The Cleanse | 1985 Fiero 2M4 Revival - Part 5

how many gas tanks does it take to start a video about restoring your car's interior [Music] so in the previous episode lots of small but important tasks were taken care of their radiator fan was fixed so it turns on automatically the headlight motors were rebuilt so that the car could be driven safely at night or in the rain a custom battery tray was fabricated to hold the battery firmly in place the valve cover gasket was replaced and definitely nothing went wrong when that was done and lastly I did an oil change and into the episode with a car that met the absolute minimum requirements for being road ready I did say that the interior was next but not for cosmetic reasons it's next because because it's absolutely disgusting in here there's a grime there's trash filth broken glass but most of all there's mold really really bad mold it's not safe to be in here and it needs to be addressed right away the entire interior is going to be gutted and cleaned starting off with a simple thing to clean I tackled the door panels first and removing these was just a matter of popping off some caps removing some screws and slowly pulling around the edge to pop off the clips that hold the perimeter of the panel in place this side also had the added step of unscrewing the set screw that holds the manual mirror adjustment knob in place and the passenger side was done as well with both door cards out and you can see what we're dealing with most of the grime was on the armrest and the side pocket with the targets locked on faces were set to kill a special cleaning spray that was designed specifically to kill mold was sprayed all over the parts even the carpet and after letting it soak for a while it was a whole team effort to scrub them clean [Music] don't worry I did make sure to clean the other one too next I wanted to get the grime off the steering wheel since that is what you primarily touch when driving a car it's so bad that's the reason my brother wore gloves when you first drove the car scrubbing was going okay at best it really wasn't easy to do with the wheels still attached so it'd probably be best to remove it entirely but to do that you need a steering wheel puller and I think I have one of those out in the barn [Music] [Music] [Music] hi I'm Ronnie from six months in the future and the door panels are finally going to go back on after having them off for a couple months some of the original plastic pins are still stuck in the door but more than that they're old and brittle so I'm replacing them with new ones they're just twisted into the panel then it's the reverse of taking enough all right I gotta say it looks pretty damn good the carpet is slightly faded and the top gap on this panel isn't the best which is a common issue for the cars that had the manual mirror adjustment knob but I am definitely happy with how these turned out okay so both of this door panel as well as the passenger side are now in and they look a million times better than they did when we bought the car they were extremely nasty and now they look almost brand new besides the fact that not wanting to go in all the way in the top but besides that they look pretty damn near perfect and has actually also been about three months it's just the footage of me cleaning the steering wheel school has been really busy it's my senior year of college right now but I'm done with the semester and I'm gonna keep working on the bureau also at this point in time of filming I released Episode one three weeks ago in Episode two should come out in the next two days hopefully if I they keep going but anyways that's getting dark now so I'm gonna work on this tomorrow where does the time go now it's May of 2019 so there is still a lot more work to do on the interior but before I move forward with that stuff I want to take care of something else so in part for the previous episode I mentioned that I will be replacing the gas tank in part and I'm so welcome to part 9 so I found a pretty decent deal on this completely rust free tank and I didn't want to pass up on it and as much as I trust the steel stick I used on the original tank using an ultra clean and pinhole free tank would give me complete peace of mind this tank is from a 1987 Fiero and you can see it's not actually the same as the older ones form was optimized for a higher fuel capacity and you can easily see some differences next to the original tank that it had already taken out dimples are missing in a few spots but most notably the scene where the two stamped metal parts meet is much lower on the newer tank I could go right ahead and put the fuel pump assembly into the new tank but I kinda want to address the issue of the rotted through fuel level sender I could buy a whole new assembly but that would cost around $150 since it is a fear a specific part so my fix this generic fuel level sender a level sender is just a float attached to a potentiometer so as long as you get one with the correct resistance range which in my case is 0 to 90 ohms it should work just fine the only thing to do now is to modify this to work with the original assembly better get to it [Music] and now we have one custom fuel level sender that is in precisely the same location as the original so it should be just as accurate plugging it into the back of the car you can see that when the float is lowered the gauge goes down and when it's raised it goes up nice all that's left now is to install the assembly into the new tank and then struggle for hours trying to get it to fit I knew going in that I purchased a newer model Fiero gas tank but I didn't realize that it's not exactly compatible just by itself the front section of the gas tank is physically taller than the older model gas tanks so that means that I either have to get longer straps or that if the same straps were used on the later models then the hinge point and mounting point were lower so they could be used so as is I can style it properly but even more than that the 87 and 88 model gas tanks require a separate expansion tank which I don't have this tank also can't physically fit due to the lower seam hitting the brackets that hold the coolant lines down so it's probably in my best interest to just sell the tank that I have now so I have to deal with modifying or getting extra parts and then just buy another older tank like I originally had but rest free so I'm probably gonna do that and that I did I got in contact with Alex over at the Lightspeed Fieros youtube channel and he gave me a good deal on a used tank from a parts car that he