Festiva #5 (OrneryGarbagebox) gets a major overhaul!

[Advancedynamix]

This is a great thread! And your buddy is one helluva great stick welder! Most would be hard pressed to weld that nice with a mig. You never posted pictures of how your engine/tranny mounts worked out. I'm curious.
Keep up the good work!

[Damkid]

I'm still waiting to see definate proof of the Kia pass. side axle working, so i'll be watching for that update for sure

[Afro]

Just drove it today. Didn't seem to have any probs on the road, but let me get a few more kms on it to be sure there's no noises or weird torquing or anything. I'll try to post some update pictures of the whole project, but I've been too busy to take many pictures. I'm doing a couple more swaps though so hopefully there'll be pictures for those.

[scitzz]

Dude! I might try that aspire back seat option!

[Afro]

Dude! I might try that aspire back seat option!

It's seriously like a 200% bottom comfort bonus! It's ridiculous.

[Afro]

This is a great thread! And your buddy is one helluva great stick welder! Most would be hard pressed to weld that nice with a mig. You never posted pictures of how your engine/tranny mounts worked out. I'm curious.
Keep up the good work!

He's a great welder for sure! He might be welding us some thick aluminium roo bars for at least this car soon.

I had to rush and finish this festiva to get it out of the small garage and into the big garage so all the time I had to work on it I rushed and didn't take many pictures after the ones I've already posted. I'll take some more in the next couple days though and of another build I'm working on to show some details on the mounts and other custom fab stuff that had to be done.

[Advancedynamix]

What are roo bars?

[Afro]

Roo Bars:

http://www.subaclub.com/TechTalk/roobar.htm

Let you bump into stuff a little harder without crushing your bumper or bumper mounts

[Christ]

Hahahah. We call that a "cow pusher". Or a "bull bar" in the middle and western states, I guess.

[Afro]

Ah, yeah we call em bull bars here in Alberta too. Not sure why the aussie term came to mind first...

[Ape]

Maybe I missed it but why swap in the Aspire rear axle? Stronger??


Thanks

[Festiva_Fred]

Maybe I missed it but why swap in the Aspire rear axle? Stronger??


Thanks

Aspire beam is 4x100 bolt pattern and the beam itself has a sway bar in it, which a festiva beam does not.

[jawbraeka]

So while I worked on the engine and wiring, my brother attacked our rear seat problem. The stock Festiva seat was cracked, stained, and very uncomfortable, and people will have to be able to ride in this car for 30 days! Solution? Well, we have a couple Escorts lying around, waiting for their BPs to be pulled, and their back seats are pretty nice and comfy, so we tore one out and tried to fit it in the Festiva. No dice: the front mounts on the seat bottom are the same as the Festiva's, but the rear of the seat bottom frame bumps into the plastic and seat belt mounts, and the seat back is way way to wide. We weren't about to give up though, I mean look at how much nicer the Aspire one is!

So we started to peel back the seat from the frame, and found that it should be pretty easy to swap the frames. Clip clip clip go the little snips on the copper rings

And there you go! Here are the two frames, Aspire one at the bottom. They are quite different, but when it comes to strapping a cushion to a frame, it doesn't have to be perfect, just close enough.

Here is the Aspire seat bottom with the festiva frame.

And here it is all buttoned up next to the old dirty Festiva cushion! It was really was quite easy! Just stretch the cushion front to back enough so that everything is tight and lock it in with the copper rings (You can get a special tool for this, mine is from BMW, and I have a ton of extra copper ringlets from BMW too but I'm sure you can get them from other places).

Then all we had to do was bolt the Festiva seat-back back onto the Aspire seat bottom/Festiva frame and fit it back into the car. The edges of the cushions squeeze a little, but not noticeably and the seat is so so so much more comfortable, you wouldn't believe.

got a quick question here and i know it's a possibility but not 100% certain..

I have a 5 door festy (WA to be exact) but i'm curious to know if the top's of the seats will fit also as i have lost a clasp and spring to do rear driver's side of the car (that's my passenger side) and i'd honestly be just much happier to hear that i can swap out the tops and bottoms of the seats if i know i can do it firstly.

BTW, legendary move with the swap-out.. i like the gen 2's, but i love the gen 1's more.

[jawbraeka]

One last post for the day!
I took the festiva rear beam complete with struts, brakes, etc. out without too many problems, but there was a huge problem awaiting in the Aspire beam we pulled from the wreckers a while back. When we pulled the axle, we couldn't get the passenger side shock off, so we just left it on. Today I fought it for over 3 hours. I tried the 14mm with an impact wrench: nothing. Tried with a huge snipe: rounded the bolt (surprised it didn't snap it). Soaked it in Wurth release compound, hammered on it, used an airhammer on it, all to try and loosen the rust, filed down the bolt and hammered on a 13 mm, rounded the bolt once more. By this point I decided I had to go crazy on it. I flipped it over, cut the bottom of the shock eyelet so I could tear the shock off, air hammered the rubber off and was now down to the small sleeve left over from the shock, covering the bolt. It was seized on good. Nothing could make it spin, no air hammer, sniped pipe wrenches, nothing, and I was afraid of hurting the beam. So I grabbed my sawsall and cut the sleeve and bolt in two places. I air hammered the sleeve off the head-side of the bolt, and then air hammered the sleeve couter clockwise on the treaded side of the bolt to extract it from the threads on the beam. SUCCESS! Beer time.

i hear that heating the top of the bolt with an oxy torch is a great way to loosen stubborn nuts.. saw it on a show called "wheeler dealers" on turbo max on cable tv.

try that and tell us how you go... Next time.

[Bert]

i hear that heating the top of the bolt with an oxy torch is a great way to loosen stubborn nuts.. saw it on a show called "wheeler dealers" on turbo max on cable tv.

try that and tell us how you go... Next time.

When they're rusted/seized on to the rubber mounted shock sleeves you won't see a simple TV program showing how to get that bolt out. What you describe is common practice but not for this situation. I'm guessing commercial installers who do this all the time just 'blow' the shock right off with a cutting torch, and then do what you were talking about in order to vice-grip the remaining stub to unscrew it.