Walth's 1991 Festy

[Nerd Racing]

looks like someone let a bearing seize up and it scored the spindle.

[walth]

IIRC this is the spindle I changed the inner bearing on. the spools or whatever were popping out. haha. so I changed the seal, inner bearing, and the spindle nut since the one that was on there had never been touched since the factory. I'll probably end up changing the other one too but we'll see...

[walth]

well, I'm done with everything but the left strut and adjusting the ebrake. everything is installed, all bolts and screws put back, had just a couple minor setbacks but no issues. I haven't adjusted the ebrake to where I want it yet but it works already.

I think the left rear assembly is new-ish. and I'm very happy about that. I got the wheel off, spindle nut cover off:


started wiping off all that grease...


woo hoo! just what I wanted!! so now all I have to do is drill the right side spindle and acquire the locking cap. It was so nice having this to work with!!

couple of questions...I know the bearings are "metal on metal" and there is friction and I did find a lot of metal material flakes when I sprayed brake parts cleaner to freshen up the outer bearing. but this is my concern now, the "pitting" or whatever in this pic:


just some pics of before and after:

[skeeters_keeper]

thats great that one of the already had a cotter pin... that spindle does look a bit messed up, but I think it is still serviceable. The bearing, on the other hand, may not last too long w/ all the pitting... but I'm sure your getting real good at replacing them by now so when it does start to go all the way new ones aren't too expensive. Don't fix it if it aint broke, right?

Glad to hear the e-brake is working better now too... what was the final verdict? was it the cable? or just the adjusters still a little seized up?

[walth]

definitely the cable.

it's ALWAYS something though isn't it?! the threaded end for the adjusting nut for the ebrake stripped about halfway down, if that. the parking brake works, but i'd like to make it tighter...I guess I'll just take the ebrake off so I can better get to it...ugh! haha

yeah, I figure the bearing may not last much longer either, but having the cotter pin there makes it nice I can just pull it right off. I'm not as crazy about the standard style punch and hope it stays put.

oh yeah, thanks for the bumpers Arty, obviously I already got the front on, but I was looking upwards today and saw mine is pretty wore out...

[walth]

so, this week I was trying to figure out some aspire swap stuff...skeeter hooked me up with a guy in town with two aspires, both wrecked sadly. I'll get some pics of the one with no wheels or front end later...

here's the one that I got him to bring to my house







here's the pic everyone will remember...


As far as I know everything is stock except it's the b3 (b301 iirc) and he put in a festy 5 speed tranny. he beat on it tho as he said he could ride at 70 through a certain twisty area (a short cut) and it's rec'd at 30-35. I know I'll keep it as a spare but I'll always have in the back of my mind it being ridden hard.

I have this car full of parts, interior panels, many misc parts, the front fenders, back seat, doors (windows are smooth up and down), hood looks great. The other car has 36k miles on it w/ orig engine which he pulled without damage from the wreck (from what I could tell), interior panels, hatch (which was mint from what I could tell until he slammed a backhoe or something into it on accident), umm, some other misc stuff

obviously on this car all suspension is mine for the aspire swap. I'll do the rear and possibly the master/res combo before OSX so that I can transit two motorcycles without rubbing and pics will be taken of that

[skeeters_keeper]

oh i can vouch for him beating the tar out of the poor thing... i've seen that car smoke down a bunch of rubber, e-brake slide around the building, do doughnuts, etc.

[walth]

okay so I dropped the beam today and pulled the struts in about an hour and a half. Then I started piddling and pulled the master/res combo and a few other small things just looking. Definitely cake compared to my rusted to hell festy beam the first time (which took like 2-3 days of bs piddling!!) and I pulled the master and res too swwweeeeetness. idk what else I'll do today. I was thinking it'd be nice to have the booster too but idk if it fits the festy? or if it is any better...

I guess sometime soon I'll pull the drums off and service the bearings and check things out and make sure everything is good before I tear the festy apart and drive 630 miles next friday. I really like the aspire brake cable...it's actually insulated. how sick is that?!

[DriverOne]

Not too much helpful info from me, but I've heard that the booster fits and is stronger.

[walth]

yeah idk if I'll mess with it. I "might"...just might later on after the meet. There are some sketchy spiders up in this car and a lot of em!! not that I'm afraid of them but I'm just not looking forward to getting bit reaching up under the dash to get that booster off.

for now tho...I just got in before it started raining and I serviced both sides of the aspire beam. everything looks great. the left side is like mint (drum, brakes, spindle, bearings) and the right side had some inner surface rust on the backing plate but the rest is mint and I'm pretty sure these have never been serviced but not sure. It had the same purplish/red grease that I had in the other beam so idk, whatever. But as far as the inner rust, I scraped out what I could and cleaned everything up with BPC and packed the bearings, etc etc. it's amazing the room inside that drum compared to the festy. Will the festy drum actually fit inside the aspire drum? I wonder if anyone has tried.

