Follow-up to my post yesterday. My 16 year old son has wanted a Fiero for quite some time. He's been saving his money, and we looked at a few, but the Fiero market is fickle. Lots of rough cars that are cheap, or nicer cars that are more expensive than they should be.

He wanted a project car, but not something that needed a full restoration. He found this 85 GT V6 manual on Saturday. It was about 60 miles north of us, so I messaged the guy, and we went to see it on Sunday. It runs and drives, is filthy, and has dry rotted tires. He made the deal, and we returned yesterday with a trailer and cash.

He's already ordered new tires, and lug nuts for it, and signed up for the Fiero 40th convention which is next month. Maybe @trivet will be there?

I have a friend. We met in High School. We were in the Video Club which we used to get out of as much school as possible. We once went with the Dance Team to a competition before an NBA game. Good times.

To make this car related, I'll get this out of the way. When I first met him he had an 84 Camaro Berlinetta, then an Eagle Talon TSI AWD, and now has a TJ Wrangler, and an 88 Fiero GT that he bought in California, flew out and drove home. He also has a couple of BMW motorcycles. When I was in Germany visiting him, we did laps of the Nurburgring in a rental BMW 320i. I looped it in the same corner Jackie Stewart did in the 1968 German Grand Prix.

After school, he joined the Air Force, and ended up in Germany, then Montana. I was able to visit him in both places which was great. After the Air Force he became a police officer. Now he's a Security Guard/Paramedic for a large company.

A couple weeks ago he stopped by and told me he was going somewhere strange. As he goes to a lot of Jeep events, I expected him to say Easter Jeep Safari. Nope. He was going to Warsaw Poland then on to Ukraine.

He left Monday and as of yesterday is in Kyiv and has been assigned to a combat medic battalion. He hasn't yet, but he will be going to the front before too long.

I'm proud of him. Impressed that he felt the calling, and impressed that he can actually be useful over there. He's the type that normally gets through difficult situation unscathed. I hope that's the case here.

I'd appreciate it if you'd send some positive thoughts his way if you have it in you. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

My son bought his first project car yesterday. It needs tires badly, or we would've risked driving it home. It's quicker to get a trailer than tires, so I ordered the tires yesterday, and reserved a trailer from U Haul.

He's excited. Will update once it's home.

We upgraded the snow plowing situation at our place up north in 1985. My Dad's friend sold us his 1973 Jeep Commando, a trailer, and a boat. The boat and the trailer have nothing to do with this story.

My Dad met Leonard through work in the 60s. He and my Dad bonded due to their love of hunting and fishing. Leonard was a WWII vet who had flown gliders in North Africa. Not long after he left for the war received a Dear John letter which broke his heart, and made him distrustful of women for the rest of his life. The sole exception was my Mom.

They both left that company sometime in the late 60s and lost touch. At some point Leonard became a Jeep salesman. In 1973 he bought a Commando. 258, auto, 3.73 gears. The dealer installed a Warm PTO winch and a plow.

Leonard returned into our lives in the early 80s. He bought his retirement home about a mile from our place up north. He was a great friend and mentor to everyone in our family. He decided in 1985 that he no longer needed the Commando, the trailer, or the boat. He sold them to my Dad as a package deal for $1,250.

The Jeep ran great, but was rusty. In the summer I'd remove the top which was great. We took it to a body shop to see about the rust repair, and were given a quote of something ridiculous like $1,800, so it didn't get fixed.

At some point a wind storm blew through, picked up the top and ruined it. My Dad found a guy who had a Pole barn body shop and a Sawzall, so it became a flat bed. It continued to live it's life as a plow truck/mobile work bench/2 track rider for years, slowly deteriorating. I entered it in Four Wheeler Magazines ugly truck contest where it won an honorable mention. I made plans to haul it home and mechanically restore it, but then I found an 89 GMC Sierra sport side with a plow for less than it would cost to fix the Jeep, so a difficult decision was made. In 2002 the Jeep was sold and life moved on.

We saw it in town once a couple years after we sold it. The guy had fixed the brakes and was driving it. Never saw it again, but thought of it often. Yesterday I received a text from my brother. He was driving through a town about 30 mile south of our place, and saw it sitting on the side of the road. Looks like someone did what I should've done 21 years ago.

As a reminder, my 16 year old son used his own money to buy a 1985 Pontiac Fiero GT. This won't be picture heavy. This won't be picture heavy, but I wanted to post an update.

