Fireo Project

A couple of years ago I found a 1987 Pontiac Fiero in disrepair in a towing company’s impound yard. It had a few weeds growing out of the bumper and was sunk into mud up to the chassis. Turns out it belonged to the father of the towing company’s owner. I offered him $300 for it. He countered with $350 and I said OK if it runs.

The first problem we encountered was that the battery was dead. So we pulled the battery and put it on the charger for a few hours. Still no juice. The battery tester now showed a dead cell. So off I go to get a new battery. The motor still would not turn over. We tried turning the motor over by hand. It turned over just fine. So it is now time to check the starter. The starter was frozen. So off I go to get a new starter. The new starter spins the motor just fine. But it still won’t start. We check for ignition spark and find a nice blue spark. We spray some starter fluid into the throttle body. It starts and runs pretty well as long as we continue to spray the starter fluid into the throttle body. We check the fuel filter and it appears to be getting fuel to the filter and the line from the filter to the throttle body is clear. We replace the filter. Still no fuel at the throttle body. It’s now time to drop the fuel tank and check the fuel pump. The rubber parts of the fuel pump have disintegrated so that the pump can’t put out enough pressure for the TBI injector to operate correctly. We replaced the fuel pump, reinstalled the fuel tank and tried again. Success! It starts and runs pretty well. It makes some noises that I don’t like but it runs!

So I gave him the $350, got a temporary operating permit and drove it home. My plan at the time was to restore it to something moderately nice looking but mostly original, nothing fancy, no big V8 engine just something fun to drive on Northern California’s Coast Highway.

The morning after bringing the Fiero home it had two flat tires and one low tire. The only one still holding air didn’t have much tread on it. Checked the valve stems and found no leaks there. So I aired them up again and timed the fastest leak. The fastest leak took about 4 hours until the tire was too low to drive. I think that the sidewalls were damaged from setting many years flat. So off I go to the tire store to get four new tires. That about doubles my investment in this project.

Next:  Fiero Project Progress