Tomorrow I work and then I think when I get home I'll put the festy on stands and start tearing out my good festy beam to put in the aspire rear beam and struts. then thursday I'll finish up, go to the JY with nate, possibly but idk if I'll have time put in the aspire master. I took some pics of the beam and brakes etc today I'll post them later, gotta run a couple errands

[walth]

okay, so here are some pics from today

the drums are in amazing shape!

[walth]

okay so the other day I got home from work, changed, jacked the car up took off my festy beam, put in the aspire beam and got the hard lines together and all the bolts in and tight. got my booster out and started to get the aspire booster in but it was just too dark out.

the next day I went to the JY with nate, got a mazda steering wheel, some ranger tailgate cords, some more fuses and came home and finished the booster and master swap. I actually was able to get all four bolts back on the booster (not as hard as getting them off was) and put in a 2.5 foot or so hard line for the line I stripped getting out of the car, bled the brakes and then I couldn't get it started...

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?p=335868#post335868

and then it was started and drove around. Already a big difference!! haven't even done the fronts yet! more updates to come!!

I may change the oil pan gasket before the big drive

[walth]

so I haven't posted much up in here lately, haven't done much. I tried to put aspire seats in the car and found out the rails are similar to the carby rails but are also about an inch longer so...scratched that idea.

yesterday I was looking at an aspire exhaust and if it'd fit, tore out mine, dropped the beam, installed the aspire exhaust in about an hour and a half. Most of my time being spent on finagling the old exhaust out.

here's the link to the exhaust pics:

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?p=343606#post343606

[walth]

Hey everyone, I've done a little bit of work lately in the last month or two but haven't posted in a while.

some things I've done / acquired over the last couple months:
replaced the oil pan gasket (a total chore!)
window vent visors
sold the black aspire to a gifted guy in Roanoke. I can't wait to see what he does with it
stripped the rest of the silver aspire and have parts for sale
bought a yellow (was red) 93 GL auto festiva that I've started working on but have been working on my motorcycles as well. A lot of projects need to be finished.

Yesterday:
adjusted the valves
replaced the battery tray and put in some battery tie downs/hooks
checked the ATF level...kind of low as it's been leaking. Also figured out the thumb that the 10mil bolt holds down is snapped (pic below)
dumped out the coolant res and filled with coolant so I can get some more of the oil out of the radiator.

some things I need to do:
replace the TB gasket
replace the TC/axle seals and axles and MTX fluid change (which I may not have to do for this car if I get the other car running soon enough)
install aspire swap (front)

I also bought a KB laser's orange dash clock from BraveKozak, I haven't messed with that as I still need to buy a bezel. But I just got that yesterday and I'm excited to have more orange components for the festy

some pics from yesterday:

[walth]

some changes that have been made since my last post:

replaced the speedo gear (old one pictured above)
aspire cat-back exhaust
replaced both CV seals (which don't leak anymore yay)
aspire exhaust manifold
VW-ish stubby antenna near the hatch
tried to fix the o-ring bypass pipe leak but had to reuse those o-rings. still dripping lol

some changes to come soon:
coilover conversion w/ gr2's
Aspire front suspension and sway bar (will try to get the front engine mount welded so it doesn't rub)

some issues at the moment:
not getting the best gas mileage, only around 33-35 and trying to figure it out.
exhaust leaks...
1. manifold is leaking at the O2 sensor and I am curious if exhaust putty will fix it.
2. installed 4 1/16" or thicker washers between the flange and springs on the downpipe to cat flange and tightened it up immensely but it's still leaking. I have a new rubber gasket for that but I'm also wondering if it's leaking between the flat sides of the gasket and flange. The ID of the gasket is a little bigger than the OD on the pipe that holds it and I feel like that might be the cause. As long as I can putty that I won't have anymore major leaks.

I am also working on one of my motorcycles (going to change the clutch springs for more tension) and that will be my DD soon

The city threatened to take two of my festiva's because I haven't had the most time to work on them. So that week I installed the full aspire swap on a gray festy I bought from a member here which had no suspension, engine, hood, stripped interior, etc. And nate and I rolled them both into my 23' garage.

the gray one will be an auto and get sold (cuz I doubt my wife will drive it) and the yellow one will be either stock b3 or hope for b6/bp swapped but I'll speak realistically for short term thought.

here are some pics:




the gray car is touching the wall; then there's about 1/8" between the two festy's; then less than an inch between the door and back bumper of the yellow festy. pretty sweet