Aaron's 2nd Festiva Build Thread

[Aaronbrook37]

Pretty relaxing afternoon of light maintenance under the hood. The valve cover gasket (presumably... don't know where else it could all be coming from) has been leaking for quite some time, and though my replacement isn't here yet, I figured I would paint the valve cover and re-seal it with black RTV silicone anyway just for now. While I was in there, I had a look under the VC and didn't see too much nasty sludge, though an oil change is definitely going to be needed pretty soon. My crankcase Seafoam has been in there for a little while... but not too long yet. Oil change should be next week probably. I may drop the pan just to see what things look like in there while I'm at it. I also did some serious time with a can of lubricant and my tap and die set, cleaning out thread after thread after thread. I was amazed at just how poor some of the bolts and such were. There's a sample picture below of before/during/after on my throttle body bolts.

[gergorian]

Looking good man!

[Movin]

You covered a couple of my pet beefs..Clean grounds..make for long lasting starters, alternators and better lights. Carbon cleaned out of an engine makes it all good too!!

[Aaronbrook37]

I attempted to unbolt the exhaust manifold heat shield today to find that all four bolts were rounded, rusted, and had broken through the shield. So it basically slid right off and was ready for cleaning and painting. I wire wheeled the exhaust manifold itself just to ensure that the rusty bits I was seeing weren't leaks or cracks while getting a fair bit of gunk off of the cylinder head as well. I painted the heat shield with high heat Rustoleum BBQ paint, just like the valve cover. It's sort of a soft flat black I find... works really nicely for that touched-up OEM look.



Next on the engine bay cosmetics front will be a brand new set of worm gear clamps everywhere courtesy of Fastenal, a shined up set of accelerator cable and radiator mount brackets, and then I'm going to see if there's an easy way I can clean up the brake booster and master cylinder without removing them. I have my doubts though... perhaps I'll just buy spares I can rebuild and clean up and then mount them when I do the brakes and re-bleed the lines. Radiator fan is being deleted and replaced with a slim fan when it arrives in the mail sometime soon. That should cover most of the major grime!

[leapin]

It just keeps getting better and better Aaron! Good work!

[sasquatch]

awesome work aaron, keep it up I cant wait to see how quiet that thing is on the road, I may have to do that to my sidekick...

[Aaronbrook37]

Quick wrap up (pardon the pun) on the headliner... the old one was tattered, discoloured, and torn in a few places... so I just tore that baby out. The factory foam liner was removed and replaced with more of the roof window flashing across the top. I'm waiting for it to cure in the summer heat... because the roof panel does get pretty hot. Eventually it should stick and stay put much to the chagrin of gravity. I'll source a new headliner later... low priority job at the moment. Much like the fenders, doors, hatch, and wheel wells... the before and after knock test was successful.



For the brake restoration, I picked up some brake rotors locally as shipping them via Rock Auto was unreasonably expensive due to their weight. I have new disc and drum hardware, pads and shoes, and I'm likely to rebuild the master cylinder/booster assembly when I do the brakes as well so I can de-rust and paint them flat black. Fresh bleed with fresh fluid and I should have brakes that are as good as they were when it rolled off the assembly line. I debated going to town on this car with a fully rebuilt front end to top it off, but it's just money I don't need to spend at the moment. Why no Aspire swap? I like the factory aluminum wheels too much and already spent an hour or two cleaning them up. The 4x114 prospects are decent too if I want to wheel upgrade ever.

There are a couple little things with the car that I will eventually get around to fixing. One of my horn buttons doesn't work, the dome light works intermittently, a couple of rear seat bolts are missing, and the emergency brake doesn't want to tighten in the cabin on the adjusting nut. It just spins the threaded thing underneath it, which is proving to be quite annoying as a full crank on the handle is only partially locking up the rear left wheel and doing nothing at all on the rear right. I know it isn't 100% safe to have the car parked on a hill supported only by the "P" transmission gear, but it's all I have right now until I can figure out how to get it tightened properly.

I did go hunting for thread-in lug studs so that I don't have to put up with the lug bolt nonsense, but they don't seem to be available from any of the auto parts stores. The fastener/industrial shops aren't open on weekends, so I'll make a trip up to them on Monday. Or maybe I'll just try online and do it that way again. At the industrial shops, I plan to get a couple packs of new hose clamps to dress up the engine bay a little bit as well.