had hey everybody I'm out here today and I am pulling a gas tank for a fellow youtuber Ronnie finger he needs an 86 gas tank and I have one I think in here so I'm gonna give that a shot there was some minimal surface rust on the inside but nowhere near as bad as the original tank I had on this car if you weren't familiar with Alex and his wife roses channel they're currently doing a t-top firer restoration complete with an LSA engine swap I highly recommend checking it out while I would love to keep working and install this tank in the car by the time it came in the mail I'd already been kicked out of the barn by Roman for his 1978 Volkswagen bus project the car was moved to my garage which is probably the true home of fingerprints workshop most of you guys probably know the barn from these videos but the bulk of my projects have actually all been in here so to keep this interior Endeavour going I got to work tearing it all out so starting from the top and working my way down I had to take out the top seatbelt anchors in order to remove part of the trim that held up the headliner with that done I realized it would be easier to work with the seats out the passenger side came out just fine but the driver side gave me some trouble the slide rails were so stiff and didn't want to move and also the back to nuts were incredibly rusted and no amount of force with the limited room I had could get them free so I ended up cutting the middle side seat rail completely off and then wiggled the seat until the outer side broke and then the entire seat was free so with the seats now out of the way I managed a hammer a socket onto both nuts and was able to get them out yeah it was definitely toast the springs completely rested apart and the sliding mechanism itself wasn't working at all with the garbage that laid beneath the seats vacuumed up it was back to webtop the small things like Sun visors clothes hooks and overhead console were completely removed and at that point it was just popping out the trim panels that held up the headliner [Music] managers really messed up the lower trim was removed as well and then it was on to the center console to clear the way for pulling the carpets [Music] the floor was honestly really good-looking it was dirty for sure but it's so common for the floorboards to be one of the first things that rest out on older cars but the metal and even the paint was perfect this whole process may look like it's completely chaotic and that is however I have been bagging and tagging every Bolton nut that has been taken off the last of the interior panels are the instrument cluster in the dashboard both of which are really easy to take out it just takes a bit of patience after that everything is out and I can start on a one of two repairs mechanical repairs one issue that plagues almost every GM vehicle from this era is a wobbly steering column and unfortunately it's not as easy of a fix as tightening down the bolts that hold it to the car it's all internal so the entire thing has to be disassembled it starts with taking the steering wheel off with that steering wheel puller I got from earlier then the steering lock plate is compressed so I can take off the retainer clip that holds everything in place the turn signal mechanism was unbolted and removed the ignition barrel was taken out along with the entire stock assembly and here is where I ran into a bit of trouble there are two pivot pins that this half of the column rotate about which is what makes this an adjustable steering column and I bought a tool specifically designed to remove them however it snapped off inside the pin so that's X I tried getting a rotary tool and cutting a slot into the bolt in order to get a flathead screwdriver on there but I wasn't having any luck I ended up having to drill the entire thing out on the other side I had great luck just threading in a bolt and prying it out with a hammer I tried the same for the one I had the issue with but made sure to coat the bolt in epoxy and let it sit for 24 hours since most of the threads were damaged during the drilling but holy crap this thing was so stuck I actually broke the hammer I was using to pry it out I kept trying with another hammer and of course the bolt broke off I got so fed up I just ended up taking the entire column out of the car and cutting the entire bearing assembly out - the small chunk that was still attached to the stuck pivot pin but with the main shaft now out of the column I had a clear shot to the stuck pivot pin and after pounding with a hammer and punch it was out with the column stripped of everything else that was attached to it I could finally get to these four stupid bolts that the whole fiasco was for these guys right here these four bolts always come loose in every jima testable steering column from the 80s I did not want to ever deal with this again so I made sure to use red thread sealant to really make sure these guys would never back out with those tighten down the whole column was ready to be put back together complete with new pivot pins in the used bearing housing assembly it was just the reverse of taking it all apart ignition and high-beam swish push rods were put in place the steering shaft was greased up and slid into the column the bearing assembly was slid on and the pivot pins were inserted and hammered flushed the pivots spring and retainer were inserted and locked into the assembly the wires of the control union were slid through the assembly and then the switches were hooked up to the corresponding push rods the control unit was then slid all the way on and bolted up along with the ignition barrel after hooking back up the turn signal mechanism the steering wheel lock plate horn plate and spring were slid on compressed and locked back into place with the retainer clip be cover was slid on the locking plate then the wiring was cleaned up and the mounting bracket was bolted in place lastly the preload spring was slid onto the back of the shaft and finally the column has been completely rebuilt the second mechanical repair that needs to be taken care of is the clutch pedal you may have noticed in some shots previously that the surface depress isn't there at all and that's because it just snapped right up the pad was actually in the pocket in the door panel when I got the car so after struggling on my back for about 30 minutes I finally was able to get the clutch pedal out originally this u-shaped bracket right here was made of aluminum and they bent really easily but mine is steel so I guess the car either got the recall done or was made after the