alex722607

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I am considering doing a sort of swap of interior pieces that I believe will give me less headaches with preserving originality down the road. I have an 1988 Pontiac Trans Am GTA notchback, t-tops, and many more rare options including digital dash but my interior is frustrating the hell out of me. I swapped my gta seats with ones from a 97 transam, but am keeping the old just in case. The old ones were all ripped up, the plastic was faded and dirty beyond cleaning. Anyway I needed seats that look good + plus I lioke the newer ones better. I want to have them recovered along with my notchback/TTA style rears, sometime down the road. Now I move onto the center console. My center console is showing its age and wear, so I am thinking of putting an 00-02 console with automatic shifter plate in its place to take the brunt of use and the sun and what not- something I don't need to care too much about or grow gray hairs over, and in the mean time I want to have my oem console redone, possibly by Hawks, (re-dyed and the parking brake rubber re-glued. In addition to this I am getting gta door panels in pretty good condition to replace mine. I don't want these to end up like my old ones so I am going to store them and install them when I need it to be original or want it to look original. With my old panels I plan to recover and customize them and install 4 th gen armrests on them to make the interior a little more utilitarian (for lack of a better word). So my question is will the automatic shifter work without significant, undo able modifications to the car, and has anyone tried the 4th gen armrests on gta panels.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

I am going to write this as I am doing it, just putting it out there. Reasoning behind that is I want to be as detailed as possible and if I wait till the end I may forget to write about something. Well any way step 1 as in any starting point: Gather materials.
I got a complete body harness from a 2001 Trans Am, Manual. I took it apart piece by piece. I am keeping the radio wiring intact and using it to replace my own. GTA, steering wheel controlled radios have the same main connector that 4th gen radios have. Next I isolated the window motor (and switch) and power mirror wiring. The fuse box and all the other wiring I am using as I go along to fix any wiring on my car that may have been cut up or spliced or anything. I want clean wiring, no unnecessary but-splices, makeshift connectors, etc. Lots of weird wiring in the car, sort of messy, and in some cases half fast, part of it was with the people that installed the 1st alarm, a little of it my dad (when he just started tinkering and it was his only car at a point in time a ways back), and some of it me (that would be the messy part lol). Anyway next I got Door panels from a 2001 Firebird from a pick apart place. Also from that same place I got a 1999 Pontiac Trans Am center console, Automatic. The console has a grayish coloring which will fit nicely with the radio pod and door handle bezel, plus parts of the dash that are gray. I also got, with the door panels, the door handle bezels, even though I am only going to use the illumination socket and affix it to the current door handle bezel (the 3rd gen gray one), since I will keep them on. I am getting a better set down the line so these can be modded. Also I will need to get the power lock switch delete for these bezels because the switch will be on the armrest. I am not modding the car for the 4th gen door handle bezel. Any significant modding that is irreversible will not be done. Back to Topic: I am getting the appropriate switches as well. On a side note I also got a number of terminal connectors from Clips and fasteners.com so as I go along I can replace anything that needs replacing. I highly recommend this if tearing the car apart b/c over the years, the terminals may have lost tightness resulting in improper connection. This actually happened to me with a couple of ECM connectors - because of them, the car -mind you its a V-8- was running on 6 cylinders- and the steering wheel control connectors on the column, resulting in inability to unlock the radio when the car was powered down. Sort of off topic, but an effective example. Tomorrow, car is going to bed for the winter so I am going to start stripping it in the next two weeks, slowly. In late December I will take up the wiring issue of which I have to diagnose phantom codes as well, but as aforementioned, its probably loose terminal connectors or so I am speculating. So in a nutshell:
- 4th gen door panels, and seperate the arm rests, you dont have to be careful with how its mounted to the panel, in my case their not going back, I got the armrests from cracked 4th gen panels
- 4th gen center console, I got 1999 its dark gray, I don't know if they were full on black in the 2000-02
- wiring, preferably complete body harness, 2000+ is good
-3rd gen power lock siwtch delete plates
-4th gen switches -- window driver,passenger; lock (2) no diff btwn driver and passenger switches; power mirror switch.
-4th gen express down module, which I have yet to get
-terminal connectors
-Possible RAP module, if you want to go that route; and along those lines I am still contemplating as to whether or not put a BCM for the purpose of a gm looking alarm (this last one I am not sure about yet, but I want t mention it now, just in case if ?I decide to later it wont come out of the blue.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Pictures of the console and armrests.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Realized I haven't updated this in a while. Anyway, wiring is going better than expected. I decided to pull the dash and am I glad I did. Residue from sandblasting the car, dust, and what not all found in vents, plus easier access to wiring. Will take a picture tommorow. I already interfaced the radio harness and discovered a need to clean up the parking lights splice. Someone messed with the feed wire pretty badly. Along the way I made an interesting discovery, I think that the car was stolen in the 80's. cheap dealership type fixes with wiring-- I think the radio was stolen at one point with a cut pigtail. Anyway BTT. Decided to put in a bcm, it will clean up power door wiring with neat features. I am using the guide: installing a firebird bcm in a fiero. The cars a cousins so a lot of wiring is similar. At least it's been so far for me. Once I pulled the dash, coated it in sem trim paint and cleaned off the rust from the metal brace. The bcm will be mounted like the ECM on the passenger side ( next to it) also managed to score an nos radio pod. With the dash I also took off the map pocket and cleaned it with grease lightning, it looks like new. I also got a good set of proper gta panels so I can now go ahead and mod my old ones. That being said I am going to be busy busy busy next few weeks with this. Will continue to post pics.

