First Festiva. 90 Pop Yellow revival and build thread.

[Stephenkyle78]

Could you post a link to the rebuild kit you bought? I'm trying to find one for my 5 speed in my 93 festiva

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[helloish12321]

Tuesday was a sad day for my festiva.

On my way back from work on tuesday I took an alternate route home to avoid traffic through a more rural road. The island outside of charleston that I live on is seeing a lot of development like most places in the city. One of the new developments on the road I was driving down had lots of dump trucks coming in and out constantly and the surface of the development consisted of some very rough gravel. On the right side of the road were a lot of large rocks. My first thought was to try to avoid them by swerving.

There was one rock that can only be described as a miniature easter island head. The thing must have been at least 3 inches tall and very sharp. It was right where my passenger tire would have to be to avoid the other rocks and not go into the other lane. I thought I might just miss it, but I couldn't.


I heard a loud bang and the sound of escaping air.



bye bye nankang



On a positive note the tow truck driver loved the car and asked lots of questions. She said she has a Geo Metro lol.

Luckily the wheel isnt bent or damaged so Im good to go. I got a new tire in the mail today and mounted it myself. The local tire shop wanted $20 to mount one tire, which I think is a lot to ask for just one tire to be mounted to a loose wheel.

Your actually going to take it all apart just for that seal? Must be leaking real bad.

The leak isnt all that bad. Im just too much of a perfectionist and feel like it has to be perfect if I am going to bother to do it at all. Its mostly for the peace of mind I guess

Luckily for me, I had a spare trans in the garage. But it was still a 4 week event!

haha yeah 4 weeks was about how long it took me. I wonder why stuck axles seems to be a relatively common problem with festivas. If I had a spare transmission I definitely would have just thrown it in and worried about the axle later. If you decide you want to fix that transmission it is definitely possible

Could you post a link to the rebuild kit you bought? I'm trying to find one for my 5 speed in my 93 festiva

sorry I didn't really rebuild my transmission, just resealed and cleaned it really well. Im not sure where you could get a rebuild kit. I know you would be looking for all the bearings along with new synchronizers. You would have to take the shafts apart which might be a pretty big task. You might also need to re-shim the shafts and check for proper endplay in both shafts after the synchros are installed. Definitely possible if you are determined. Im curious too about a rebuild kit. I will update if i find one.

[cyclonecj]

That doesn't sound like a sad day at all... Sounds like you had quite an adventure while exploring in your Festiva!

[helloish12321]

With that out of the way I would like to share my current project.

NEW SEATS!

I was picking my mom up from the airport last thursday and she was complaining about her back hurting. It was her first ride in the festiva and she said the seats were not helping her back. Now I'm not about to change the seats just to appease one person but it got me thinking. The car felt a lot sportier with the new lower control arms and the stock seats don't do much to hold you in while you turn.

I did a bit of research into seat swaps, and was considering a few things mainly miata seats. I knew it would require a bit of tricky positioning and fabrication. On saturday Jim and I headed up to the local junk yard and started browsing around for various parts.

We found a 95 mercury tracer which we quickly took the dome light from. It was blue so Jim kept it and traded me for a tan one that would match my interior better. It is an amazing improvement over the stock light which hardly ever worked.

Later on we found a 94 Honda Prelude. The seats looked to be in amazing condition and were very comfortable. The few miatas in the yard had much worse looking seats. I remembered seeing a post in the custom interiors section that said seats from this generation of prelude are an easy swap, only requiring 2 brackets.




and here they are in the back of my festiva.




Here is a better look at the drivers seat. aside from being dirty it is in great shape and is amazingly comfy.
After getting back to Jim's we decided to try them out and see how close the rails lined up to the festiva mounting points.

Amazingly 2 of the 4 mounts line up great. The inside front lines up with no issues, but the inside rear needs to be filed back about an inch. After that the seats can easily be set in to mock up some brackets.


here you can see the passenger seat mocked up. the outside mounts are resting on a screwdriver and seatbelt fastener. even so It is very close to center and has a good range of adjustment in the festiva.

Im going to make a full writeup on this once its done. I have the driver seat in now. Here is a quick look at the fitment and the brackets I made.






This seat was incredibly easy to mount. I only got to enjoy it for one day before I blew out a tire and the car has been out of service since. Without modifying the seat anymore I can tell that it is at least an inch too far to the right. 4 brackets will be necessary for proper fitment. The clearance in-between the seats is a lot closer than with stock seats and makes shifting difficult, so it will be good to make some more clearance too. Im going to make some brackets to finish up the driver side then mirror them for the passenger side. I will document as much as I can and update with the results.

Jim and I also installed one of the ebay civic short shifters while the seats were being mocked up. The combination of the new shifter with fresh bushings and bucket seats really changes the way the car feels to drive. Its a blast even with stock suspension.