First up was tires, because the old Cooper Cobras were some of the worst I'd ever seen that still held air. Someone replaced the original 14" wheels with the 86/87 style 15" wheels, so we went with General Altimax RT43s in the factory 205/60/15 front, 215/60/15 rear sizes. He was able to do this at school.

In the meantime I ordered a copy of the original invoice from Pontiac Historical Services. It turns out this car originally sold in July 1985 at a dealer that when it existed was about a mile from our house. Based on some documentation we found in the car, it was traded in in 1990 with approximately 65,000 miles. A repair order later in 1990 shows the car with 70,000 miles. It's sitting at 75,000 now.

Next up was just cleaning the car. We had to vacuum out under the hoods before washing, because it was so packed with leaves and pine needles. After washing, we lubed everything we could, which has helped immensely. It also got new wipers. We also picked up a replacement rear view mirror from a local junkyard.

From there we took it to my favorite alignment shop run by a guy who has been doing alignments since the 60s. Basically the camber, caster, and toe were all messed up. He wrestled with it for a day, and pronounced it good.

During this time period we took the non-operational factory radio to a local shop for repair. That took 48 hours and cost $100. The headrest speakers now work, but the dash mounted 4x10s don't. Replacements from Crutchfield are arriving today.

He's been driving it every day for about a week and a half. Some things are self repairing. The speedometer that didn't work has started working. Weirdly, the odometer never stopped working.

Next steps: Replace the belts, replace the brake rotors (the flipper we bought it from replaced the calipers and the pads, but theft the crappy old rotors in place), replace the fuel filter. We need to trouble-shoot the cruise control, the gas guage, and the A/C. Further interior cleaning, and having a painter acquaintance touch up a few spots.

It's a fun car to drive. It's not exactly fast, but it feels willing. It rides very nicely, and has no weird suspension noises. I never knew this, but the 4 spd transaxles top gear is overdrive, so it does fine on the highway.

He's enjoying the car, but has been shocked at how fast money disappears. Here's a picture of it visiting a friend last night.

I've been waiting to write about this situation until it was over, but it keeps dragging out, so I'll start now. I apologize if it gets long.

My family has property in northern Michigan. It's in the middle of nowhere at the dead end of a road that's last on the list to get plowed. Because of that we've always had a plow truck up there. First it was a rusty Jeep Commando that we let go too long, then an 89 GMC that my dad left parked under the cedar trees in the summer, so it rotted from underneath. About 6 years ago, I sold the GMC and bought a 95 Chevy from my friend, who had owned it since 2000. He originally bought it as a daily driver. Shortly thereafter, he got sick of paying someone else to plow the lot at his shop, so he installed a plow. Over the years he upgraded it to make it work better. 3/4 ton front torsion bars, added a leaf and re-arched the rear springs, swapped in 4.10 gears, and a real posi in the rear. It worked really well until he sold his shop and didn't need it anymore, so I bought it and took it up north.

One Christmas I went up with the family, and plowed everything out. It worked great. I noticed that my brother had burned almost a full tank of gas, and he told me he'd take it to town the next day to fill it up. I let him know in no uncertain terms that there was currently no insurance on it, and to not take it to town. Long story short, he drove it to town the next morning in sub 0 degree weather with the truck in low range. You know how some people have mechanical sympathy and some people don't? My brother doesn't, and ended up spinning multiple bearings in the 120,000 mile 305.

Skipping many more steps, I bought a new 350 crate engine from Summit Racing, and swapped it in. All in all the truck was down for about a year while my friends and I got it dialed in mechanically. In that time the cab corners, lower doors, rockers, and lower fenders really started to disappear. So now I have a "plow" truck that is all new mechanically, and is starting to show it's age. I remember reading a post from @functionoverfashion (I think) on old Oppo about the joys of finding the balance of a good plow truck. I was faced with a choice. Let it go, or spend more money on it. This being Oppo, I think you know I did the dumb thing.

A friend of a friend runs a body shop. He does excellent work. He's done show cars, and restorations, but makes most of his money doing insurance work. April 3rd, 2021 I took the truck to him to see if he'd be interested in cleaning it up for me. I'd already bought, and had new front fenders painted. I'd also bought a set of clean doors, so what it needed was the doors painted, then the cab corners and rockers replaced. The two tone paint made it convenient because other than the doors, he only had to repaint the silver. He told me to get the new doors and fenders on, bring it to him in three weeks, he'd have it for five days, and it would be $850, which is a great deal, so I jumped at it. My priorities were and are 1) quality of the work, 2) price, 3) schedule.

