Chuckstiva build

[htchbck]

Behold! the mighty Chuckstiva:







Missing a few parts at the moment... um offhand I can think of... all the glass, the motor, trans, axles, shift linkage. Ya know, all the little stuff. But it has the important parts:



Escort power mirrors and a 95 626 steering wheel



This is where the magic will happen, as soon as I find and engine and pick up the trans and glass from bebandit!

The old engine is blown and the auto trans will be going into babystiva (the wifey's 88lx)



Most likely getting a B6 or a B8, depending on which I find a good deal on first more than anything. Stay tuned!

[91blufestiva]

Wow, I really like that steering wheel, I'm normally not a fan of steering wheels from other factory cars, but I like that one, looks like it belongs there IMO

[htchbck]

yep, and super super comfy, about 50% bigger in diameter. and very very cushy

[htchbck]

Here's a few pics of when I originally got it back in Oct of '08.









Drove to Raleigh with my (now) wife and Joe (wrestler3025) to pick it up, with a BP and festie trans hanging out the trunk of her Malibu all the way there. Swapped the engine and trans to Dean (V8Festiva, rest in peace) and Joe drove it home with me and Mel following in the Malibu. Its a lovely automatic '90 L-plus model, with a rear defog apparently being the only option it had other than being an auto. Before we left we installed the orange tach cluster out of one of Dean's parts cars, and also a stock AM/FM radio out of another parts car, since it was going to be a long drive and there was no radio in it when we got it.
About half way home (7 hour drive total) the driver side rear wheel bearing started acting up. Pulled the wheel and found that the nut had backed off and partially stripped the spindle. We ended up repacking the bearings and reinstalling the nut with some JB weld, which between that and the few remaining threads on the spindle got us home.
I immediately swapped the suspension (KYB GR2s) and Aspire swap from my silver car onto it, doing away with the battered spindle. My trusty Escort LX wheels got their turn on this car for a little while, as they had with all my other festivas before it. Also put on my trademark Escort power mirror swap at that time too, and a nice comfy '95 626 steering wheel.
Not long after that I picked up my red car, and since it was a 5-speed it became my new daily. I swapped all the aspire stuff over to it, along with the escort wheels. The original brake parts from big red went back onto Chuck (although at this point the car had not been named) along with the 13" enkie 92 (or so I've been told) knockoffs that came with the red car. For reasons unknown to me, even to this day, I left the KYBs on the white car when I was swapping the rest of the brakes :shrug:
Sold it to my wife's cousin, who promptly named it "Chuck" (after Chuck Norris, for reasons unknown) sometime in the middle of '09 and she drove it daily for over a year. A couple of months ago when the headgasket blew she left it on the side of the road for a couple of days before calling me to bring my trailer and tow it to her house. During those couple of days someone smashed all the glass out of it . She decided not to fix it since she was about to move to Maine anyway and live in the middle of town, eliminating the need for a vehicular transportation. So now its back at my house, as it sit now with no glass, and the engine and trans out. The transmission will be starting its new life in babystiva (my wife's 88LX) this weekend. Baby's 5 speed has already lost 4th and 5th gear, and since she can't drive a stick shift anyway, I will be doing my first stick-to-auto swap. I have done several auto-to-stick swaps in the past, and since the festiva trans isn't electronically controlled I don't really forsee any major problems in completing the transfer.
For now Chuck sits in the backyard covered with a tarp, until I get a chance to pick up his new glass and trans and locate a suitable B6 or B8 in one of the nearby pull-a-part yards. I've got my eye on two 323s, a '90 and a '91, but I'm not sure when I'll make it there to start tearing them up since the main focus at the moment is getting babytiva on the road so she can stop driving her Volvo 940 everyday. So thats basically a rundown of what I know of the life of Chuck so far... the rest will be written periodically in this thread

[htchbck]

Figured it was about time I updated this a little. The original engine is back in (with a new headgasket) along with the trans I picked up from BeBandit when we were working on his BP swap. Still need to get some underhood pics, but its nothing exciting. All the glass is also tinted and installed, except for the new windshield which I have yet to pick up.



Tint is 35% all the way around. It was very easy tinting all the windows with them out of the car, and all but the hatch came out pretty well. I did the hatch in one piece rather than strips, so it has some wrinkles but I can live with it for now. Left to do, pick up and install windshield, install axles and throttle body, and put the clutch pedal assembly out of the red car in so I can reinstall the steering column. The I have to either patch up one of my radiators or get a new one. May work on the Aspire one I have out of my old roommates car, we'll see. Still a work in progress, but getting closer to running/driving... and like all my cars, it will never really be "done".

[thered56]

mmmm white Festiva with dark tint! Keep the work goin!

[htchbck]

Looking like the wheels are going to be stock steelies for a while. The ones I have are already nicely painted grey, I think I'm going to mask the lip and spray them flat black, then if I don't like the black with grey lip I'll spray the lip too. I'm thinking I either need to spray the eyelids (?) under the headlights black, or just follow the line of the headlights down across the little tabs that jut out under the lights and and paint that part white. Any opinions?

[kartracer46]

Looking good! I would just paint the little tabs white if you do the eyebrows.

Advance sells some oxford white that is close to the factory color in the exact match duplicolor paints. I can give you the name and code to the exact color.

[htchbck]

Thanks, thats what I'm leaning toward since it won't involve removing the eyebrows (a real pain) or heavily masking things. The grill is already off the car, so no problem slapping a little tape on it and going to town. I'll probably use whatever random white I have laying around the house rather than buy a can for ~2 square inches of coverage lol. I still have a can of something white downstairs that I used to paint over the rust spot on the hatch

[Zanzer]

Looking good man! Love the dark windows on a white car :thumbright:

When I painted the cargo area of my white 93 I used Rustoleum Rust Tough white and it was a perfect match

[htchbck]

Picking up a BP this weekend assuming its not gone by the time I make it back down there. I pulled it and hid it under the rear end of a Volvo 850 lol. I was in the MX6 which has no way of hauling a motor (didn't have any plans to hit the yard when I left the house, just kind of happened that way lol) so I'm going back down with either the van or Babystiva to get it. I'm pumped! (fingers crossed that noone gets it before I get down there!)

[skimsucka]

Nice! Rebuild her bp nice choice

[htchbck]

:/ The BP may or may not be getting a rebuild. The PLX only had 180k on it, and was hit in the pass side rear so I'm assuming it was a runner when it was hit. Papers in the glove compartment show it was last registered less than two months ago so doubtful its been sitting too long. Barely even any surface rust on the body where it was hit. I'm hoping it just got hit and they scrapped it, without any drivetrain problems. But hey, for $125, even if I have to rebuild, can't really complain. I'll probably throw it in and see how it does, then take it back out of there's a problem

[Basement_Modder]

I have your (ghetto) twin: '90 L-plus white with no options but rear defrost.

[htchbck]

Yep, thats mine alright, even down to the defog (but I lost that when the glass was busted out)