to rebuild the front suspension. Ron was nice enough to get the lower ball joints pressed in during the week. The bad news is that the bushings, and lower springs are stuck in bad weather in the midwest. Runny, it is almost 80 degrees and sunny here. I did have the upper ball joints, so I installed them. The passenger side upper ball joint had been replaced. I could tell because it was held on by nuts and bolts and not rivets. One of the threes bolts was missing and I though that was weird. The first nut I went to take off fell apart. To the best of my guessing, who ever installed this upper ball joint over tighten them. That is why one is missing and due to the miracle of rust the other was still there. So really, I had one bolt holding my car on the road. I then found out why the bolts were over tighten. Grinding and drilling out the rivets took way too much time.
- Removed old upper ball joints
- Installed new upper ball joints
- Painted deck lid screen black
- Ran rear speaker wire
- Ran gas door release wire
- Prepped firewall sheet metal for gluing

18-Mar-2007 (build day 67)
- Muffler shield to protect rear light wires
- Fixed A-Pillar gluing
- Foamed in lower B-Pillar
- Glued firewall sheet metal sides
- Glued in B-Pillar
- Install second trunk LED module

27-Mar-2007 I finally came to the relization that if I am rebuilding the front suspension, I should do the rear also. I order new poly bushings and KYB rear struts today.

14-Apr-2007 (build day 68) The plan for today was to get the car on the ground. To do this, I needed to finish rebuilding the front suspension. The bad news is that it was raining. The instructions for the bushing were to burn out the old rubber bushings. Since I did not have the $500 tool, I had no choice but to burn them out. Although working in the rain is not ideal, it helped here to put out the burning rubber as it falls from my A-Arm. The rest of the front suspension rebuild went smoothly. The next point of interest is how low the front bumper is now. We held the bumper in place and measured 4". I will need to do something about this or I am going to rip the bumper off the first time I hit a speed bump.
- Installed new front KYB Shocks
- Installed Polyurethane bushings
- Installed new tie rod
- Installed 1" lowering springs

The joke everyday was to make bets on who would bleed first. Now that I have proven myself with my amazing ability to bleed first, I had to find a new challenge. Now it is who will get a concussion first. I was trying to loosen a A-Arm bolt will all the force I could muster, when the bolt broke free, I smashed my head into the fender. Luckily, I did not break my glasses, but the bridge of my nose make contact. I saw a flash of white light. The good news is that the fender has been proved to be installed correctly. It did not move at all.

21-Apr-2007 (build day 69) I only had one day to work on the car this weekend. Now that my wife is 7 month pregrant, the car is becoming a far second priority. The plan is to work on the car this weekend and next weekend and then take some months off to focus on the family. In my rush to get out the door, I forgot to change shoes. I showed up to weld wearing dress shoes. I know better than to come home with trashed dress shoes. Off to Walmart I go. Now that the day is off to a slow start we tried to hurry things along. The plan is to work on the front scrape bar. We purchased some heavy duty wheels and 1" box tube. Ron is the master bracket maker and he started to design. After a couple of welds, we ran out of wire. This is a problem since the closest plan to buy welding wire is Home Depot and it is 30 minutes away. By the time we got back from Home Depot, it was after noon. This is wear we find out that the welding wire is defective. Back to Home Depot we go. The running out of welding wire caused us a three hour loss on the day. This meant we were not able to finish installing the scrape bar. We were able to build the bar, weld on the wheels, cut the bumper for the wheels, and tack weld it to the car. Next weekend we will be able to finish the welding to the car. Oh, and for the second time in a row, it rained. Funny how it only rains on Saturday when I am trying to work on the car.
- Started scrap bar build
- Installed hinge to firewall
- left car in the air again

28-Apr-2007 (build day 70) I promised my wife that this would be the last day before the car goes to paint. I had four things I need to do. First, was to finish the scrape bar. The second is to install the running boards. The third is to work the rear bumper to fit better. And the fourth is to do a run over the whole car looking for loose bolts. We started with the scrape bar. After finishing all the welding, we tried a test lift. To our amazement, the front end flexed. We spent the rest of the day reenforcing scrape bar. This was the first work day in many that it was 85 degrees and not raining. The body show guy dropped by to see my car to give me a quote. It was nice to meet him and he will get back to me in a week or two with the quote and expected start and finish dates. I was not happy about not finishing the other task, but by the end of the day, I was tried and ready to go home.
- Finished scrape bar
- Bracket between radiator support and front trunk wall

08-May-2007 Now that the front end has been lowered 2", the back sits too high. I ordered the coil over kit from West Coast Fieros. This will allow me to raise or lower the rear end any time to any height. I also heard back from the paint guy. He will take the car on Saturday and we have agreed on a price.