refill but either way the arm of the pedal is still aluminum and the pads still fell off so I brought it down to a local machine shop and got it TIG welded back in place and after a fresh coat of paint the whole thing looks brand new so with those mechanical issues taking care of it was time to go back to cleaning and take a look at the biggest health concern I had the mold there was so much mold but interestingly enough only on the links the wiring loom that had been covered in electrical tape but using that same bleach free mode spray in a rag I cleaned every trace of mold I could find I did not want anything to come back but even though I cleaned so much I probably only got around 90% of the mold and even that's probably high estimation to be extra sure this mold would die I bought an ozone generator and had it run multiple cycles in the car this will kill all mold and you if you are in a confined space with this thing running this is not a joke you will die if you are careless with this machine so while it does work wonders use it with caution and the fullest understanding of how it operates so with the machine in the car and running it was an all-out cleaning spree on the interior panels a lot of the panels were more or less clean with a quick rub down and looked brand new in a matter of minutes but there were definitely some that needed a lot more attention so while I Tom sword my friends into doing more cleaning I had to take care of a problem that plagues almost every fearow at some point in its life and that's bowing out center console panels this is simply remedied by cleaning out the original foam adhesive and using a surplus of clamps after squirting in Gorilla Glue to all the seams and after letting all of those sit for 24 hours the interior panels were finally clean fixed and looking damn fine there was some Sun bleaching on some of the trim panels around the door but that isn't something that needs to be taken care of right now but with all these clean it's time for reassembly the first thing to go back team was the clutch pedal it was definitely harder to go back in than it was to take it out since I had to fight the return spring when installing it but eventually I got it in and it looked great next was the freshly rebuilt steering column it was only a matter of slipping the shaft into the u-joint securing it with a bolt plugging in all the wires to the switches securing the whole column to the frame with four bolts I now made sure the ignition switch still worked and also tested the climate controls while I was at it I said in a previous video that I couldn't hear these servo motors working for the Vince but after I'm plugging in and plugging them back in they worked just fine so with those verified to be working I could put the dash back in it's honestly really easy I thought there's going to be a nightmare taking it off and back on but it's only a matter of making sure the speakers are plugged in and screwing down a handful of bolts it was done in less than 10 minutes next was the instrument cluster but there was an issue of not having me lights working there was power going through the harness to the cluster and continuity through all the traces but still nothing for lights I tested the connection of the bulb housing but nothing however when I pulled the bulb out and tested it directly it lit up just fine I figured out that if I folded the contacts of the bulb in half to stick out a little more there was a better connection with the casing and that allowed it to light up again I would have just done this to all the lights however some of them when testing burnt out instantly so I opted to just replace them all with LEDs but since LEDs are polar I had to make sure they were connected to the circuit board in such a way that power can actually flow through them so with the help of a wiring diagram I marked out all the sides that were going to ground and tested each led before putting them into the board it took quite a while but it was definitely worth it to have visible gauges with that done everything was plugged back in and bolted back up with the rear and lower cover panels bolted up to all that was left was the steering wheel luckily the steering shaft could only be slid into the u-joint one way and there's a notch to line of the steering wheel to the shaft so it's literally impossible to end up with a car that has a crooked steering wheel when the car is going in a straight line [Music] so I thought it would be nice to treat myself to some brand new carpet that is mold dirt grime and sun bleach free while the new carpet is molded to the right shape it isn't cut to size so I used the original carpet as a template but made sure to cut oversized that way it would fit as best as possible in the car so I was left with only minimal trimming I am by no means a professional but what I did was mark out where I needed to trim with a permanent marker took the carpet out of the car since it was easy to work with with it out and this was repeated a few times but finally it ended up looking really nice on both sides the last things to do were putting the freshly scrubbed rear panel rear center console front center console middle center console shift knob and lastly the lower front door trim panels the interior looks immaculate but also not complete the rear trim a pillar trim headliner visors and everything else aren't in and aren't going to be in just yet I don't want to risk damaging the new headliner when I use the wire tool to take out the front glass when it will eventually be replaced but also I have to remove their sail panel and the entire rear clip of the car when it comes to the bodywork stage and I need access to these bolts that the interior panels would otherwise cover up so it's best to just keep everything off for now so I won't have to repeat all the work later so with this being as far as the panel installation is going to go for this episode the final thing to do is take care of these disgusting seats so instead of using these seats right here I'm actually going to use these seats right here but I'll tell you a secret these seats are actually still these exact same seats they've just been reupholstered I was fortunate enough to have mr. Mike from reach out to me he had an extra kit lying around and a color that was close enough to mine and said I could have it as long as I gave my honest opinion of the product I would have been a complete fool to say no not because it's a free product that directly affects the completion of my project but because mr. Mike is an absolute legend in the faroe