Girlfriend's 'Fester' Build

[crazyrog17]

I know it's a cliche name, but... She named him, not me.

Link to old "New Festy!" thread:

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36934

It's a white automatic '91 GL with AC and sunroof. A little, well, a lot of rust and at least one accident, but the drivetrain is solid. Doesn't look like much in the pictures but I got it for $200 and it drove fine an hour to get home.




A short history of what I've done, might be reposting a little from the other link.

Drivetrain:
'new' engine head
head gasket
vc gasket
tb gasket
ignition cap, rotor, plugs and wires
oil and filter
front brake pads (one was down to bare metal after a test drive with the new head!)

Body/Interior:
driver's side window regulator and handle
headlight relay
stereo and speakers
repaired wiper stalk

[kumalaba]

200.00 is a good deal for a running ac car with sunroof!

[crazyrog17]

She needs to commute 30 minutes to Detroit for school and also get to work and back.
On her way home today, she called and said there was a 'squeaking noise' the whole time the car is moving.

By the time I could decipher her girl dialect of car talk, I figured out it was the front bearings. They were grinding. The next call was "It won't move" because one seized at a red light.

After the bearings cooled off, she took suburb side streets to get home. I'm looking at new knuckles now. Luckily, an '89 with low miles just showed up at my favorite PnP so I'm going to snag them up tomorrow afternoon and hope the bearings in those are good.

Calling McParts to order new stake nuts for the CV shafts and hosing down the front end with PB Blasta

[kumalaba]

put new bearings in!!!!! timken

[bhazard]

Ain't even worth the time. Just aspire swap it.

[htchbck]

^ that can get expensive though, after buying all the used and new parts, and then an alignment, not to mention new tires and wheels if you don't already have some 4x100s laying around.

[M3NTAL]

Don't be cheap and put used bearings in her car, wheres the fail button.

Do it once, do it right.

[crazyrog17]

Brad, I'd honestly love to Aspire swap it and something tells me you have parts for such a thing... ;D

Donny (xaero_81) just gave me his old Festiva knuckles and I installed them today. They're still loud and the hubs get hot.

In my reading, I searched for 'front bearing' and got a couple threads that more or less pointed to the brakes.

The master cylinder is weird, I've bled the brakes already but it still feels like there's air in the lines. The rotors/pads and hubs get so hot they smoke after a lap around the neighborhood but it accelerates and coasts, what feels like 'normal'.

[walth]

your calipers may be seized on the pins or possibly the piston. I'd rebuild them. I just rebuilt some aspire calipers and it was a piece of cake! If you buy reman calipers which isn't a bad idea I would get semi loaded pair (no pads) as they much cheaper than fully loaded pairs. I also bought the green topped brake disc lube for around 10-12 bucks (but I plan on rebuilding many more lol)

Are you bleeding the brakes yourself or with another person? I like both methods but two man is the best if possible.

no leaks in the brake system right? Did you replace any lines and that's why they needed bled or ?? If you need to replace any, check them all and make sure no other lines will become an issue any time soon

[crazyrog17]

Rear lines have been replaced. I changed the passenger's side disc brake caliper today so I had to bleed the system. I had been wanting to bleed the system anyways because the pedal felt like there was air in the lines. I did it the one man way with a tube into a bottle where the end of the tube is submerged so it can't suck air back into the lines.

I've considered pulling off the calipers again and cleaning and re-lubing the sleeves, maybe replace the boots. I've done it before on my Festiva but figured these would be fine after I put the new brake pads on. I'll try that before I replace the master cylinder.

Maybe I'll just replace it with an Aspire MC in anticipation of the full swap, hahaha.

[walth]

I have aspire master and booster and like it a lot

check up by the front struts at the hard lines sticking through the body in the fender well and make sure they aren't real bad off corroded and have to start all over with your brake maintenance.

just make sure you don't do like I did and cut all aspire soft brake lines like I've done!! lol. at least I found the 18 dollar front lines at AZ vs AAP's 30 dollar lines.

[crazyrog17]

Where do the Aspire soft lines connect to the master cylinder. Along a hard line in the engine compartment?

Thanks, walth

[walth]

there are two hard lines from the master to the distribution block near the center of the firewall. then the very top hard line goes to the pass side and the bottom hard line goes to the driver side. They barely poke through the inner fender wall and then that's where the soft line connects.

[crazyrog17]

Is it a connection you fit a wrench to and can just replace the stock Festiva one with the Aspire rubber brake line?

[walth]

- before you start spritz the threaded parts of the lines you'll be working on with PB or penetrating oil
- on the caliper is a 12 socket or wrench
- then there's a metal clip holding the middle of the soft line to the strut
- then there's a metal clip holding the top of the soft line to the body
- then located at the body section/mount from above:
- use vice grips on the hard part below the mount where that body clip is
- then use a line wrench size 10 on the top for the hard line. (If you have a hard time breaking them loose position the vice grips to the right and line wrench left and squeeze them together / towards each other)
- then at the distribution block you know the top is passenger and bottom is drivers
- they're kind of hard to get going...the top you just have to be patient
- the bottom I set up and then took a super long wrench (1" closed / 15/16" closed) and pushed towards the firewall and broke it loose.

bending the lines takes some patience too but it's easy. just don't bend 90° all in one spot. And with the technical spots I took a large blue shop towel and folded it up til it was about 1.5"x3" and folded it over the line and then put pliers to it and bent everything nice and without scarring or crimping. The hardest bends will be the ones closest to the fender mount where the soft lines connect. Make sure not to forget to position the threads on the end and then make the bend, lol. it happens.

There's a lot of confusion with festiva and aspire lines. Some people have said that their festiva lines worked with their aspire swap. But Nate and I both checked the lines while here and they do NOT match. They will work if you cut off the banjo but don't buy new aspire lines for old festiva brakes or vice versa. And I checked the festiva line on both 18v and 22v calipers and no go. And the aspire lines are the same for both m/t and a/t.

oh, your hard lines are 3/16" iirc and I had to use a 40" and 30" (it was the last 30 they had) but 2 30" hard lines will be plenty for the install. take one of the old lines in just to make sure.

wow, long answer but I think I covered everything, no?

edit>> and here's the line wrenches I used http://www.harborfreight.com/5-piece...set-99993.html