12-May-2007 (build day 71) The plan for the day is to reinstall the OEM front spring, install the running boards, and drop to car off to the body shop for prep and paint. This should have been one of those easy days. Lucky for me Ron helped me all day long. I would have been lost with out his assistance. We powered though the front spring installing and pulled the car out of the garage. At this point I got excited that I would not have the front of the car on jack stands for a long while. After we pulled the car out of the garage, we looked and the 1" lower front end looks. It looks really good. If I want to drop the front and extra inch, I will have to lower the rear also. For normal driving, I will keep the height as it is now, and drop it one inch for car shows. We then started to install the running boards. The front of the running boards had to be cut in order to not hit the fender bracket. Ron is the master at cutting and he did a fine job. I then spent some time taking before paint photos of the car. This is where I notice why there is a gap between the challenge grill and the rear bumper. I did not install it correctly. It looks to be an easy fix. No time today, so the fixing will it after paint. Next was to get the car dolly to toe the car to the body shop. I started the clean up while Ron went to pick up the car dolly we had on reservation from U-Haul. They really let us down. For some reason U-Haul rented out the dolly we had on reservation. We were going to pick it up in the morning, but the last person who had it was late returning it. They said to pick it up after 1pm. Then when Ron showed up they said it was gone and there was nothing we could do. Only thing worst was the poor attitude from the U-Haul employees. I called AAA and they sent out a flatbed truck. I have been with AAA for 15 years and they have never let me down. After I dropped off the car, I went back to Ron's garage to pack and clean up. I have a little Subaru and it was stuffed. I filled the trunk, back and passenger seats with tools, and interior pieces. I ended leaving most of the big stuff behind. All in all, it was a good day.
- Installed front stock springs
- Installed running boards
- Noticed challange grill not aligned
- Dropped car off for paint

12-May-2007 Dropped car off to body shop. The next time I see the car, it will be red.

29-May-2007 I purchased the steering wheel adapter. This was one of those things that I should have bought when I got the steering wheel, but never did. Now when the car comes back from being painted, I have most of the stuff I need to do the interior.

08-Jun-2007 Today I heard by from my painter. He tore his deltoid and cannot sand. The good news is that he has taken the last week off and is feeling better. The new expected completion for the paint is now the end of July.

24-Jun-2007 I have not touched the car for over a month now, and I am missing it. I had to do something, so I went to the local auto parts store and purchased semi-gloss black interior paint.

28-Jun-2007 I heard back from my painter. The news is that the body shop he was using lost their lease and they had to move out quickly. The good news is that they found a new location and it is much better than the one they were in. The bad news is that the new place is going to take three weeks to set up. The real question is where is my car? It is currently at a friends of the body shop owners warehouse. Where is that? I do not know. The plan is for the body shop to be up and running by July 15th. This means Chris's car will take about two weeks to complete. Mine will be next and might be done by Aug 15th or so.

19-Jul-2007 The car is still in limbo. August 15th is starting to look less and less likely. I did registered for the NCKCC car show in September as a push to get this project done

26-Jul-2007 With out word on the progress, I tried to call my painter. Well....his cell phone has been turned off. I should be in a panic about now. I decided to wait it out and good thing I did. His phone was turned off accidently and had nothing to do with him. He did state that the car should be done by the end of August. This should give me just enough time to set up the car before the show.

12-Aug-2007 Good news, I talked to the painter and we are planning for me to see the car this weekend.

17-Aug-2007 His mother-in-law had a stroke. This means that I will not be able to see my car this weekend as he and his family will be out of town. I was told that I would have access to work on my car at the new location it is being stored. The plan now is for me to drive up next weekend to check the progress of the car. I am not expecting much. Since a horse needs a stable, I spend the weekend cleaning out my garage. I can now say, I have room for the car when it comes home. When ever that is.

20-Aug-2007 I just got a phone call that the body shop that I dropped my car off at in May is burning. Good thing my car is not there.