Three weeks later I was ready for him, but he wasn't ready for me. Small shop, covid, wife got sick, etc, etc. The truck finally got there in early July. Talked to him in August, and it's going to be a few weeks. November, a few more weeks. A couple other times, a few more weeks. I started hearing stories that it was in the back of his lot with animals living in it, so I tried to find another place to work on it, fearing the worst.

Finally enough was enough, and I went to pull it, and just drive it ugly. He was with a customer when we got there, so we walked around back to see how bad it was. All the body work was done. The doors, rockers, and cab corners primed, sealed, and ready. Actually, the entire truck was sanded down. Go to talk to him, and he tells me he felt bad at how long it was taking, so he's painting the whole truck, including replacing the hood, which I was planning to do at some point. He tells me he's a couple weeks away from finishing. There goes my beater truck though. I went home and spent too much on new carpet, noise cancelling material (thanks @Tripper), and a headliner. I already had a new seat for it.

So I stopped by after a couple weeks. Not much had changed, he was waiting for his glass guy to cut out the windshield, so a couple more weeks. Stopped by last night, and the windshield has been pulled. Hi told me he'll have it to me by the end of next week. Do I believe him? Not really. Am I hopeful? Yes. It's been a long time coming. The problem with not having a truck is that truck things keep coming up. I can't wait to start scrapping again. I have stuff to move up north. I have yard work to do, book cases to buy, etc, etc. This post really has no point other than I wanted to get it out. This picture is how it looked a year ago. Hopefully I'll be able to post the finished product this summer.

My Dad bought this car in northern Michigan in July of 1979 for $1,100. He bought it because his first car was a 58 Biscayne like this one, but two tone red and white. From there he did the bare minimum to it until it became officially mine in 1994. It was originally a 6 cylinder car, but someone had swapped in a 55 265 with 68 heads and a 73 carb and intake before we bought it.

The paint and trim (minus the front bumper) are original. It has battle scars, but it's still shiny. Overs the years it's been my daily driver, my bad weather car, my show car, my truck, etc. In 95 I built a nice newer 350 for it, and made it look as close to original as possible. In 2006 it got a 700R4, along with new heads, cam, intake and carb. This version of the engine ran great, but at 400ish HP, wasn't really usable.

After that it got fuel injection, front disc brakes, front and rear anti roll bars, and probably more I've forgotten. A lot of the parts on the car were procured through trades. Last year I made the decision to go backwards. Out came the aluminum headed "built" small block, and in went a Vortec 350 out of a 2000 Chevy Express van. Parts availability has greatly increased in the time I've owned it, so I made some purchases. It now has a new steering column, the shifter has been moved off the floor, and the horn works. The interior is gutted right now waiting for some parts before it gets dynamatted and put back together. I have air conditioning ready to install, and a Dakota digital dash ready to be go (GPS speedometers for the win).

Anyway, got the steering column finished this weekend, and was able to drive it with the new engine. Still lots to do, but it's drivable again. Hopefully next year I'll drive it to CO and up Pikes Peak. Sorry for the book, but I had to get it out.

This spring has been a rough one in southeastern Michigan. Lots of cold cloudy days. Lots of rain. Just blech. My son is 15 and has his learner's permit, so we've been driving on Sundays. Sometimes I pick a restaurant in Ohio, sometimes we drive around the thumb because I like to see water.

Yesterday had the makings of a decent day. 50 degrees and sunny. It also happened to be the opening day of a drag strip 150 miles from here. So we hoped in the Camaro and headed west and north. I haven't driven down a track in years. My friends have legitimately fast cars, and I go with them regularly, but I haven't raced a car of my own in years.

Test and tune costs $30 for car and driver plus $15 per crew member, so $45 later we were in and signed up. The track opened at 11:30, and since we didn't really have any prep work to do, I was the first one to make a pass in the right lane. We won't talk about that one, but the next 3 were 13.77 @ 102 mph, 13.80 @ 101.5 mph, and 13.80 @ 101.8 mph, which is what I'd expected. Not fast, but not slow. Fast enough to be fun.

We spent about 2 hours there spaced out between watching other racing, and doing it myself. There was a good variety of cars, including some newer BMWs, Audis, and even an NB Miata that ran 15.40s.

My point is that for $45 and a few hours, we had a fun car related day, saw some fast cars, and learned a few things.

