This is the adaptor/spacer that bolts onto the crankshaft. Since the engine/tranny spacer is fairly thick, this one is needed to space the flexplate back the correct distance into the tranny. The flexplate bolts onto this spacer, the torque converter bolts onto the flexplate, the transmission bolts onto the main adaptor plate and, hopefully, it all fits.
Well, it almost fit. The part of the tranny that comes around the side of the engine was hitting the adpator plate. I just had to take the corner off the adaptor plate and then it fit OK. That's the problem with fitting a transmission from a front-wheel drive car to a small block Chevy. The transmission wraps around the side of the engine, which this engine was never designed for. I also trimmed a little off the side of the block, but that was back when I was trying to use the adaptor plate for a manual tranny, so I'm not sure if the trimming is needed or not; looking at this picture, I think it is.
This is the "nose" of the transmission, that comes around the side of the engine. It comes right up to what is normally the engine mount location on the engine. On the front-wheel drive cars, there is a bracket to support the tranny at this point onto the engine. I thought that was a good idea so I made one. What you see here is part of the bracket that came with the tranny. I've moved it to the end of the tranny (it used to be one flange back, but that would be in the way of the exhaust here) redrilled the lower bolt hole, and cut the top part of the bracket off.
I've cut a mount plate that bolts up to the side mount location on the engine. The blanking plate you see on the right is the fuel pump block-off; I'm using an electric fuel pump so I don't need the mechanical fuel pump drive.
I've welded some metal between the 2 pieces, cleaned up the edges, and painted it. Should do a good job bracing this end of the transmission.
The alternator and A/C compressor are mounted back on the engine. They both have to be adjusted, forward/back, to line up the pulleys with the main crank pulley. This is done with various washers between the units and the mounting plates. I did it as close as I could with measuring and eyeballing, and then had an idea...
I set up a laser unit that projects a spinning beam and lined it up parallel with the front of the engine. The beam was projected on the centre of all 3 drive pulleys when I had them all aligned properly. Pretty high-tech stuff, eh?
A bit hard to see, but this is looking down on all 3 pulleys. You can see the red laser light on the centre of all 3. I think they are lined up pretty well. Now to measure and hit the local NAPA for a drive belt. The guys at the Bolton NAPA are very helpful when it comes to buying stuff for a wierd project like this. Most places want to know an exact application to give you a part. Can't really do that for a V8 engine in a Fiero!
The engine is back in the car for another test fitting. What I noticed right away is that the alternator interferes with part of the firewall. This is looking up at the back of the alternator. The black bulge very close to it is a part of the firewall, and the pulley is actually touching it. The problem is that to tighten the drive belt, the alternator has to swing out (forward, towards the firewall - left in this picture); obviously it can't do that at all. So next time the engine comes out I'll have to do some cutting/welding in this area. Not sure why it is so close. If I moved the engine back on the cradle, then the rear exhaust header would interfere with the trunk. I don't think this will be a major problem to fix.
This shows the hole I cut in the fenderwell for the electric water pump to stick through. The engine is installed without it, and then the pump is installed onto the engine through this opening. I have to tidy up the edges a little and paint them.
The engine came back out so I could fix up the area where the alternator was hitting the firewall. If you are going to make a dolley to put the engine on, or buy one, make sure it will go over the legs of the engine hoist; this will save you a lot of headache. Otherwise you lower the engine down onto the dolley, and it is sitting on the legs of the hoist. Then you can't move the hoist out of the way and it is a royal PIA.
These pictures show the area I cut out to clear the alternator, before and after. Part of it was a double wall, and it was fairly thick. Makes sense since this carries the loads from the front cradle mount, just below it. I put the engine back in briefly to make sure the alternator cleared, before I weld new metal in. It cleared nicely. I actually cut out more than I had to, but I'll reinforce it with new metal to make sure it is at least as strong as it was.
While the engine was out I tried fitting the oil dipstick tube in and found that it was fouling with the header tube. It needed a little more of a bend near the bottom, and then it cleared OK. It looks like it is hitting the flange, but it is clear of that too. This might be a little awkward to get at, since it is at the front of the engine, up against the firewall. I'll see the next time the engine is in how accessible it is. I think it will be OK. This is the older style of dipstick that goes in the block. There is a newer style that goes in the oil pan and it is on the other side of the engine. Might give better access with that style, but I'll see if I can use what I have.
This is the part that was cut out to clear the alternator. New metal has been welded in and painted. It clears the alternator and the thicker metal welded in should make it as strong as it was before the area was modified.