21-Aug-2007 The old body shop is no more. Burned to the group. If the cars were still there, it would have been a total loss. I feel less compelled to complain about how much time has gone by and the fact that I do not know where the car is now that

26-Aug-2007 I saw the car today. I have to admit, that I did not care how much progress has been made. I just wanted to know where my car was being stored. So far, only one side was started. Chris's car looked pretty good and was about to get a coat of primer. According to my painter, my car is about a week behind Chris's. We planned to go up to see the car next weekend and I will finish the rear deck area then. We are not thinking that the car will be done in late September to early October. There is no chance of making the NCKCC September 8-9th car show.

25-Sep-2007 I talked to the painter today. Every time I start to get frustrated with the delays, I hear what he is working on. Most painters just paint the car. This guy is going around and fixing the flaws in the fiberglass and the build. An example is the headlight doors. I installed them and they are pretty close. He is redoing them to make sure they are 100% level on all sides and the gaps are correct. I used 1/4" bolts to bolt down the rear clip to the body where the rear clip attaches to the back of the doors. I used bolts because when the door are closed, you cannot see them. He is taking out the bolts and using rivets so the area will be perfectly smooth. I am very impressed with all the work he had done so far. The current done date is mid to end of October.

12-Nov-2007 I talked to the painter and the car should be done this weekend.

16-Nov-2007 Tuesday 11/20 is semi firm date now.

18-Nov-2007 I heard from the painter and there are still some pine holes. Sunday 25-Nov is new date.

25-Nov-2007 Not going to happen this weekend. The car needs some more work before painting. The painter did not like the gaps around the headlights and worked on them some more. It is starting to get too cold to paint and he is looking for stuff to do now.

01-Dec-2007 The weather is bad. It is either very cold or raining. Both cold and wet are bad for painting. I told my painter to not rush because I want the paint job to be very good. The last thing I want to have happen is to spend all this time and money and to have the paint look like crap. The plan now is to wait till the next heat wave.

03-Jan-2008 The weather is still bad. Or, is bad for California standards. (in the high 30s or raining really hard) We are hoping for a warm February.

07-Jan-2008 The weather is starting to let up. I heard from my painter and he is planning on starting the painting this weekend.

22-Jan-2008 I heard from the painter today. The first coat of paint was sprayed. The bad news is that it is the wrong red. The Rossa Corsa red is also known as a bulls blood red and the paint that he used was the more modern more orange red. The good news is that he was able to get money back from the paint supplier because they messed up. He also found some more pin holes. This means that the wrong paint was a blessing in disguise. The official word now is that the car will be ready this Sunday.

28-Jan-2008 My Dad and I packed up all the needed tools and supplies and drove up to Sac to see the car. We had a hope that the car would be done, but were not expecting much. After some site seeing time we arrived at the shop. Ok, Ok we got lost and drove in circles for an hour. The area around Sac State is pretty, but not what we were looking for. We found the shop and walked to the back to see the car. To date, the car has been painted twice and sanded off. The first paint he appilled was the wrong color. Ferrari changed the color of red and the paint company supplied the orange red. It did not look right and he sanded it off. He then sprayed the blood red and found pin holes all over the place. Again with the 35 grit and that is where we found the car. I am amazed with how many hours goes into sanding and finishing to get a car painted. The new schedule is to be done in two weeks.

04-Feb-2008 I heard that some more needs to be done on the car and that the expected finish date is now in the middle of March.

12-Feb-2008 He tore his pectoral mussel and possibly broke a rib, but is still planning to paint this weekend.

23-Feb-2008 I have not been able to get ahold of my painter all week long. I was guessing that something happened and he was not just blowing me off. I called him today only to find out that his mother had heart surgery and that the hospital does not allow cell phones. In between hospital visits and taking care of his family, he was able to get my bumpers painted.

04-Mar-2008 I talked to my painter today. He informed me that the deck lid mounting bracket broke. I am not happy about him breaking anything, but on the other side, I am very happy that this broke before the car go painted. He was able fix the broken part and reenforced it to not break again. He also sanded though fiberglass on the rear clip which lead to more repairs, and filled in more gaps. I was told that the cars were "going to paint next week". After the cars are painted, he will then color sand, and the clear coats. Should be done by March 31st.

09-Mar-2008 Chris went over to the body shop to check out the cars today. I was planning on going up to see the car myself, but the two hour drive or the train ride up were interrupted by work. I did get a phone call from Chris and he said that the cars look great. I was very happy to hear this. It looks like early next week for painting is going to happen.

