 Before anybody asks in the comments, I'll go ahead and address it right away. Why did I choose a Pontiac Fierro as my project car? I understand that the biggest thing mentioned along with the Fierro name is the engine fires. That's what the typical enthusiast thinks of it as a car. It was only happened in the cars from the first few months of production in 1984 due to a lack of quality control. But that's what stuck around with the Fierro name. Looking past that and with the issue resolved, the Fierro is still generally known to be a parts-band car with low power and not so great handling. The V6 option was introduced in 1985, but even with that, there still wasn't a lot of power being generated, well at least not for what was expected from a sports car. It wasn't until 1988 that the Fierro got a completely redesigned suspension and had more power squeezed out of the V6. But that was the final year of production. The car finally got to a point where it was admirable, and Pontiac killed it. It sounds like an 88 would be the car to get, but actually the exact reasons people disliked the earlier models are what drew me to it. The low power was because GM used its infamous 4-cylinder iron-duke engine. This engine was put into so many vehicles that parts are readily available and really cheap. It's possible you see a car with this engine every day in the Grumman LLV. The poor handling is great because the French suspension is from a Chevy Chvette, and the fiercest suspension for the Fierro is actually the French suspension from a Pontiac Phoenix turned 180 degrees around. Again, since multiple vehicles use the same parts, they can be found anywhere for very little. This is any Roger mechanics dream. But aside from monetary reasons, the Fierro is objectively interesting. It is the only mass-produced mid-engine car ever made in America, and probably ever will be made. Sure, there are the low volume cars like the Ford GT or the Falcon F7, but nothing like a typical car production scale. The Fierro is the only one. It was also one huge experiment in manufacturing. Every single body panel that you can see can be removed by taking off a few bolts, even the roof. The car had a space frame design which means that every model had these that same chassis, even the fast back and notch back. The car also had perfect panel placement. Brand new at least, I know a lot of them don't now. But that was because this was the first time that mounting holes for body panels were seen, see drilled out after the frame was welded together. Typically, holes were made in the early stamping process, but not for this car. The body panels were also crazy with some being cast-ear-thane, some injection molded plastic, and fiberglass for the hood roof and deck lid. Pontiac was trying everything with this car. They were innovating. And that is respectable. But it wasn't respect that it drew me to the Fierro. It was love. Or at least Stockholm syndrome. What do you want to do when you grow up? Go on space. You want to go on space? Me, I'm fine with it. It'll be a further one. Why you want to go on space? My dad had one when I was a very small child and I have many fun memories in that car. Most of those memories are me playing race car in the garage because it sat there for years with a blown engine. But it was still fun. It was eventually sold. But much, much later, I bought a super low mile 1988 GT model in high school and had that for a brief period. Ultimately, I hadn't get rid of it since it probably wasn't right for it to be a daily driver getting door dings in the school parking lot. But that was five years ago. And I've got a fear of shape avoiding my heart and it needs to be filled. You know what? That's probably what matters most. I love it. And it's me who's buying it. Stranger's opinions shouldn't dictate what your car is or how you make it look. It's your own choice. And what makes you happy will never be wrong. But excluding all of that, James, why is this so cool? Pop up friggin headlights. But also one huge factor that this car in particular had was that it was a single owner, no rust, all original, 99% complete, and was only $100. I could not have wished for anything better. The only bad thing was that the car had been sitting for 20 years untouched in the dirt where rubber rotted in mold flourished. Not to mention falling tree branches causing cracks and dents. But it was perfect. I mean it clearly wasn't perfect, but it was. Bruce, the lovely gentleman I bought the car from was originally asking $800. But from what he told me, everyone that asked about it either wanted it for a parts or a scrap. I was the only one that wanted to do right to it. And I guess he liked that because after talking about what my plans would be for it and before I even asked about the price, he told me I could have it for $100. I couldn't have said no. The car was rough as I'm sure you can see. It was really sad to see it in the shape, but I get it. The car actually belonged to Bruce's wife Suzanne. She bought a brand new in 1985 and it was her daily. Eventually, kids happened Bruce went overseas for work so a bigger car had to be purchased for the growing family, leaving this car forgotten about. It also probably didn't help that the front ride brake locked up so it couldn't be driven even if they wanted to. So here it is set for a very long time. Until now. On one Saturday morning when all of our schedules were clear, my dad, girlfriend and I drove up to North of Houston to go pick it up. It took a lot to get it and then stuck from the mud as I'm sure you saw. But after a lot of fighting, we finally got it out of there and onto the road. An electric winch would have been immensely helpful here, but we worked with what we had and eventually got it up. So after exchanging emails, numbers, money, and the title, we were on our way home. Before I go on, I want to make it clear that I, by no means, consider myself very skilled at working on cars. At least not at the time of filming this episode. On the mechanical side of things, I've done typical brake pad changes. I did a brake helper rebuild on my old