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First Festiva. 90 Pop Yellow revival and build thread.
I have been very busy with my first Festiva since I got it home almost 2 months ago. I finally have it roadworthy, so i figured i would take my new free time to start my build thread.
Back in high school, Eviljimchicken told me about his Ford Festiva, I was interested but never got a chance to see it. One day years later we met up and I saw his b6t swapped festiva for the first time. After going for a ride I knew I had to find one.
I immediately started browsing the forums trying to learn as much as I could about these little cars. I searched craigslist and the wanted/for sale section for months to find a festiva to replace my daily driven 1999 Isuzu Hombre, which was not exactly a satisfying car to drive. My first car was a 2001 Acura Integra GS-R, so I was looking forward to going back to a small front wheel drive Japanese hatchback.
Here is the for sale thread that ended my search: https://fordfestiva.com/forums/showt...-5spd-For-sale
The owner told me he drove it to Orlando from Inverness, FL every day to get to his job. That would explain the miles on the car and there was enough evidence of that for me to believe him. He claimed to be the original owner of the car. It had been sitting for 5 years and driven periodically. He stopped driving it a little over a year ago once the brakes got very stiff. He had very low confidence in this car being able to drive. I thought otherwise.
One very long weekend later my very own Festiva arrived home after being towed 7 hours behind a uhaul box truck. My original plan was to drive it home, but the stubborn seller wouldn't even let me off of his yard with the car unless I showed up with a trailer. He claimed I would not be able to stop the car the brakes were so stiff, and wouldn't let me inspect them to grease them up. After driving all the way down to Tampa to see the car and being continuously shut down by the owner, I was determined to get it home. Here is how it looked the morning after it arrived.
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The engine cranked and ran but did not idle, the brake pedal was frozen, all 4 wheel bearings made lots of noise, the tires were old, one had a fast leak, the steering rack had a lot of slack, there was a mouse living in it somewhere, every window had peeling tint, there were these strange green zig zag stickers on it, the air filter housing was held together by hopes and dreams, the shifter had a lot of play, the exhaust had a massive leak, it leaked a significant amount of oil, the suspension didn't feel quite right, the fuel gauge didn't work, and of course the interior smelled awful and was covered in a thorough layer of slime, dirt, and hair. I also wasn't a big fan of the wheels. To me they made it look like a matchbox car.
I was prepared for a project, but this was more than I was expecting. I had never had a project car before.
That day I got home from work and figured the place to start would be brakes. I took off the front wheels to find that the previous owner had installed very cheap wheel studs and lug nuts with his cheap wheels. The nuts did not properly fit the wheels. Each nut had a large washer so that they could hold the wheel on. Some of the studs had also frozen into the nuts so that the rusty studs screwed out of the hubs, bringing some of the threads with them. So far off to a bad start.
This happened on every wheel of the car. Bad studs pulling out threads every time I took a wheel off. I really hated these things.
I went ahead and greased the slide pins and put it back together. The brake pedal would now move, but felt gritty. Rear wheel bearings and brakes were up next.
Eviljimchicken came over and helped me with the rear bearings. The bearings went smoothly and the rear hubs were ready to go. This is what the brakes looked like under the hubs.
The shoes had no pad material left and each wheel cylinder leaked brown gritty brake fluid. Eviljimchicken and I tried to just put new shoes on and close it up for now but the passenger side hub refused to go on.
That weekend both wheel cylinders were replaced and all parts of the rear brakes were reset and thoroughly greased, but the hubs still refused to go on. After spending an entire Saturday scratching my head i found that one of the new brake shoes was thicker than the rest. I ended up having to sand down the material on one of the shoes to make them fit.
I decided to flush the brake system with new fluid while i was at it. Here is the color of the fluid that came out.
That would explain the gritty feeling brake pedal. The car stopped well, but the brake booster was definitely not working.
Next up was the idle. Eviljimchicken advised me to take the throttle body off and clean it out, especially the idle screw. The screw got jammed in from the rubber seal seizing to the throttle body and getting stuck in the threads. I took it to Eviljimchicken after work and after an hour of messing working the screw back and forth it was finally out and replaced with one he had sitting around. After a new gasket the engine idled perfectly.