http://www.fieros.de/en/articles/BCM.html

Blue1990camaro

iTrader: (1)

cool, want to see when its done, i dont see the point in switching all the seats just for a show? is this your daily driver? are you trying to win a trophy in a class that requires originality? why not have the newer seats done to go with ur stock interior? that would be kinda cool

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Yea along the lines of the seats I kinda compromised, I am keeping the newer fronts and putting back my gta notchback split rears. Was sort of on the line before because the colors of the seats didn't match each other. So I'll just recover my new fronts and old rears the same color, poss. two tone beechwood tan on black I am thinking.

Blue1990camaro

iTrader: (1)

that would look good

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

updates: I started putting the dash back together today. Along the way I repaired my heater/ac box with fiberglass and resin. There was a hole the size of my fist which someone repaired with duck tape. The car is still a mess from my wiring upgrades/changes, but after wrestling with the dash for two 1/2 days its finally in. It was out for over a month and all the tape was removed from the wires so naturally they lost some of their shape (plus the adding of wires). Along the way I also made my own schematics which I will also post. Most of the wires for the bcm I ran with the dash harness, the door lock wires I ran with the gm power option wires under the windshield and behind the dash.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

I had to modify the mounting for the vats module , so I cut the studs off and fiber glassed the holes left behind. Why? Because of the added wires, there was more of a bulge for me where the harness splits, it happened to be by the vats box. Why cut the studs? The studs added space between the module and hvac vent splitter (i don't know the proper term for it). The module is in the stock location, just mounted directly to the splitter. I had some resin left over, so I also reinforced my fourth gen armrest. I was weakened by me cutting off the mountings for the 4th gen door panel. The picture with all wires is located on the passenger side. c1= green (door locks, replaces the relay) c2=black (power, RAP and delayed interior lights shut off and battery rundown protection) c3=blue (various signals all in the fiero write up)

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Will upload schematics when I am finished tweaking them, along with results and other pics. I dont know if I mentioned it earlier, but the bcm manual is

http://www.fieros.de/en/articles/BCM.html

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

My Schematics, I made these from a download of a 4th gen service manual + Paint and my third gen book. The radio schematics I threw in b/c I installed the uq7 option in my car and redid my radio wiring.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

AND MORE...

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

AND MORE....