ZR7S, carburetor rebuilds for multiple motorcycles. I replaced the power steering pump on my old 3000 GT and put in a complete exhaust system for my dad's MR2. All things that were done in one afternoon. I've done lots of little things, but definitely not a whole car. I felt like I was almost in over my head with this Fierre project, but that's kind of the point of the video series, to show what you can expect out of your first project car and also to show you what a novice is capable of. And this novice is capable of not making sure the wheels are straight. It's just cosmetic. Moving on from that little mishap, the Fierre is finally here and I can now take a really good look at it. Clearly, the car is really dirty, and that's no surprise. There is mold everywhere, but looking a little closer, the paint is definitely fading and even chipping in some spots. Up at the front, the bumper cover is warped in drooping on the driver's side. To be clear, that is how it was when it was sitting and when we bought it, and not because of the mishap that happened on the trailer, though that did take out a small chunk on the lower lip, but that's nothing a little fiberglass can't fix. The sale panel plastic is cracked along with the window rubber too. The small spoiler thing on the logo track is also bent bent in. That was from a falling tree branch according to Bruce. There's little stuff like Vince being clogged in some hairline cracks in the glass, but the absolute worst thing is probably the interior. It's filthy. I mean really, really filthy. There's mold all over the door panel. The poultry is falling apart. There's filth on the ground. The headliner is molding, falling down. There's god knows what on the steering wheel, and the passenger side is just as bad at the drivers. However, on a positive note, all of the interior components are here. I'll be at dirty, but still all accounted for. So that's nice. The interior will have an episode all for itself, it will definitely need it. Moving on to the back, you can see the engine bay is a little messy. A squirrel apparently made a home in the battery tray, but luckily it looks like no wires were chewed. Just a lot of leaves. A lot, if not all, rubber pieces are shot like these vacuum lines right here. One good thing surprisingly enough is that there's oil in the engine. Now whether it's gone to sludge or not, I can't really tell, but it's better than it being empty and possibly having a rusty bottom end. Up at the front, it was dirty, but everything was here. All headlights, motors, even the jack and spare tire. This car is overall pretty rough, but I think I can get this car cleaned up relatively easily, hopefully, and running properly. I know it definitely deserves it. The next day I got to work. The first thing I need to do is jack up the car, but there's an issue. Since all of the tires are either flatter or falling off, the car is extremely low. It also doesn't help that it's on soft ground. The jacking points on either side are not accessible, and neither is the subframe in the back, which is another OEM specified jacking location. But it ended up having to do it was get a jack and block of wood up underneath the end of one of the frame rails that goes up, which gave me enough room to jack up the subframe from there. And after that I was able to add a jack stand on the driver's side. Then I was able to jack up the frame rail with an even larger block of wood so I could jack up the other side of the car in order to add the last jack stand for the back. And then I jacked up from the side jacking point, so I could get a place where I could put a jack up on the front frame rail in order to add a stand up in the front subframe. I did the exact same on the other side, but you stacks up wood to hold up the subframe since I couldn't find another jack stand. There was so much jacking, holy crap, you would think this is a middle school boys bedroom. By finally, the fero was up. The first thing I wanted to take care of was this nasty mold and dirt covering the entire outside of the car. So my brother Kobe and I quickly got to work. The reason for jacking the car up and then washing it is because more than likely if we washed it beforehand, it would have made the ground too soft and wet, basically mud, and then jacking it up would have been nearly impossible. Sorry for the water drops in the lens, I didn't realize that until I started editing, but hey, the car looks great. Well, maybe not great, but a heck of a lot better. There is obviously clear coat fading, and it looks like that car had been previously painted also at some parts and now the outer layer is chipping off. The trim paint on the back is chipping off too. The lower section of the car looks fantastic and almost brand new. This is probably because it didn't receive a lot of sunlight because it's curving inward as it goes down. The top is looking rough, but that's okay. I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel and I couldn't be more excited to work on this. The first thing I wanted to tackle after washing the car was cleaning out the engine compartment. I already showed you how messy it was so you know what I'm dealing with. It was mainly just pulling out all the leaves, dirt, and twigs by hand and then going over the whole thing with a shop back. After that, it was a lot better to look at. Besides the battery, everything was there and nothing looked broken. Except the battery tray. It was completely russet out and that is due to the moisture trap that was all of those leaves and dirt. It also may or may not have been overlooked at a later point in the series and caused problems, but either way the back looks okay now. I then went to work on the interior. I wasn't going to deal with the mold at this point, but I did want to clean out some of the dirt and trash. So with the same shop vac, I did my best to get everything. The upholstery was so gone on the seats that it was just falling off and getting sucked up. But after a bit of work, it was better. Still really gross, but better. I left the doors open for a bit to try to get some air flow in there to help with