21-Mar-2008 I heard from the painter. We are still looking to be done by the end of the month. Last week was very busy for him as his partner was on vacation and he had to run the shop. This meant that the booth was always busy and he could not answer the phones, take care of business and paint the cars. He told me that Easter weekend is almost dead and will be a good time to paint my car.

02-Apr-2008 The State showed up at the body shop and shut it down for a week. There is an nice "This shop is shut down for one week" sign on the window now. The story goes that five years ago a disgruntled temporary employee got into an altercation with a customer. The body shop had dealt with the situation and was under the impression that the issue had been resolved. My painter said that the shop is totally locked down and no cars can be touched or moved. I like to call this paint jail. This would mean that my car has been in paint jail for almost a year now. The paint was very apologetic about the situation of my car. I could hear the anger in his voice. Besides not being able to work on my car, he cannot do any work until the shop opens again.

04-Apr-2008 I heard a new term today. It is "paint jail". I hear this from the local hot rod builder. After laughing at my build story, he informed me that my car is in paint jail.

22-Apr-2008 I called and the painter answered the phone. He said that he painted another layer of primer and found more pin holes. He also stated that the car will be red by Friday. We will be out of town at the AHA Knott's kit car show this weekend and will have to wait for the first weekend in May to see the car. The question now is can he finish the car before the one year mark of May 19th?

01-May-2008 My car is in the paint booth tonight. The word is tomorrow my car will be red.

04-May-2008 MY CAR IS RED!!!! Sure the bumpers and deck lid are not painted yet, but everything else is. It was nice to see my car not gray for a change. The word is that May 19th is the pick up date.

17-May-2008 I just heard word that the 19th is a no go. We are having a heat wave right now. A high pressure zone has parked itself off of the coast, stopping the cool evening wind. It have been over 100 here in the bay area, and hotter in Sacramento. The paint booth is at 130 degrees and paint is only rated at 90. Once it cools, the rest of the car will be painted.

19-May-2008 Today marks the one year in paint jail. :) Now that the weather is working with us, the rest of the car is being painted today. Once painted, the car will need to be reassembled, color sanded and the black can be painted on certain sections. I have not heard a date yet, but I am guessing at the 24th as a best case.

20-May-2008 I just heard that the rest of my car was painted today.

27-May-2008 Chris saw the car today and was happy with it. His words were like amazing, and better than OEM.

16-Jun-2008 The car is still coming along. It should be finished either late this week or early next week.

24-Jun-2008 I heard that the bumpers and deck lid are done and all that is left is the color sanding and the painting of the black. I have no idea what this means, but that there is still progress being made.

07-Jul-2008 Now heat wave after heat wave are impending progress. Chris's car still needs the bumpers repainted and my car is painted and started color sanding. The only parts not painted are the mirrors. I am guessing we are at least two weeks away.

15-jul-2008 Bla bla bla, hardship, bla bla bla, cars not ready, bla bla bla

25-jul-2008 I contacted the painter and the car is painted. He is working only on the color sanding and the black areas. The new pick up date is July 31st.

31-Jul-2008 Not going to be done tomorrow. More like Monday. I am going to drive up to the shop and inspect the progress.

01-Aug-2008 We arrived at the shop a little after 9am. We pulled into the back and saw the car in the sun for the first time. Wow is all that I have to say. Even though this car has been in the shop for so long, I am blown away by how the car looks. He has done an incredible job finishing this car build. This car would look terrible if I had gone anywhere else or cheeper. The plan is for the car to be finished and ready to pick up on Tuesday.

16-Aug-2008 Today is Friday and is also the plan pick up date. That was until, we got a call from the painter. He did not like how the header bar was looking. This is the piece that goes between the bumper and the hood. There is suppose to be a quarter inch between the header bar and the front bumper and hood. He thought that he could do better (again) and sanded the paint off and re-sculpted it.

17-Aug-2008 We were driving by the shop on a way to a family reunion and dropped by to see the car. The shop was open, but our guy was not there. The car looked good, but it was missing the header panel as expected. It was just nice to see the car again.

24-Aug-2008 The plan for today was to inspect the car, tow it to a friends house and work though the night to install the coil overs. Upon inspection, the car had some minor issues with the paint that had to be addressed. After about 20 minutes trying to work on the suspension as they were working on the paint, I came to the conclusion that I was just in the way. Lucky for me, I was able to get some sleep.