community I've known about him since I started browsing the Fiera forums when I was 13 years old his upholstery kit isn't just a high-quality slip-on cover but everything needed to completely replace the original there's foam backed cloth and vinyl and even leather options and listing wires so you can properly attach the upholstery to the seat with hog rings just like from the factory it's the real deal so we decided to do it in the kitchen but in reality you can do whatever you want as long as you lay a towel down first to start this it's just a matter of removing the slide rails slipping or cutting off the original upholstery and using wire cutters to pull the original hog rings that held the listing rods and listening wires into place since we have the dope feature of headrest speakers I thought it would be best to get some new and modern replacements the originals were eight ohm speakers and these new ones are 10 ohm so there will be more current being drawn from the head unit but everyone that has done the same thing before me has had no issues with it whatsoever so after soldering on the new connections the speakers were pushed back into the holes that came out of there is no real way of securing these in here other than their friction of the phone it is a little weird but that's how Pontiac did it the original seat covers have the foam pads for the upper and lower back supports sewn into them so they have to be cut out and secured in place with a spray adhesive the new covers are slowly but surely slid onto the seat when it's far enough down the listing rod in the covers can start to be secured to the listing wire in the seed that had previously been exposed by cutting out the foam that covered it and after securing those the cover was pushed down even further secured at the next listing wire and then pulled all the way down the large listing rods from the original cover are slid into the loop in the new one and secured down to the sea with multiple hog rings just to be safe the same thing was done on the other side as well and after hog ringing both the front and back flaps together the top of the seat is completely done the bottom is essentially the exact same process as the top that preparation is pulling off the original and exposing the listing wires in the foam this time however there is foam supplied in the kit to be used as the lower cushions using spray adhesive those were secured in place and then it was just more hog ringing everything down the side listing rods were slid into the loops and they covered just like the one on top and then secured into place with more hog rings in the front just because the side bolsters get a lot of wear there's cotton supplied in the kit meant to be added as an extra layer of padding with that in place the slides were slid around the bolsters and then everything was pulled snugly and evenly and then hog rings to the base we are left with a beautiful piece of art that I am proud to place my buds and my friends and families of butts onto the only thing left is to attach the top half to the bottom half I cut holes for the bolts and then bolted everything together not too bad I really wish I could say the driver side went just as smoothly but I would be lying if I did the u-clip rusted out and was just spinning inside the seat when trying to remove the pivot bolt and eventually the metal around it just rusted apart and bent over I got pliers around the threaded half of the u-clip at that point but it was just so damaged the frame of the seat wouldn't be safe to use not to mention that where they're supposed to be preparations in the metal frame meant for attaching hog rings this seat was just crumbling to bits keep in mind this is the same C that had the ultra rusty slide rails and nuts there must have been a liquid spilled or standing water in the seat or something so the solution to this issue a used passenger seed that I purchased from the Fiero factory which is a fear a specific junkyard you can tell that it's different first of all by the velcro strips only the 1988 seats had that but the main difference is because that is a passenger seat everything is mirrored the clip for the pivot pin and the two holes for the tilting mechanism except that it's not there's already a hole for the u-clip on this side and the holes for the mechanism are present on the other side just filled in with a foam so with the clip swapped over in the tap ran through the holes it's ready to be used as a driver side seat but you may be wondering why wouldn't you just use a driver seat well the thought process is that the driver's seat gets so much wear and tear getting in and out day after day damaging not only the upholstery but also the foam underneath while the passenger seats are used nowhere near as much plus the inside bolster of the passenger seat gets nowhere whatsoever and that will become the outside bolster when used as a driver seat overall it's just a really good practice to do when rebuilding seats so if you have two good seats in your car unlike mine you can just go ahead and swap the bottoms also the driver side seat in the fearow did have some damage on the upper bolster and that was repaired as described in mr. Mike's manual but with everything reupholstered and the replacement rails bolted on the seats are done mr. Mike you wanted my opinion well they are fantastic the seats were put in place I had the wiring for the speakers back in and bolted the rails securely down with a car out of the garage and into some better lighting holy crap it feels like I'm in a time capsule of a car directly after it rolled off the assembly line it's truly hard to believe that this is the same car I pulled out of the dirt over a year ago [Music] there's still the panels that aren't installed since I need access to the bolts beneath them but this looks great it really does it's kind of hilarious seeing something so immaculate on the inside but a complete basket case on the outside so the Fiero is finally at a point where it's safe enough to be inside so if I have to do a test drive after working on the engine and transmission or something it's totally safe for me to do so and that's awesome the gas tanks still has to go back in the car and that will happen probably not immediately next though I think I want to do some engine and transmission work first and I've got a new tool in the barn that's gonna help me do that it's a really really big tool and it's really really cool so that'll be next so until next time I'll see you guys later [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Ronald Finger

