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The Little Yellow Car That Could


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Nope! The photo is of a 2004 Cavalier LS Sport my dad and I bought this spring. We purchased the car solely for its engine; it has been my dream for at least three years now to install a supercharged L61 into the Fiero. That's why I made the comment I did and posted the picture :picard: This is not the LSJ of course, but this engine has been built and tuned specifically for this supercharger and we couldn't have built this engine for the price we bought the whole car for.

Before the Cavalier came around I had purchased an L61 out of a 2004 Cavalier with about 97k miles on it to put into my Fiero. I was then going to save up for the supercharger after we had the car running with the L61 installed. When my friend contacted me about buying his Cavalier for next to nothing, I couldn't pass up the deal. Once we remove the supercharged engine from the Cavalier we'll be installing the stock L61 I had previously bought and will resell the whole car.

aaahhh i remember that thread now....I'm on too many forums to remember everything :picard:

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  • 3 months later...

Two Sundays past, on April 22, my dad and I started working on my little Yellow Car. First, we had to rearrange the shop and get rid of some useless items that were taking up space; this in itself took a few hours, which ate into our precious time with YC. After we had her up on the lift, getting to the oil pan proved to be quite the task. The ingenious design of the lower engine mount on the passenger side is such that it wraps underneath the oil pan, and then is blocked from removal by the A/C compressor bracket and alternator bracket.

Before we started messing with too many parts and brackets, we drained the oil.

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Of course, my iPhone picture can't capture the full effect of what we found, but in short, my oil looked more like gunmetal paint with metal flake than used oil. It would have been pretty if it were paint. This was a pretty disparaging thing to find, but after much deliberation, my dad and I decided to carry forward with replacing the oil pump and fully reassembling to see if the engine is toast or not.

It was fairly smooth sailing with parts removal until we hit the blasted A/C compressor, which legitimately ate up two hours of our time. We had to leave YC with her oil pan still in place, but with everything else out of the way. This was certainly a learning experience, and we didn't even accomplish what we intended! (Such is the automotive enthusiast's life, I suppose.)

Since I live three hours from my dad, it's not easy to get together to work on the car. He has already picked up our new oil pump/balance assembly unit from Rodney Dickman and will be dropping the oil pan as soon as he finds the opportunity. I will be present to help if I can be, but finding the time and money to make it down there is a challenge at best. I'm hoping to have a final determination on the Iron Duke's future by the end of May so we can move forward with either dissecting the Cavalier or finishing up the fuel system on Yellow Car.

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The Dells Run is June 1-3. I'm not counting on YC making it this year, but my dad and I will be there with his red 88 GT.

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wednesday i'm working on mine trying to figure out why i have no spark i replaced the distributor cap and rotor, and the icm. and now my car won't even sputter so confused.

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:( poor YC, good luck with everything!
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That sucks on the oil.. But it looks like you and your dad have a solid plan of action.

When do you think you'll start the swap if the engine isn't toast?

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Of course, my iPhone picture can't capture the full effect...

well then why did you use it?

I want a lift at my house :(

^^^THIS! it would be great to have one.

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I want a lift at my house :(

Keep working on YC, she'll get there!

The lift was a gift from my grandfather when the adoption of my little brother went through. I think grandpa's logic was, "Jenni (my stepmom) gets a kid; here, you guys get something too!" :lol: Either way, we are so grateful that we have it. It would have been handy to have had when we replaced YC's clutch last May!

:( poor YC, good luck with everything!

Thank you! I'm beginning to think we need some luck.

When do you think you'll start the swap if the engine isn't toast?

If the engine is okay, I will drive YC through this year, and we would probably begin the swap next summer. If she can make it to the Dells Run this year and/or next, I want her to be there. That show is always the first weekend of June. I know that once the engine swap starts she won't be seeing pavement for awhile due to my and my dad's busy (and somewhat conflicting) schedules.

well then why did you use it?

My only other option was my Nikon D90 which I don't want to risk harming in the shop!

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i wanna see this car running its the reason i got my fiero. glad to see the fiero getting some loving

Sweet! I inspired someone! (Or, YC did, anyway.) :)

I want to see yours running, too! Hopefully the Fiero Gods send some luck our way.

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well i swapped out the spark plugs after a hunch guy said he changed them recently that was a lie now i have a good solid spark. hopefully just set my timing and it should fire up

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  • 1 month later...

When my dad removed the old oil pump/balance assembly, this is what he found:

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It's a bad cell phone picture, but I think it's pretty obvious that the pump is shot! It literally self combusted. That would be a viable explanation for all of the metal we found in the drained oil.