25-Aug-2008 The car is painted and in my garage.
I showed up at the shop a little after 11am. The car looked good and you could tell that they worked late into the morning. We pulled the car out into the sun and that is when I really saw how impressive it is. I walked around the car with the painter and we both concluded that this was a good 4 foot paint job. Closer than four feet and you could find imperfections if you looked hard enough. I went over the car and found some little things that needed to be addressed. There were a couple of pin holes, the drivers side door jam hit the rear clip, some black over spray, and one little chip on the deck lid corner. He was able to fix all of these things fast. I then scratched the door still. Lucky for me, he was a nice guy and fixed my mistake right then and there. The tow truck showed up right at 6pm. We had to load the car backwards to be balance on the trailer. This was the first test of the wheels built into the front bumper. I am happy to say that they worked. Not one scratch on the bumper. On the drive home on the freeway a car came up to the left of us honking. We looked out to see a black F355 driving by. The driver was waiving and giving us the thumbs up. I do not think that he knew what this car really was. After all, I never removed the license plate frame that states "Pontiac Fiero" "We build excitement". :)

30-Aug-20008 Today's focus was on the interior.
- Empty three years worth of crap out of interior and clean out mud
- Applied sound deadening into foot well tunnel and under seats
- Installed RAAMatt to firewall
- Installed carpet
- Installed seats

31-Aug-2008
- Installed fender shields
- Installed Challenge grill horse
- Installed 3rd break light screen "F355" emblem
- Installed hood emblem
- Cleaned tail lights (after 3 years in heat, the plastic wrap bonded to the lenses)
- Tried to install license plate lights into the lenses
- Installed cushion foam around deck lid
- Cleaned out rear tail area
- Installed rear view mirror
- Tested all of the lights

01-Sep-2008 The main goal for today was to replaced the rear struts with coil overs. I pulled the car out of the garage and was ready to jack up the car when I found out that I do not have the key for the lug nuts. Off to plan B.
- Replaced Coil
- Finished installing license plate lights (I had to remove the lenses)
- Replaced rear transmission mount
- Replaced dog bone
- drove it around the block / took pictures
- Installed windshield wipers
- Replaced license plate frame

06-Sep-2008 I really wanted to drive to the NCKCC car show, but the car is not quite drivable yet. I ended up renting a U-haul trailer and towing the car. I was just happy to have a car at the show, then I won a trophy. I want Special Recognition for Craftsmanship. Which mean best craftsmanship for an amateur.

11-Sep-2008 The two parts that needed to be finished painting today were not. The story goes that the shop keys were left outside on the back of the garbage container for an employee to work over the weekend. He did not make it in and the garage truck picked up the garbage. They had to get a locksmith come out and get new locks. Hopefully next week I will have my interior running board and mirror brackets painted.

21-Sep-2008 I have no idea what is going on with my parts that need to be painted still. For today, I schedule come time to work on the car by sending my lovely wife and kids out.
- Installed Rodney Dickman Euro short shifter
- Installed passenger side window weather stripping bracket
- Looked into how to drill doors for poppers
- Removed struts
- Replaced passenger side rear rubber bushings with poly
- Discovered rear calipers broken (Not happy)
- Regretted not bug bombing the car. Lots more black widows found.


28-Sep-2008 I only had a couple of hours to work on the car today. It is end of quarter and my job has been taking all of my time. Lucky for me, my work has some down time as the computers are over loaded. I knew that my current job was going to take over two hours, so I started it and ran to the garage.
- Rear Drivers side bushings replaced

05-Oct-2008 I scheduled a whole day to work on the car, but we went to Santa Cruz for breakfast. This left me only a couple of hours to work on the car. I was able to take apart the old struts, build the coil overs and install the coil overs.

10-Jan-2009 After some time away from the car and the passing of another year, it is time to get back working on the car. We will be scheduling two days a month to get the car on the road. The plan today was to get the car back on four wheels and to install the side mirrors. Ron came over to help out. We first started on replacing the rear passenger side caliper. After two hours of rebuilding it, we discovered that it was from the wrong side. Next Ron started on the passenger side mirror. He was able to get the bracket machined screwed on. Tomorrow we will finish installing the side mirrors.

11-Jan-2009 Ron was able to get the passenger mirror mounted with the exterior plate. We still need to weld in the bracket, install the interior plastic piece, and run the wires. I installed the and wired the fog lights. The wiring from the trunk to the fog lights is complete. I will need to finish running the fog light switch to the interior at a later time. Then we ran into a minor issue. I lost the driver side bracket that Ron built for me. This killed the install of the driver side mirror.