Check out these babies! The body of the Dinero is wider than the Fiero, so the wheels have to stick out farther to look right. The wheels that came with the car had the right offset, but I don't like them (and they are only 15"; hard to get decent tires for 15" wheels these days). The wheels I'm gong to use are 16" with a "normal" Fiero offset, so I have to use spacers. I calculated that I'd need 1" on the front and 2" on the rear. These were made by a company in Florida that specializes in this so I know they are properly designed and made. Yes, I probably could have made them on my lathe if I wanted to spend 6 months at it (and who knows how much wasted aluminum).
No, I haven't given up on the project and taken up plumbing......yet. These are the water pipes that I made. I suppose I could have run rubber hose from the connection points to the engine, but I wanted metal lines for as much of the run as possible. Some of these are close to the exhaust and other components and the metal lines look better and are more secure. I'll just use rubber hose to connect the end points of these lines to the engine and factory hose ends in the car. I debated different ways of making these and thought that copper plumbing pipe would be the easiest and should do the job (after all, radiators used to be soldered copper and that seemed to work well). The large pipes (1" copper) are almost the same diameter as the factory lines that run from the radiator, down the sides of the car, to the engine compartment. These connect from the radiator to the electric water pump inlet, and from the engine outlet back to the rad. The smaller diameter ones (1/2" copper) connect the heater lines in the center of the firewall to the front of the engine. The piece with 3 ends connects the radiator to the water pump and also the heater return line into the pump. I'll clean them up and paint them black so they won't look so much like household plumbing.
The fuel tank with the black paint is the one from the white Fiero, that is going in this car. The other one is the tank that came out of this car; it has a small leak and the fuel pump (in the tank) is from a 4 cylinder car. The tank from the white Fiero has a 6 cylinder fuel pump in it which should be suitable for the V8. Since the V8 is carburetted it doesn't need high fuel pressure, so a pressure regulator will be used to step it down and return the excess fuel to the tank. The wiring harness was different for the 2 tanks/pumps, so I swaped the Dinero harness onto the white Fiero tank. I even found some split-loom left over from another project that was the right size to cover up the wires and give that factory look.
The alternator and A/C compressor have been mounted (hopefully for good now) on the engine. In order to get the pulleys to line up, and with the A/C compressor I had, the mounting bolts were interfering with the A/C drive pulley. I ground the heads of the 2 mounting bolts to just clear the pulley. I considered taking the pulley off and spacing it farther forward to clear the mounting bolts (and then spacing the unit back a bit), but it is not an easy job with these compressors to remove the pulley, so this was easier and should be secure enough. For now I probably won't bother with hooking up the A/C lines, so the compressor pulley will just be turning with the belt without any load. Once the car is all sorted out I'll see about getting the A/C working. Since my wife says this is going to be her car, it will have to have working A/C....I guess as long as it is not working it is still my car.
Recognize this part of the Fiero? No? OK, it isn't a Fiero. This is my brother's Caravan with rusted-out shock towers; apparently a common problem on these. I don't think you're supposed to be able to see the spring from the engine compartment! We ground out the rusty area and welded new metal in.
Much better! We welded in some 11 gauge sheet metal (left over from the Dinero project) in place of the tinfoil that was originally there, so it should outlast the rest of the vehicle.
This is the other side. It was in pretty much the same state as the first one. This is MIG welding, using a flux-core wire (no gas). This is what I have been using on the Dinero. When I go to weld the exhaust system together I'll use the gas again with solid wire, since it is supposed to be better with thin metal.
Back to our regularly scheduled program. There is a lot going on in this picture, so I thought I'd label it. The 2 heater lines are the 1/2" copper ones I made, now painted black. They connect to the lines in the car coming from the heater. The fuel lines I brought from the tank out through a hole into an area that is, hopefully, convenient to the regulator/carb area. This made things pretty congested in this area, so I'm not sure it was a good idea. Also, the connections up under the car to the tank are pretty hard to get at; if they leak I may be pulling them out and running them a different way.There are also 2 cables coming out of the same area, one is the throttle cable and the other is the tranny shifter.
I'm adding some insulation to replace the factory black stuff that I took off (since it was pretty dirty and disgusting). This is just cut and fit, not glued on yet. It should help keep the noise down in the car and will also help prevent heat from the forward header from heating up the firewall sheetmetal (and transmitting that heat into the car). I may put 2 layers here since each layer is only .25" thick and it is pretty easy to work with. The engine has been in and out several more times while fitting the fuel and heater tubes to make sure they don't interfere with anything (like hot headers).
That's it for the progress to date. I think the engine is very close to going in for the last time, after the insulating is done.....stay tuned.