I've always wanted to try Autocross, but was always intimated. Maybe this will be the year.

I just took 15 minutes to make and eat my lunch, and came back to 123 new emails. Some poor sap in TX requested access to a group and somehow included all 70,000ish employees. It looks like he tried to recall it several times, then a few people tried to be helpful. The rest just wanted to remind everyone to stop replying to all by replying to all

It looks like IT has stopped it already. At my old company, this happened a few times a year, and would just blow up. Just when it started to quiet down and new time zone would get to work and start it all over again

This is the third time I've had it filled to this level in the past three weeks. There's an 8'x6'x6' metal shed in there, plus a bunch of random metal car parts. We started cleaning out my friends dad's garage over the weekend. 82 year old life long mechanic. We didn't make a dent in the garage with two full truck loads; one for the scrap yard, one for the dump. We did find a lot of cool parts and rare carburetors. Lots of Corvair stuff too.

@Taylor-Martin said in Weekend Whip (and the annoying story behind it):

Some insurance if it want it.

Get the insurance. The sense of freedom it brings is the best thing about renting a U haul trailer.

@derp Blue and white 90/01 Blazer for me please

@GSW said in Good Morning, Oppo:

He's turned into a bit of a Corvair hoarder as of late. I think he is up to 3 or 4, not including the one his kid has.

I think it's a lot more than that.....

@WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAthenGTInowA4 said in A Very Oppo Saab:

Closest would be the one they built on the Trailblazer. So no.

I guess I have to leave now

I love mine

@davesaddiction said in Nostalgia Picture:

@HFV_Junkyardin

Previa, old Discovery, 5-series, E-class...

What's the yellow car in the upper right?

Honda Prelude?

@derp Counterpoint, start with a 7 passenger vehicle

This is what my neighbor has been working on in his spare time this summer on his spare vehicle. Two 19s and two 12s, plus component speakers in the doors. Now that his wife's car is down this has to get done so she has something to drive. Thanks for posting a reason for me to share this ridiculousness.

@MUSASHI66 said in Son's Fiero project update - the alternator debacle:

Those part counter guys with decades of knowledge in their heads were irreplaceable.

Exactly

@BurntClutches This was a few years ago

• Cats on my daily driver Saab 97x clogged, and had to be ordered

• Shifter cable on my truck broke, and had to be ordered

• Distributor in my Caballero had an undiagnosed issue, so it randomly wouldn't start

• I was in the process of re-doing the interior in my 58 Chevy, so it was gutted

• Borrowed a friend's 86 Monte Carlo SS to drive. On the third day of driving it, the brake pedal fell to the floor (one of the rear brake cylinders moved rendering the rear brake useless

• Finally just started driving my GTO, and kept doing so as parts arrived and the other vehicles got fixed

Oh yeah, driver is completely okay. I wouldn't have posted about it otherwise.

As I've posted before, my son bought an 85 Pontiac Fiero GT earlier this summer as a project/driver.

He's made quite a bit of progress on it. He's taken it to the 40th Fiero celebration, done a few laps on the M1 Concourse track. Gotten a ticket for drag racing on Woodward Ave

Parts availability on these is good, with some strong vendors. There is also a fairly strong forum that is filled with information. We've had one issue we couldn't figure out. The alternator on the car had the wrong pulley, so it was shredding belts and squealing. This seems like an easy thing to fix, but it wasn't. First I went to Rock Auto only to find that all of the listings tell you to reuse your pulley, meaning they wouldn't have the correct pulley either. Next stop was Ebay, where I wrote to about a dozen vendors with 85 Fiero V6 alternators listed asking if they indeed came off of a Fiero, and came with the pulley. One guys responded yes, and sent me an alternator from a much older car with a V belt style pulley.

We ignored the problem for a while, and finally got serious about it a few weeks ago. After doing some searching, I posted to the Fiero Forum looking for parts section. One guy responded that he had an 85 GT with a blown engine, and he'd sell me the alternator for $50 shipped. I paid him immediately. A while later someone posted that If you get the Remy alternator from Rock Auto for an 88 V6, and the pigtail connector from one of the Fiero vendors, you can have a better alternator that has the correct pulley.

So I'm now four alternators into this, and all four have different pulleys. The new one for the 88 is correct with 4 ribs. It's now on the car ( I won't bore you with the wrenching fun). It doesn't squeal, and the car runs better than it ever has.

Have a great week Oppo.