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Plugged in the Battery today, no smoke! haha Found a couple errors, but for the most part all good. I have a digital dash, so one of the problems I encountered was my driver info center and odometer screen not working, but after reading up I realized that when I was re installing the dash it didn't get a good ground. Another thing was the hatch release relay. I wired it wrong, even though schematics were accurate. I actually popped the ctsy fuse. other than that, everything is good. RAP works nicely too. Oh and rundown protection works well too. After a while with the doors open, the bcm shuts off the interior lights.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

I put the BCM through its paces over the last couple of days. So lets run down the line: the windows and stereo (with my new harness work pretty well, both normal and RAP), the door locks saw a large improvement in power. In comparison to the old relay, the lock levers really move, and move fast. with the key on the seat belt light stays on until you pull out the seat belt, as if to click it in, the interior lights dim off after a bit when you close the doors and also when you leave the doors open for a long time, parking lights, LED and horn I will come back to, the security light flashes currently because I didn't disable VATS in the BCM, but it works, it dings when the key is in the ignition, the signal for the trunk from the switch is read by the BCM, and it sends the signal through; the trunk opens the first time you press the release button, and the door jambs work well. Now with the LED, park lamps and horn, they work, but I recomend not plugging in the LED until you have the key fob, otherwise, the BCM will log in code 35 (alarm activation). I have one last thing to add regarding this upgrade: I got all signals right from the terminal ends of the wires I tapped into. What this means is that I cut off the old terminal ends and when I crimped on news ones, I added my own wires. It took much longer, however there are no additional cuts in wires for the most part. Ignition pos. voltage is the only one I can think of that I cut into. The schematics I uploaded may or may not depict this. Any "S" (splice) or "C" (connector) designations in these schematics that have a 400+ number are ones that were created by me. and any dots not designated are simply connections at the terminal (old term. cut off, new one crimped in with new wire).
Now with regards to the door panels I got GTA stock panels, so I can tear apart my old ones. I am starting with the drivers side. First things first, the armrest I got from the 4th gen panels, I cut the studs off and fiber glassed it to reinforce. In order for a flawless mount, it needs to have GTA armrest mounting holes and not interfere with the dash. As for the console I am thinking of softening the plastic on the auto plate enough to remold it a little enough so I don't have to hack up the shifter. If its bad after I'm through, I will get a manual plate for it. Anything is better than hacking the car though. This will all have to wait until around March when I pull the car out so I have enough room to do all this.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Well I don't know if I mentioned this before, but last year I got this great idea to paint all my interior plastics. Turned out that palomino was not a great match to beechwood tan- found out the hard way. So I stripped the sem paint off only to take the shine of the original color and leave some paint residue behind that is almost impossible to remove without light sanding. What to do-- My dad told me that back when he was my age and he worked for a dealership, and they got interior plastics to replace damaged ones, they came in black and sent them out to be painted. That is what I have to do as it turns out. I am not attempting this again. With the car itself: realized that the auto shifter plate for the 00-02 console will not fit with out significant modding- and yea I've read this before, but I had to see it for my self. So I tired reforming the plastic, but it was to far off. Rather than quitting, I took a different approach. I cut out the center, where prndl mounts to and I will reform a new, custom encasing for prndl for the shifter out of fiberglass. So far so good. Also what I stole from the 4th gen panels before I tossed them besides the armrests was the window felt. It is pretty close in length to ours. That's my rambling for now. More to follow, soon I hope -- weather permitting that is.

The Project

iTrader: (6)

Great work so far. Don't forget the pics.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Updates:
Well I have progressed minimally, it's just too damn cold. But every chance I get I make use of, so:
I have done a little fiberglass work with my old door panels, those that I am modding -- mostly fixing the problems that it has -- broken rail mountings and breaks in the actual panel. Also I have cut out the opening in the 4th gen shifter plate so that I can mod it to fit the 3rd gen position of the shifter. In the end its going to be fiberglassed so I also sanded it down with a high grit sand paper to get rid of the ridges. Also in one of my pics you will see the door panel rails. The felt is from the 4th gen panel. I riveted it on, it looks better, it also feels better, besides if I have it why not use it.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

more pics

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

more

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

and more

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

and lastly.... for now .... oh and BTW you see in the background one of my stock panels, honestly before I touched my panels, they never looked that good