28-Feb-2009 For my birthday, my dad came over and helped me work on the car. It would have been nice to get a full day, but with the kids and my wife being sick, I could only get in a couple of hours. Progress was made.
- Install passenger side door popper
- Rebuild rear caliper
- Install new steering wheel
- Weight rear wheel
- Adjusted passenger side door
- Cut MDF for rear deck area

14-Mar-2009 I wanted to fiberglass and spray foam the interior today, but it was just too cold. We were able to finish rebuilding the rear caliper. Once the caliper was install, I was able to install the rear wheel and bleed the brakes. It is nice to have the car drivable again. Next was to drill out the doors to install the door popper push buttons. My good friend Greg looked at the door and told me that there was no way to drill out the door and to no repaint them. After about twenty minutes of me looking, I had to agree. He then had the simple idea of using remote to open the doors. One trip to the auto parts store and $30 later, I now have a four button remote installed.
- Installed passenger side rear caliper
- Installed Alarm to open doors
- Installed the drivers side seat belts
- Found a way to build the rear deck
- Installed driver side door popper

23-Mar-2009 I really want to get the car drivable before my company lays me off on the 31st. Today was cold, windy and on again off again rain. Not good for fiberglassing. I was able to get the garage warm enough to use spray foam around the rear deck area. Once I have the rear deck area sealed off, I can drive the car.

28-Mar-2009 The only goal for the day was to finish sealing the rear deck area and get the car to pass smog. I was able to seal the deck area, although it is not pretty. I then could not find a station to smog test my car.
- Carved foam on rear deck (temporally sealed)
- Oil change
- Failed to find a place to smog my car

23-May-2009 Ron drove down from Sacramento and my Dad came over to help work on the car. Lucky for me Ron has a welder. We needed it for the mirror brackets and for the neighbors truck seat. It is always good to have a friend who owns a truck to owe you one. The weather was great and not to hot or cold. To keep people out, today we not only put up the awing, but we also placed a tarp across in the front. We only had on person as if we were having a yard sale.
- Installed driver side running board
- RTV running boards down (no rattles here)
- Built and most installed the driver side mirror
- Installed front air dam
- Installed front bumper outer brackets
- Installed passenger side seat belt
- Cleaned dash
-

24-May-2009 Ron was able to finish welding the side mirror brackets today. My dad worked on building the templet for the radiator shielding.
- Finished welding driver side mirror bracket
- Leveled hood to headlight doors
- Found rattle in front suspension
- Fix parking break

22-Jun-2009 Today was the big day to get the car to pass smog. Once I pass smog, I can get my registration stickers. I can drive the car legally. While the car was on the smog testing machine, I ran next door to Raod Runner Glass Company to get the driver side mirror shaved. Ten minutes and ten dollar later, the driver side mirror now fits. The good news is that my car passed smog with flying colors. Actually it runs very clean. Now the bad news. Just before we drove the car on to the alignment machine, it starting dumping coolant fluid. The car was over heating and blowing fluid though the coolant expansion tank. The car was over heating. I most likely have a vapor lock issue and simple burping the system will fix it. I was able to get the car on the alignment machine. The poor tech took two hours to get everything aligned.
- Installed driver side mirror glass
- Passed Smog test
- Alignment

08-Aug-2009 I cannot believe that I now have the car legal to drive, but did not have time to bled the cooling system for a month. The Fiero has a special procedure for getting the air bubbles out. I then had to clean up the car and do a write up for the appraiser. I did sneak a little drive around the block. I can also say that this car loves being outside in the sun.
- Bled the cooling system
- Wash and wax
- Cleaned front trunk
- Wright up on all parts used on car

09-Aug-2009 The appraiser came and spent three hours going over my car. He took over 100 pictures of everything in sight. I felt like I was taking a mid term.

17-Aug-2009 The appraisal came back today at $39,800. I am happy with this number and now have to get my insurance updated.