the humidity. And after that, I didn't work on the car for a whole week. It's been about a week since I've done any work on the Firo and that is because there isn't really much I can do at this point. Currently, the Firo is on sloping soft ground. I don't want to work on actually turning it started until it's on the hard level ground. So once I get new tires on it, I can go in and roll into my barn and take care of that. But one of the issues I've been having over the past week is turning it the lug nuts off. Let me show you what the problem is. Here is the rear driver side wheel. When this car was dirty and covered in mud, I thought that these were just regular lug nuts. And some of them are, but these are just actually plastic caps for the lug nuts. So I thought that was no issue, but then I came across these right here. These are some anti theft lug nuts, but very, very strange kind. So what I first noticed about these was that they were five spline lug nuts. Most today that you find are only six spline. So I thought that was very weird. But the second thing I noticed is that it's really, really wide. I did buy a set of lug nut extractors to try to pull this out from O'Reilly's, but the largest diameter they had was about three quarters of an inch. These are a little bit bigger at about a little over 0.8 inches. So that was kind of strange too. But then upon further inspection, I realized that not only are they five spline, but they're also not evenly spaced and that each notch is a different length. I don't know if it's easy to tell, but it's just a very, very strange lug nut. After a bit of searching around, I found out that this weird lug nut is actually an OEM part. So what I ended up doing was buying this right here. This is a specialty lug nut extractor made by Erwin. This single piece cost me about $20 from Amazon, a little more than that actually. I have actually already tried this on this lug nut and it did get it off. With the use of a lot of penetrating fluid, it was able to come off really easily. So now need to go ahead and take off the other lug nuts, or at least loosen them up, not take them off completely until the tires get here. But do this for every single wheel. It wasn't until five months after I filmed this that Bruce texted me asking if I wanted a key. Oh well. The rear wheel was taken off to get a better look at the rotors and calipers. I didn't have any lug getting into move and also started raining, so I decided to call it a day. The next day was equally as gloomy, but the tires arrived. And if you look closely, these are actually trailer tires, and don't worry, they are temporary. This is the lowest trim of the fear there was and it has the lowest option wheels, which are 13 inches in diameter. Not only is that tiny, but the smell of size on modern cars is pretty much 15 inches in diameter, with maybe a few outliers. But proper tires for this size wheel are a little pricey, and these trailer tires are only $30 a piece. Not bad. But again, they're not long term, just enough to get the car rolling around on my backyard, and maybe around my neighborhood for a few test drives. Once we got the wheels and tires loaded up, we brought them down to our favorite tire shop, Apollo tire. Once they are mounted, we can start the process of bolting them up. Well, almost. I haven't really had a chance to take a good look at this suspension components yet. They're all okay. Ish. There is surface rest on almost everything, but the shocks aren't routed through or anything like that, so that's good. The bushings are routed through, however, and it's the same story on every corner of the car. Before I put the wheels on, I have to actually make sure that the road has been spin, and I know that they can't already. This one is actually the only one that spins freely. The passenger side was the one that had the seized caliper, so that one is still frozen shut, and then the back two wheels are also not wanting to move either. So before I can put the wheels on, I've got to take care of this first. After taking off the e-brake return spring, I was able to get access to the torque bolts that hold the caliper in place. However, due to the fact that these bolts are pretty shallow, and I also use an Allen drive, I stripped the lower bolt. I ended up having to use a big C-clamp to compress the piston. It's not super-free, but it probably has to do the fact that it's still what that it is coupled to the transmission, so it won't be as smooth as the one up there where it's just freely rotating, but it's smooth enough to probably get the pushing into the barn. But with that wheel free, the entire left side is spinning freely, so I can go ahead and attach the wheels. So I did manage to get the other rear wheel free off camera, but the tough part was working on the front seized caliper that I mentioned earlier. So I did manage to get the bolts on the whole the caliper to the bracket, but I've got this slit over a little bit. I've been going out with a hammer, so it's halfway off, and I finally realized after just about half an hour working at it, that I think snagged on the brake line, so I've got to take this off, and it's then hopefully by that point I can go and get it off, and then finally roll into the barn. So I'm going to do that real quick. So the camera just died, so I'm using my iPhone now, but as you can see the caliper is finally off, and I'm very happy about that because it finally spins. So the Firo is finally rolling around and it's finally here. I may have had to move my brother's project out of here, but he's actually running and driving, so it's fine. The car is rough, no doubt about it. It's a hell of a lot better than lots of other project cars starting points, but I still got my work cut out for me. I am so excited to work on this car and get it back on the road, but that is going to take some time. For now, we're going to call it a day and close up what will be the Firo's home for the next few months. So until next time, I'll see you guys later. So In parallel to the faculty, just here, it's to see where the students are, under a clinical<|bn|><|en|>