After researching my options for the steering, I got a rebuilt rack from The Festiva Store. I ordered the new rack along with moog inner and outer tie rods. I got the old rack out and put the new rack in on 2 separate nights after work in the cold with very little light. Needless to say it was not the most fun job. The old rack had no bushings left and each inner tie rod had a 1/4 inch of play. The next day I got the new tie rods installed, using my combination square from work to set the new tie rods up similarly to the old ones. surprisingly the alignment came out pretty well but still needed later adjustment.
I started on the interior next. I took each front seat out and began pulling the fabric from the foam to clean. Each piece of fabric went into the washing machine, which didn't clean anything. They then went into the bath tub with a thorough helping of oxyclean. The dirt that came from the seats was incredible, turning the water to a dark brown color. Each seat fabric was reassembled with zip ties and all the plastic pieces were cleaned. I was very satisfied with the results.
At this point the little Festiva was driving a lot better but the project was definitely taking a while with me working full time. Then this happened.
On the first cold wet morning of the Charleston winter I ran into a patch of ice on my morning commute to work. The bed of my little Isuzu pickup came right out and sent me into the barrier. The truck went fully sideways, tipping it onto its side and then rolling it fully onto the roof at 50 mph. I crawled out of what used to be the driver window with a few bruises and a scratch on my hand.
It was a sad day, and without my truck my festiva had to be a full time project.
Luckily a snow storm blew through Charleston the next week, cancelling work for several days. I used this time to order parts and clean up the car. I stripped everything inside but the dash, door cards, and carpet. All door and window weather seals came out. Each piece was cleaned with dish soap and left to dry. With the interior empty i set up a light, a space heater and a stool and scrubbed the carpet and removed all the old tint. Every surface was cleaned. After the carpet was set to dry for a day It all went back together with the freshly cleaned front seats.
The inside was looking very nice and was actually pleasant to sit in, but the cold presented another problem.
My rear shocks were toast, the cold froze them right up. After the snow melted I picked up some new KYB GR-2 struts for the rear and got to work. The old struts came out and i soon realized my new spring compressors were unnecessary. I got the KYB's in without much trouble. I went to put the rear driver side tire on and the threads from when of the holes stripped out entirely with very little torque. I figured it was ok to sit on just 3 as long as its not driven.
The next one stripped right out... I despise those crappy studs. I needed new wheels, hubs, and bolts.
Back in high school, Eviljimchicken told me about his Ford Festiva, I was interested but never got a chance to see it. One day years later we met up and I saw his b6t swapped festiva for the first time. After going for a ride I knew I had to find one.
I immediately started browsing the forums trying to learn as much as I could about these little cars. I searched craigslist and the wanted/for sale section for months to find a festiva to replace my daily driven 1999 Isuzu Hombre, which was not exactly a satisfying car to drive. My first car was a 2001 Acura Integra GS-R, so I was looking forward to going back to a small front wheel drive Japanese hatchback.
Here is the for sale thread that ended my search: https://fordfestiva.com/forums/showt...-5spd-For-sale
The owner told me he drove it to Orlando from Inverness, FL every day to get to his job. That would explain the miles on the car and there was enough evidence of that for me to believe him. He claimed to be the original owner of the car. It had been sitting for 5 years and driven periodically. He stopped driving it a little over a year ago once the brakes got very stiff. He had very low confidence in this car being able to drive. I thought otherwise.
One very long weekend later my very own Festiva arrived home after being towed 7 hours behind a uhaul box truck. My original plan was to drive it home, but the stubborn seller wouldn't even let me off of his yard with the car unless I showed up with a trailer. He claimed I would not be able to stop the car the brakes were so stiff, and wouldn't let me inspect them to grease them up. After driving all the way down to Tampa to see the car and being continuously shut down by the owner, I was determined to get it home. Here is how it looked the morning after it arrived.
[IMG]
[/IMG]The engine cranked and ran but did not idle, the brake pedal was frozen, all 4 wheel bearings made lots of noise, the tires were old, one had a fast leak, the steering rack had a lot of slack, there was a mouse living in it somewhere, every window had peeling tint, there were these strange green zig zag stickers on it, the air filter housing was held together by hopes and dreams, the shifter had a lot of play, the exhaust had a massive leak, it leaked a significant amount of oil, the suspension didn't feel quite right, the fuel gauge didn't work, and of course the interior smelled awful and was covered in a thorough layer of slime, dirt, and hair. I also wasn't a big fan of the wheels. To me they made it look like a matchbox car.