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

The other day I decided to line up and drill out the holes in the new armrest. It came out decent, the holes were spot on. The vinyl gave me a little trouble in that I couldn't attach the screw caps how I envisioned. Anyway, I bolted it on to the door, fits like a glove --- and still stock doors. Everything fit nicely and the armrest is nice and sturdy. For trans am and camaro door panels (non GTA) I would imagine that you wouldn't have to cut the insides (the 4th gen panel mounting studs) out of the armrest. I had to for mine because of the GTA armrest mounting bracket. Anyway after I screwed it on, I closed the door, it fit very nicely and cleared the dash perfectly. As for the use of the armrest itself, in comfort, it differs very little. The only thing I am going to have to get used to is controlling everything with my left hand. Tomorrow I hope to get the BCM programmed to the key fob I am getting, USPS willing that is. The other picture, is of how I am modding the shifter plate. The cloth is fiberglass layed on top of tin foil (so it doesn't stick) layed on top of molded (I took some cardboard, wetted it, and molded it to my desired position. Then I dried it with a heat gun a little, and the rest was an overnight dry) thin cardboard. I don't want it to stick to the plastic plate and the cardboard just yet, because I want to have a working mold to work with (trim, add to, etc.) before I go ahead and fuse the fiberglass mold and the plastic plate together. The black dot in the middle is a sheet metal screw that is marking the position of the shifter. It is all starting to come together, finally.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Well I don't know about everyone else, but I certainly made good use of the weather. All the pieces are slowly coming together. I did a vats bypass (for now) on the bcm and programmed a key fob to it. I also worked on the new shifter overlay and progressed on my door panels.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

and some more pics, What I did with the shifter plate is I made an overlay for it and integrated, so far, the opening for the shift indicator. I also made a base for the actual shift indicator because the 4th gen one was rounded, I had to emulate the 89+ design in a sense. As for where the actuasl shifter will go, I will use the leather boot, but that is a while away yet.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Well now, I have just recovered my driver side door panel. It has the sort of ruffled look. It came out okay in my opinion considering its just a sheet of vinyl - no molding or sewing, it looks different. When I first stood back to see, it looked a little like trans am panels mixed together with 96-02 Mercedes E320 panels (the ruffled look). I gotta say it was a pain in the *** to work the vinyl. I also worked on the shifter plate. I cut out the slot channel for the shifter and installed a leather boot. All that's left is to replicate the driver panel on the passenger panel, install door trim, and then affix the shifter overlay onto the shifter plate, sand, primer and paint it. Then its done. All in all I've come a long way since October. Pics attached.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Before I redid the panels, they had a black insert, which I installed. The black insert, did not go well. I used a heavy, pasty glue which when I reinstalled the old stock vinyl, leaked out . The black vinyl insert had a bunch of smudges in it. The whole thing looked like crap. The panels can be seen in the photo below just barely, but because I was so ashamed of my work, when I pulled off the old stuff, I didn't even take a picture of them in particular, I just tossed the old material. Another reason I attempted this thing is because of the windows. I had to fix the ground cable for the stock power windows a year ago. This past summer, I cut it with the parking brake, while it was raining. Unknowingly, I began tapping on the motor. Took 10 minutes before I checked it with a meter. Sure enough -- no ground. Another extension has to be spliced in. Thats were the console and door panels originated from. So why the BCM. When I took the car to my school, I had an aftermarket alarm in it. It worked for the entire summer, until September. I hit the lock button - she locks, parking lights flash. I decide to check it, I am a little paranoid when it comes to this car. Open the door with the key - no alarm!!!! Nevertheless, I was really nervous that entire day. When I got home, I tore it apart and I discovered it was the module. That's part one. Part two is that I got a RAP module for just the stereo. The damn thing wouldn't work right. So I started looking into gm options. Almost settled on the 93-95 setup - I couldn't pass up straight forward, then I figured, what the hell, why not, lets go for the bcm. When I came across the fiero article I was sold. Now the only problem I have is that when reinstalling everything, I didn't route radio,hvac, center console wiring correctly. I gotta pull the dash back again. The important thing is that it's driveable and it works. Best of all I will never have to worry about the interior again. Once I tidy up, I have to focus on the engine bay.
If and when someone else looks at this thread, I have to say, it took long because it wasn't the only thing I had to do. Another thing, if you use trans am or camaro door panels for this, you probably won't have to do as much work with the door panels. The shifter plate was a chore.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Over the weekend, I decided to put the hush panels back and very quickly realized I could NOT have the bcm on the passenger side. Also I had to move the vats box a little b/c the increase in wiring prevented the dash from fitting stock. I placed them both above the convenience center. In addition I was able to completely hide/shield all wiring. No wires will ever be visible on the dash. That was a challenge for this car in particular- she was a daily driver.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

