Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The Saga of El Fiero


April 5, 2008 – The end of the ICE age

Even though El Fiero came home on November 3, 2007 from our local Goodwill auction, its days as an ICE vehicle have always been numbered. The only thing keeping me from starting this was the weather (record snow in Ohio this winter). But the sun finally came out and the temps rose into the sixties – a wonderful day to disembowel my car.

I had a long talk with Mr. Haynes and Mr. Chilton’s prior to embarking on this voyage – both of them concluded that reading the book was better than winging it so I turned to the appropriate chapter and went for it. The Fiero is a cool vehicle – 2 seats, mid-engine layout and space at both ends for everything. It also has a cradle that supports the engine and transmission that comes out in one unit. I figured I would much rather do this work from a bench top as opposed to crawling over, under, around and through (isn’t that some kind of knot?) very tight quarters. Five bolts, a bunch of wires and a few hoses and it was ready to remove (but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).

After surveying the situation and long talks with Mr. Chilton, I pulled the plug (several plugs). A bolt here and there and a few cut hoses and that is where day one ended – dinner was ready and I packed it in for the night. By the way, I do not have the luxury of a two car garage and my wife has dibs on the one holer, so all of this conversion is being done in the fresh air, the way God intended it to be done.

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