I was prepared for a project, but this was more than I was expecting. I had never had a project car before.
That day I got home from work and figured the place to start would be brakes. I took off the front wheels to find that the previous owner had installed very cheap wheel studs and lug nuts with his cheap wheels. The nuts did not properly fit the wheels. Each nut had a large washer so that they could hold the wheel on. Some of the studs had also frozen into the nuts so that the rusty studs screwed out of the hubs, bringing some of the threads with them. So far off to a bad start.
This happened on every wheel of the car. Bad studs pulling out threads every time I took a wheel off. I really hated these things.
I went ahead and greased the slide pins and put it back together. The brake pedal would now move, but felt gritty. Rear wheel bearings and brakes were up next.
Eviljimchicken came over and helped me with the rear bearings. The bearings went smoothly and the rear hubs were ready to go. This is what the brakes looked like under the hubs.
The shoes had no pad material left and each wheel cylinder leaked brown gritty brake fluid. Eviljimchicken and I tried to just put new shoes on and close it up for now but the passenger side hub refused to go on.
That weekend both wheel cylinders were replaced and all parts of the rear brakes were reset and thoroughly greased, but the hubs still refused to go on. After spending an entire Saturday scratching my head i found that one of the new brake shoes was thicker than the rest. I ended up having to sand down the material on one of the shoes to make them fit.
I decided to flush the brake system with new fluid while i was at it. Here is the color of the fluid that came out.
That would explain the gritty feeling brake pedal. The car stopped well, but the brake booster was definitely not working.
Next up was the idle. Eviljimchicken advised me to take the throttle body off and clean it out, especially the idle screw. The screw got jammed in from the rubber seal seizing to the throttle body and getting stuck in the threads. I took it to Eviljimchicken after work and after an hour of messing working the screw back and forth it was finally out and replaced with one he had sitting around. After a new gasket the engine idled perfectly.
After researching my options for the steering, I got a rebuilt rack from The Festiva Store. I ordered the new rack along with moog inner and outer tie rods. I got the old rack out and put the new rack in on 2 separate nights after work in the cold with very little light. Needless to say it was not the most fun job. The old rack had no bushings left and each inner tie rod had a 1/4 inch of play. The next day I got the new tie rods installed, using my combination square from work to set the new tie rods up similarly to the old ones. surprisingly the alignment came out pretty well but still needed later adjustment.
I started on the interior next. I took each front seat out and began pulling the fabric from the foam to clean. Each piece of fabric went into the washing machine, which didn't clean anything. They then went into the bath tub with a thorough helping of oxyclean. The dirt that came from the seats was incredible, turning the water to a dark brown color. Each seat fabric was reassembled with zip ties and all the plastic pieces were cleaned. I was very satisfied with the results.
At this point the little Festiva was driving a lot better but the project was definitely taking a while with me working full time. Then this happened.
On the first cold wet morning of the Charleston winter I ran into a patch of ice on my morning commute to work. The bed of my little Isuzu pickup came right out and sent me into the barrier. The truck went fully sideways, tipping it onto its side and then rolling it fully onto the roof at 50 mph. I crawled out of what used to be the driver window with a few bruises and a scratch on my hand.
It was a sad day, and without my truck my festiva had to be a full time project.
Luckily a snow storm blew through Charleston the next week, cancelling work for several days. I used this time to order parts and clean up the car. I stripped everything inside but the dash, door cards, and carpet. All door and window weather seals came out. Each piece was cleaned with dish soap and left to dry. With the interior empty i set up a light, a space heater and a stool and scrubbed the carpet and removed all the old tint. Every surface was cleaned. After the carpet was set to dry for a day It all went back together with the freshly cleaned front seats.
The inside was looking very nice and was actually pleasant to sit in, but the cold presented another problem.
My rear shocks were toast, the cold froze them right up. After the snow melted I picked up some new KYB GR-2 struts for the rear and got to work. The old struts came out and i soon realized my new spring compressors were unnecessary. I got the KYB's in without much trouble. I went to put the rear driver side tire on and the threads from when of the holes stripped out entirely with very little torque. I figured it was ok to sit on just 3 as long as its not driven.
The next one stripped right out... I despise those crappy studs. I needed new wheels, hubs, and bolts.
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