Next week, I should be receiving my tune-up package from Rock Auto. Even though it already runs like a top, I'm excited at the prospect of starting up a set of full service records for the car and to have the peace of mind that comes with all of the parts being equally new, clean, and efficient. Most of it I can fortunately handle myself, but I will recruit a professional mechanic friend for a couple things I don't have tools/brains for. For example, I don't have a compression gauge set, a timing light, or a vacuum gauge. Also, I've never done a water pump, automatic transmission, or timing belt before, so he'll walk me through how to do those things.

[Aaronbrook37]

I was starting to run low on ideas for more sound insulation, but decided to try out a unique add-on for door weather-stripping using adhesive-backed closed-cell neoprene foam. I applied a layer to the inner and outer seal of both passenger doors and the hatch... along with the remainder being used for a strip or two across the front of the hood. I purchased two packages of 50 feet and ended up using about 90-95 in total. Very easy mod that can be done for under $25... haven't driven it yet, but I will keep you all posted with any changes I notice in road noise.



I also started a second deeper cleaning of the rear seats because I wasn't happy with how they turned out after the first steam cleaning. This time, I sprayed them thoroughly with heavy degreaser and Simple Green a few minutes in advance, scrubbed the fabric, and then used the wet vacuum steam-cleaner on them. Here's what came out... nasty grime and dirt! Every day I get a little closer to a smell-free clean car.

[Aaronbrook37]

Because I was bored this afternoon waiting for a buddy to get off work, I went through and took some measurements on the brakes to ensure they're still in decent form. I needed to re-torque my lug bolts from a few days ago anyway, so I figured why not take a look. Pads were pretty low and rotors were 0.50" and 0.53" respectively. Still fine I suppose... but I'm going to replace them anyway when I rebuild the brakes. I didn't have time to get a good look at the rear drums, but it's all good for now. I can do that tomorrow. I took my new M12x1.5 tap and went through one by one on the lug bolt holes to perfect a couple of finicky threads while I was in there and took a metric die to the lug bolts as well. I'd say it was no more than a 10-15% improvement in ease of threading, but every little bit helps, right? Torqued them back up to spec with my new torque wrench and called it an afternoon.

[Aaronbrook37]

This morning was a lazy session on the car. I repainted the front windshield wiper arms with the same flat black BBQ paint because I like it so much. It's the little details that make all the difference when it comes to car aesthetics.



I also re-washed the car but with a finishing scouring pads and heavy duty cleaners instead of regular car wash to remove a few little imperfections and such. She's looking pretty good now I have to say.

[Aaronbrook37]

Things are still coming along smoothly with this project. I've been working on it for several hours a day every day since I purchased it 8/9 days ago, and every day it gets a little bit sweeter. I got what was left of the harness elongated, loomed, and ready for the radio install that I did today. It was a frustrating job because some of the wires were so short that it was a real dentistry operation to get them crimped and elongated, but I managed okay with some creative two-finger tapework and the like. Having gigantic and shaky hands makes electrical work slightly frustrating but always worthwhile.



The rear speaker grills needed some improvement to fit my fairly large 6.5" speakers, but I was able to do the job quickly with a 3" hole saw and then a 1/8th inch grinder with carbide burrs. It's the same stuff I port steel and aluminum with, but at a lower speed to prevent toxic fumes and melted plastics of course. Shop vacuums facilitate easy mess-free operation throughout the grinding process. The front 4" speakers went in without issue or grill touching which was wonderful.



Other than that, it's just been easy maintenance for the most part. The first half of my Rock Auto package arrived today, so I did a quick oil change with more Seafoam to continue the de-sludging process. The motor is already quieter with fresh 5W30, which makes me very happy. Also, it would seem the previous owner's last mechanic forgot to fully tighten the oil filter, which would explain oil everywhere in the engine bay and all over the block. Spark plugs were gapped, anti-seized, and replaced with new units as well... still starts just as strongly as it always did.



Other than that, light touch-up stuff... gluing down weatherstripping, tightening screws in the rear windows, and lubricating the rear hatch shock to quiet it down. That should knock off most of the rattling I hear when driving around hopefully.