22-Aug-2009 My wife took the kids out for the day, giving me time to work on the interior. I started on the doors. I drilled out the rivets that held on the interior mounting brackets that are no longer need. I also removed the interior door handle and latch. Right now there are only two ways to open the doors. I can use the poppers or reach into the door and grab the latch. I then removed the radio, HVAC, and all of the dash peices around the radio. The dash was only four bolts and it was out. With out the dash the interior feels huge. I then test mounted the SI dash. The F355 dash changes the feel of the car. I really like it.
- Drilled out pop rivets on door mounting brackets
- Removed Fiero dash, radio, HVAC, and instrument cluster
- Test fit SI Interior dash

07-Sep-2009 Today I hosted a mini tech session for the Fiero club as I worked on my car. No one came to work on their cars, but Kit and Max showed up and helped me with mine. Max and I worked on the interior kit, while Kit worked his magic on cleaning up the battery area. It was a good car day and we crashed are 5pm and worked on beers from then on. Just what a Labor Day should be.
- Finished first install on interior kit
- Dash, and door skins aligned (mostly)
- Applied sound deadening to doors
- Cut out driver side window switches
- Cleaned up battery area (Thanks again Kit)
- Fixed alarm (door poppers work again)
- Started on trunk mesh templet

08-Sep-2009 Max came over and helped me with the car. He worked on cutting out the plastic sheet that covers the trunk while I fiddled with the interior.
- Worked on aligning interior
- Built cover for trunk

09-Sep-2009 I finally have the rear deck piece held down to seal. I really do not want to be breathing the engine. I was also able to install the radiator baffles. This way the air entering the front of the radiator cannot go around it. The last thing I want to do is have the car over heat on the highway. I also fount out what that scrapping sound coming from the front of the car is. The driver side A-Arm was rubbing the brake disk. I was able to grind and pound the tip of the A-Arm. I was scarred there for a while. I was really hoping that the scrapping sound was not the bearing. The 88 Fiero used a custom bearing and they are out of production.
- Mostly installed rear deck piece
- Built radiator baffles
- Fixed front A-Arm from rubbing disk

10-Sep-2009 Last day before the car show. My dad was over with the Mera. While he was replacing the alternator, I detailed my car. I still had a lot of black over spray all over my hood and fenders. I had to use paint thinner to get it off. Once clean, I then did a complete wash and wax. It took over eight hours for me to do this.
- Full Detail

11-12-Sep-2009 I attended the NCKCC car show in Concord California this weekend. This outing was my first trip on the freeway with this car. A true milestone. The down side was that there is something wrong with the ignition and the car has no torque. I could barely keep the car at 65MPH. There is also something wrong with the rear suspension. For some reason, I am have torque steer issues. I might have a rear baring that is out. Oh, and it rained in the morning. I still do not have the interior rear deck area complete sealed yet. Therefor, I have to drive with the windows open. In the rain, I was not happy about getting wet. Once at the show, the car dried and shinned up very well. The whole family had a great time and the car made it home with no other issues.

20-Feb-2010 Greg came over to help me with the interior. Lucky for me he has an industrial sewing machine. I worked on the final alignment of the interior pieces, while he started the templates for the arm rest. He was able to get one arm rest made.
- Finished aligning interior pieces
- Started sewing vynal

27-28-Feb-2010 All that I wanted to do on my Birthday weekend was to work on my car. My wonderful wife scheduled the weekend months in advance. As luck would have it she got sick with a cough that would not stop. Even sick, she still grabbed the kids and left so I would get a day on the car. I am truly blessed with the greatest wife. Max and Janell crashed at our house for the weekend and they both were a great help.
- Upholstered the 3 rear deck pieces
- Sewed random parts for interior
- Remved coolant tubes
- Replaced driver side coolant tube
- Found rubber hoses were cut

07-08-Aug-2010 Max and Janell drove up and helped me work on the car. With out their help, I would not have had as much time to work on the car or would have not gotten the same amount done. We tackled upholstering the top dash piece, building the HVAC plumbing, and cutting out the instrument cluster.
- Upholstered top dash
- Ground instrument cluster for Fiero gauges
- Installed HVAC plumbing

22-Aug-2010 Today's plan was to finish the upper dash piece and get it back into the car. My dad came over and helped by cleaning and sanding interior parts as I applied contact cement to the dash and vinyl. The good news was that the dash was finished and installed into the car.

06-May-2012 I finally got time to work on the car. The kids being 4 and 6 plus a new job has taken my play time away. Max came over and helped me work on the car. We installed the new coolant pipe, finished installing the passenger side panel, laid down the first layer of vinyl on the driver side, and dusted the car. You know that it has been too long since you worked on a car when it is dusty.