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**theastronaut** · 05-25-2018, 01:33 PM

I'll enter my newest, a Surf Blue '90 L Plus with A/C and 136k miles. I spotted it on facebook marketplace when I was on my way back from Insanity and sent the owner a message saying I was interested, but it sold before I made it home and could go check it out. Two months later it popped up again so I called and was able to buy it that day. It was in good shape overall but needed a ton of cleaning.

So far I've completely stripped the interior out and have been working on cleaning, detailing, and restoring the interior parts to make the interior as nice as possible. I've also relplaced the front sway bar bushings, done a full tune up, replaced the exhaust from the cat back, resealed the tail lights, cleaned the engine compartment, replaced the window channel in the doors, upgraded the headlight bulbs, and added sound deadener to the hatch and rear seat area. I plan on having a paintless dent repair shop go over the car to remove as many dings/dents as possible, then I'll touch up and buff/polish the original paint. The bumpers and side trim will be redyed to the original color as well. I'm trying to make it as nice as possible without doing a full restoration. My mom has been wanting a car that gets better mileage than her Tahoe, so once I'm done fixing it up she'll be the new owner.

It came with a lot of the original paperwork from when it was bought new.

Working on restoring/detailing the interior.

**Popkidd** · 05-25-2018, 09:05 PM

Started out as britstiva. But was given new life thanks to Mike, now an unspecting sleeper.

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**cyclonecj** · 06-11-2018, 05:25 PM

Been waiting to re-enter my little car for a while. Lots of work done since last year when I co-won in June. Going for a solo win!

This is the story from last year, with minor updates:

Here is my 92 Festiva. 1.3L 5spd, A/C, Sport interior, & Bone stock. The Little Car!

It’s been part of the family for 19 years. I bought it because I was broke & changing to a better job, & could not afford to drive my truck to the new job every day, so I borrowed $500 for the down pmt on a $2000 car with 124k miles. It now has 270K miles, & has only had a few minor repairs (clutch, radiator & water pump, C/V shafts). It just keeps going....

My 2 daughters always called it the Little car, which has always stuck. They both used it to learn to drive a stick, then took their drivers test in it, as well as learning how to tow & back up a trailer. Since I tow a ski boat with the truck, I added a hitch & my daughter towed the ski to the lake every weekend for many years. Occasionally, I will still use it to tow the ski if I go up to the delta on a solo trip. It's amazing how many comments I get when I pull up to the launch ramp. BTW... Towing at 65 with the A/C on, it still gets 36mpg!

When my son-in-law had his car stolen, he borrowed it for a year before finally talking me into selling it to him. After another year, he blew out a CV shaft, & thinking it was the trans, he gave it back to me because his dad bought him a Mustang. I was so happy to have it back, I restored it back to excellent condition & have been driving it almost every day, (even though I have a new car sitting at home)! I have a few friends begging me to sell it, but it will never leave me again.

Since then, I have done quite a bit of work. I had the front seat (original red-stripe sport seat) re-foamed, & while he had it apart I had heated seat warmers added. The entire front suspension has been rebuilt, using Rio strut mounts, new CV shafts, tie rods, boots, etc. I spent 2 weeks trying to remove a CV shaft, gave up, & had to replace the trans with a spare in the garage.

I replaced the rear deck with a solid wood panel so I could add some REAL speakers, & covered it with grey cloth to hide it.

All lights have been converted to LED, & the headlights & fog/driving lights upgraded to relay.

In February, my grandson removed the stock wheels, installed studs & new 14" wheels. Really... he did everything. I had to loosen the lugs, & torque them at the end. He is only 5. Good times.

Just got back from an 800 mile mountain road trip with my sister & her husband. Car ran so good, with the exception of it puking some oil on the way home. Yet, in true Festiva fashion, it still got me home!

Last, it took me 19 years, but I finally made the name official. Custom plates.

**monkeykiller1996** · 07-03-2018, 02:46 PM

to began with please excuse my writing style i tend to write in circles.

ok this is my entry for FOTM, its an 88 festiva L 4 speed that with the help of some great friends was brought back to life after sitting 14+ years. This car was plucked from iowa in a lot of festivas and brought back to illinois, where i went to get it. The engine was just packed with corn, acorns, and walnuts, pretty much anything that field mice love to eat. however i had a plan
i bought a good running engine from a good friend local in my home state of ohio and proceeded to megasquirt it since it was going into a carby car. i was able to get the reluctor wheel welded to the crank, crank sensor mount, and most of the harness done before i had to leave to head for IL. once i arrives we went to this magical salvage yard that has some killer prices to pick up the last few things needed to finish the engine setup, a wideband sensor from a newer car was top priority. shortly after we got back to lanes house(car owner) and was able to get the old engine pulled with relative ease. from there on it was suppose to be smooth sailing, but things went awry when the spark output of my ms2 just decided to quit working. thinking i was dead in the water with a car with no spark, we learned that the carby cars ignition is completely standalone with no computer input needed. we tried and tested and test but we couldnt get the dissy in this car to get spark, we thought the coil was dead. after searching the small town where literally everything is closed on a sunday we finally found one thanks to lanes friend. however we still couldnt get spark, this is were we discovered why this car was parked. the dissy module was bad. after trying a different carby dissy we got nice strong spark even with the original coil. now we were on track to actually getting this thing to run. i finished up my wiring enough to test fire the car, we has some troubles but got them worked out in short order. now i was about to install my previously acquired jy wideband, but sadly i had gotten the wrong sensor. so from this point on i was tuning completely blind with only my nose, ears, brains, and butt. By the grace of jebus i got it running good enough to take some laps around the block(with no hood and tailgate wide open) to discover i had absolutely no brakes. we got those fixed in short order with some donated calipers from lane. and i was on my way. i took a quick nap before i left (i like night driving for road trips). within 10 minutes of leaving my alt. threw a belt and drained my battery. so on the side of the road, sun setting, i replaced the belt with one of the two extra belts that lane luckily gave me for the trip. i still had the problem of a dead battery.with all my might i pushed this car in reverse because i was on an incline and was able to successfully pop the clutch in reverse. everything went great untill about 50 miles down the road when i lost or snapped the second belt. it wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for almost taking out my crank sensor. i was able to replace it with my last belt and with my crank sensor half inch away from my trigger wheel somehow still picking up signal i was back on the road. i finally made it to my brother house in tennessee around 2am for his 4th of july party. i still have a 5-6 hour trip after this to head back to ohio, but i believe in this little car will make me there

i didn't to post all my adventure pics because there are a few of them, if you want to see more look here https://imgur.com/a/aLeLJlr

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Accepting entries for June FOTM

Accepting entries for June FOTM

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