[Aaronbrook37]

Since this car may well end up being a flip-project rather than a high performance car, I decided to port and polish the exhaust manifold and downpipe myself instead of opting for a MDM race header. The old heat shield off the downpipe was rusty and rattling badly, so I removed it. Paint is the normal high temp BBQ stuff I used on the heat shield for the exhaust manifold and the valve cover. The porting job was pretty mild just to evacuate the runners of carbon buildup and deposits that were shrinking the port by quite a noticeable amount. I could do a write-up on that if anybody's interested... it's more about tools and practice than reading a write-up though to be honest. As it always seems to happen, I snapped a stud getting the downpipe off... but I'm planning on using all new fasteners from the exhaust manifold bolts all the way back to the muffler, so no problem there at all. I will get a machine shop and or a propane torch to expedite removal. I plan to get new gaskets for everything and put it all back together with copper gasket spray and anti-seize where needed.

[Aaronbrook37]

Downpipe's now wrapped and mounted successfully. Pricey stuff and a bit finicky to work with, but I got it done with stainless steel zip ties too. I may paint over it with more high heat paint but I'm undecided. Early this morning I changed out the air filter, PCV valve, cap, plug wires, rotor, oil cap, brake pads, and disc brake hardware. All peace of mind stuff really, but as you can see by the condition of the air filter, it probably needed the majority of the mods.

[Aaronbrook37]

So I finally managed to get the exhaust buttoned up... the threads were messed up on the attaching nuts from the downpipe to the cat and finding replacements was impossible. My tap and die kit doesn't have an M10x1.25 unfortunately, and the fastener and auto parts shop were both out, so I decided to carefully re-die the studs myself to M10x1.0 instead. The exhaust manifold studs/bolts/nuts were all new stainless steel, the broken stud was replaced, and the nuts on both ends of the downpipe were new also and torqued to factory spec. Good as new... no leaks, no rattling, and no rusty fasteners. And with better heat insulation this time too!

I checked my tire pressure and wheel lug nut torque as I always do just out of habit just because I've had the wheels off so many times as of late, and then set to work cleaning out the factory coolant overflow tank. The fresh coolant I had just put in a day or two ago was no longer green, so I knew it was time to get all the filth and goop out of there. I used plastic polish and some scrubbing pads on the outside to get it a bit more transparent. No cracks or leaks on it fortunately.

The one coolant leak I do have is coming from the right hand side of the radiator. Something must have bent or been pierced when I ripped out the factory cooling fan unfortunately... and my band-aid attempts to stop it and plug it with high temperature silicone and epoxy have thus far been unsuccessful though it has slowed down quite a bit. I know it's only a temporary fix until I can pick up a new radiator, but it's all I've got right now. Unfortunately the only junkyard Festiva in my neck of the woods already has a radiator pulled from it (it's on my white car as we speak for the same issue) so I'm hoping that it doesn't get too bad once the coolant is hot and pressurized.

[Aaronbrook37]

I haven't really driven the car in a few days because I've been monitoring that radiator leak. It doesn't seem to worsen when the car is running and at operating temperature, so I took it for a shakedown drive today. Only a few minor issues... blue smoke on start-up from overfilling the engine oil and white smoke constantly from the downpipe header wrap while it cures and sets. The brakes feel significantly firmer and are no longer making noise... new pads and hardware goes a long way I guess - pedal is a bit higher to engage too. With all of the new ignition parts and oil, the car feels a heck of a lot smoother overall and I'm very happy with how quiet the car is considering I have no real muffler on the back of the exhaust right now.

Today, most of my work was bolt analysis for the Fastener FAQ project I've pioneered on the forum. Also, given that I woke up around 4am on a Sunday morning, I didn't want to be that neighbour using power and air tools before the sun rises. Only thing worthy of pictures is the slim fan installation... I had to make a few adjustments to it today because it was pulling air forwards and the blade was backwards. Flipped the wires quickly and the fan blade with an 8mm nut and good as new. 1730 cubic feet per minute of excellence and pretty low profile as well. Getting a black one was a great call as it seems to match the engine bay pretty well. Sourced from Ebay... highly recommended mod, especially if you're stuck with a single core manual transmission radiator or have an engine swap in the little engine bay.



Coming up... I'm getting help on the transmission fluid/filter/gasket, the water pump, and the timing belt tomorrow. As well, we're going to run some diagnostic testing on the B3 to see how she's really performing... ignition timing, vacuum testing, and a compression test as well.