one door panel on door, center console shifter plate overlay next, then other door panel
Both stock and these are completely interchangeable --- WAS NOT EASY

shifter plate overlay is more challenging than I thought it would be: I keep hitting snafu's

BTW, the panel looks much, much better in person

The Project

iTrader: (6)

Great work so far.

Don't worry, I've had projects where I kept running into problems and setbacks. Just keep going and you'll end up with something truly unique and your own.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Done, and I drove it for the first time today with the complete new interior. Gotta say, its different. Shifter plate was more challenging than I thought, instead of sanding priming and painting, I covered it in black vinyl with padding underneath (thicker in some spots than others). Passenger door panel came out the exact same as the driver one, but it went smoother. Black circles represent extra padding.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

I mounted the aux cable to the left of the off switch on the hvac in symmetry with the ash tray light, btw, the shifter plate i made has no ash tray, instead of it i put a wrist rest (its padded and where your hand would got when driving.)

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

Well I made a few tweaks to my interior. First off I originally planned to recover the seats I got for the car from a 4th gen. However, Ultima seats are better. So I did the best of both worlds. As we know, 4th gen seats are power, well the driver is, so I converted my drivers seat to power by bolting over the tracks.

I then sprayed the plastics for the switches with fiero beechwood paint. Looks great. I also wanted my passenger seat to be 4 way adjustable, so I took the manual track from the drivers side, took it apart, and replaced the rails with the ones from the passenger seat. Not fun, but I dont get complaints about the exhaust hump anymore.

Basically 3rd gen ultimas with 4 gen electronics and hoses. My seat covers were from classic industries. I had a local upholstery shop sew on the plastic side bolsters.

As for the console and door panels, well I started playing with bondo a whiile back to patch a hole in the cowl the body shop missed (how I will never know, damn thing was the size of my fist) Anyway, I decided to try again with the shift plate and so I got it all smoothed out for the most part and it looks pretty good.I am not sure if I want to revisit the door panels or not.


And also 4th gen belts, that look completely stock.
I will post some pics tomorrow and also my process for the seats.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/...ps510dd3f7.jpg
http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9a33b9ba.jpg
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http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/...psb2558f4f.jpg
http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9a788be0.jpg

mmadden55

Good job on that.

alex722607

iTrader: (3)

My seats were ripped up, and my solution was go buy 4th gen seats.
I missed my ultimas, so I decided to use my new ones to repair the old. First was to get the old seats down to the frame.

Passenger seat:
Start by removing the rails and then proceed to seperate the top from bottom. Three bolts hold them together, then remove the seat covers. I removed everything and shot the frames with painters touch black paint. I took the air pump of the new seat along with the thin metal rods and just placed it right on the ultima bottoms.

Now they are shorter, so I used the springs to secure them properly, but they can fall out easily and so to prevent that I crimped the springs for a tight fit.

With the rail and making it 4 way adjustable, unbolt the drivers rails and seperate the moveable pieces with a pry bar. Do this slowly and you should be just fine. Metal ball bearings are there so you have to be careful not to lose them.

Once they are out, I cleaned them and shot them with a coat of black paint. Then I did the same with the passenger rails. The rest (power rails) was bolt off 4th gen, bolt on 3rd gen. The plastics I shot with a coat of fiero beechwood paint, available from the fiero store.