Views: 445,233

Rating: 4.9581881 out of 5

Keywords: pontiac, fiero, revival, restoration, gm, interior, upholstery, mold, clean, seats, dash, speakers, carpet, rebuild, restore, ronald finger, ronnie finger, car, automotive, modify, mods, ozone generator

Id: -KZIga3bJ3M

Length: 30min 16sec (1816 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 31 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/NorthboundFox]

So I almost bought this exact Fiero a few months before you did but ended up getting a 97' Mustang since it was my first project car and was better to learn mechanics on. I'm glad I didn't cause I did not have the resources to fix it up like it needed and I'm having a blast watching you fix this thing.

Just landed myself an 88 Formula and I've gotta retrofit the AC so the Houston heat doesn't kill me in it, so that'll be fun, lol.

[u/Ryan_x13x]

Dude I'm loving this series of videos, I've binged all the episodes today, really fired me up into maybe buying one in the next few months, I prefer the 86-88 body style but kudos to you for bringing such a wonderful car back to the road where it belongs!

[u/Zentaury]

You are doing great work, I love the music and the narration makes it look like is not a “fixing car video”.

People is so used to binge-watching everywhere, and as soon as you finish to upload a video, they want the next one to be ready.

That’s a sign that you are creating excellent content, but they have to understand that you are restoring a car and that usually takes 1-5 years (if completed, we can see in the Fiero Forum that many are left incomplete because people can’t continue working on them because other responsibilities) plus filming, editing, learning all the stuff about the fiero (I am not sure if you are doing a second or third take). Plus living a life out of the camera. All by yourself.

You are not Netflix to have 10 episodes ready for them.

I am so scared of become a YouTuber because once you have success with some videos, people wants you to upload videos almost everyday or they will unfollow you because you are not keeping up with your work.

Is hard enough for me to find time to work in the car.

Congrats again.

[u/McCoolium]

I'm glad to see you didn't give up, I was worried for a while because of the pause after part 4.

You are doing a great job and it's a pleasure to see someone doing the work you are doing. Keep it up!

By the way.... you know those things catch fire right? ;)

[u/rumsleg]

My dad had one when I was young and an '84 was my first car. Just snagged an '85 last weekend! Had started watching some Fiero videos back when you posted part 4 and have been notably waiting for part 5 since. While Donut's YT video on the Fiero may have been just the pitch my wife needed for me to get another it's your series that I find the best to watch. Love it! :)