[firebush357]

Looks Good!

If you have the time I would take the covers off of those seats and throw them in the washer for 2-3 wash cycles. You would be surprised at how much butt juice comes out of 23 year old seats!

[helloish12321]

Back to Black

I haven't made much progress with my car in a while. Just a few things here and there, and im still waiting to get the other prelude seat in but hopefully that will be done soon.

I have done a few things in the past few weeks though.

Jim and I found out about a junk yard an hour or so out of Charleston that might have a festiva. We planned a trip and sure enough they did. We got a few miscellaneous parts from it. Mostly interior pieces and hardware. One of the things I got is a set of 88-89 smooth tail lights. I had been looking to get some for a while to replace my cracked up 90+ lights so I went ahead and got them

old vs new



I used the polishing compound on the smooth lights and they look basically new

I also got some new tail light seals from the festiva store. No more wet carpet

old vs new



That whole area needed some attention. I used the same polishing compound to get the paint shiny so it looks nice when you open the hatch.

Here they are on the car.




I live in a relatively rural area with lots of trees and greenery along the roads. Ive always been paranoid about hitting potholes, deer, rocks (especially after blowing my tire out), and other things while driving home at night. The stock headlights are not very helpful at night. I thought the best way to add lighting was with one of those cheap led bars.

The one I ordered was a 22 inch 120 watt bar that can be found on amazon for around $20 under the brand name "nilight". I ordered that along with a relay and some 12 gauge wire.
I had a spare rear defrost switch from a festiva in that junkyard Jim and I went to a few weeks ago. I wanted to use this to keep things clean looking inside the car.

I was able to easily mount the led bar in the lower grill after I removed the aftermarket fog lights that the previous owner had installed. I removed the bumper fasteners and slipped the included bolts through, adjusted the light and tightened it up. Very easy to install. Wiring it with a relay was a bit more difficult but I got it done in an afternoon.

Here are the results.



Here is a picture of the stock high beams with GE nighthawk 9004 bulbs



and here is the low beams + light bar. I used the same camera settings for each picture. The lights look brighter in real life than the pictures show but its still a good comparison.



It is a massive improvement. Feels a lot better driving at night. And I can get some revenge against SUV and truck drivers who leave there high beams on :p


I also took some time to try restoring the faded bumpers. Magic erasers seemed to work well on other plastics around the car and also worked well on jims car. I went ahead and ordered a large pack of them to try getting my bumpers looking better. Once they arrived I found that the faded plastic went far too deep for magic erasers to do anything.
Jim and I found something that works even better.
Scotch brite + degreaser/soapy water.

The scotch brite is far more abrasive and will show scratches if you try to use it on other plastics such as the door handles but seems to take the faded bumper plastic off very well when combined with soapy water.
I was only able to treat the rear bumper and the passenger side trim as an experiment before the rain stopped my progress. After the scotch brite, I treated all the black bits with Mother's Back to Black and lots of it.



The trim around the rear window came out great. The bumper looks good from a distance but up close is speckled with bright spots. Im hoping that treating it with Back to Black every few weeks will take that away.

[ryanprins13]

For better headlights check out this thread https://fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61083
Nighthawk platinum or phillips extremevision with a relay harness makes the headlights way better. Your likely getting too much foreground lighting with that light bar. Regular nighthawks are decent but the platinums are a fair bit brighter

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[helloish12321]

Thanks for the help. I saw a few things about putting a new relay circuit in but didn't feel like i had a good enough understanding to try it. I have a few more relays and a bunch more wire so I might do that soon.

Is this simply replacing the stock headlight relay circuits with one made with proper components? do you pull all the stock stuff out or just bypass?

[helloish12321]

I'm having some trouble recently with my alternator.
I'm also not very experienced with automotive charging systems or alternators in general but a few things have stood out to me and I just wanted to know what to look for.

The belt squeals on startup about 75% of the time either hot or cold. I have checked the belt tension and it seems to be tight enough. It will also start to squeal when i turn my brights on or when I turn my LED bar on. When I increase electrical load the idle speed also drops.

Are these signs of the alternator going out, too much load, or the belt being too loose?



I am also curious about the limitations of the factory alternator. I plan on installing a subwoofer eventually, but don't want to do that until i know that the charging system can handle it.
How much headroom does the factory alternator have if any?

I did some research and came across a post by Advancedynamix in this thread: https://fordfestiva.com/forums/showt...ght=alternator
Stating that certain newer alternators may bolt up and wire up perfectly but cause damage to the electronics of the car.

When looking for possible upgrades I found that the aspire alternator looks very similar (aside from a different pulley) and is rated for 60 amps as opposed to the stock 40 amps.
Is this a safe and suitable upgrade or are there better options?

Thanks in advance. I will update if I come across any more information while I am searching.