My dad put the new oil pump in and had to wait a week before putting the rest of the engine back together, filling her with oil, and starting her up. He managed to get her started up and didn't hear anything negative. However, I was still convinced there was going to be something wrong with the engine. At this point, the next problem presented itself: the fuel tank was leaking. I had completely forgotten about this issue, which had begun right before the oil pump went out last year. I went down to my dad's to help take the tank out and sure enough, we found the culprit:

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These holes were present all along where the rear tank straps rested. We decided that the tank wasn't salvageable, at least not immediately so, because the holes were so many and the metal on that part of the tank was so thin. We replaced the old fuel lines with new stainless lines and had to stop at that point since we didn't have a useable tank.

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This was Memorial Day weekend, and I therefore had less than a week to find a new gas tank if I wanted Yellow Car to make it to her fourth Dells Run. Somehow, via posts on both Facebook and the Fiero forum, I found a new tank. My dad picked it up on Thursday and I drove down early Friday morning to help him install it. After much fussing with the tank, new fuel pump, installing everything, and hooking up all the hoses and lines, one of our stainless lines was faulty! It was spraying gas when the pump was on. We luckily had not discarded our stock lines and replaced the bad one with the old line.

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My dad painted the tank, too, so hopefully that coupled with the new stainless straps will prevent another leak!

Just as I was about to try starting her up for the last time, Monkey Wrench by the Foo Fighters came on the radio. They're one of my favorite bands, and my dad said "Maybe is a good sign!" so I started her up and she ran like a dream! This is a shot from my phone of the first time she moved under her own power since last June:

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After all of that hard work, my little Yellow Car made it to her fourth Dells Run. Here she is, proud on the show field:

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We hauled her there and I drove my dad's 88 GT, which turned 26,000 miles with me at the helm. Yellow Car successfully drove the Dells Run cruise; here is a clip Mark took of the roundabout section (my dad is the red car that is exiting the roundabout at the beginning of the video):

[media]http://youtu.be/_WY3PTjrxXc

I have driven her every day since. It's so great to have my little car back!

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EDIT:

Oh, and I forgot to mention, we brought home this! We placed in our class!

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Congrats, Yellow Car!

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Sweet. Glad you have your car for the summer season. Congrat's. My 1st show of the year is this Saturday. Have 3 to get ready. Countless hours on the GTO. Whats done is done. Sunbird has to "wake up" from the winter hybernation. My daughters G6 has seen many hours of my time too. Should be fun.

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Valid, I am happy to see that both you and YC are still together and enjoying the summer sunshine. Way to stick with getting her fixed. Of course lots of hugs to Dad too. Perhaps we can catch up with you when come to visit your grand dad. ENJOY!

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I have to make a special shout out to the amazing members of the Pennock's Fiero Forum community; Mark posted a thread asking about a gas tank for me, and I posted on the Facebook group, and between the two of us we had the same guy respond stating that he had a tank. Not only did this guy, Steve, offer up his tank he had been saving as a spare for his own car, but his friend Tommy offered to pick up the tank and deliver it to my dad's house if my dad was unable to get it himself. Tommy also offered up his help in replacing the fuel pump and putting everything back together to try and enable my dad and I to cruise up to the Dells with them. We appreciated their help but passed it up since we knew it would be a long process and would delay them. I never cease to be amazed by how generous and supportive that community is.

Sweet. Glad you have your car for the summer season. Congrat's. My 1st show of the year is this Saturday. Have 3 to get ready. Countless hours on the GTO. Whats done is done. Sunbird has to "wake up" from the winter hybernation. My daughters G6 has seen many hours of my time too. Should be fun.

Thanks, and good luck at your first show! I have one more with the Fiero this year for certain, though I'm trying to make a couple others.

Valid, I am happy to see that both you and YC are still together and enjoying the summer sunshine. Way to stick with getting her fixed. Of course lots of hugs to Dad too. Perhaps we can catch up with you when come to visit your grand dad. ENJOY!

My dad needs an award for being so awesome. Sometimes my stepmom wants to skewer him because he spends so much time helping me with my car stuff. We will be in your neck of the woods July 6-9; depending on what familial obligations we have, it would be great to meet up and talk cars!

i wish my fiero would start she's going into the shop after this weekend

Kyle, if you need any help with your car, you should post on PFF, as well as find the thread about the "Fox Valley Fieros" in General Fiero Chat there. You will certainly have at least one person offer up their services to help troubleshoot your car.

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