Festiva Part Trivia

[Levitan]

Ran across something the other day and had forgot about it. Remembered while talking to Monsoon tonight on the phone. Thought I'd bring it to the forum for discussion.

A guy stopped over the other day to get some parts and says his bezel around the the speedo/tach was broken on his '93 ( I think it was a '93, at least it was a '90 or newer). Said he had gone to the junkyard to get a replacement, found one and went home to install it and it absolutely would not fit. I told him that all Festy's were the same, pretty much, so I couldn't understand why it would not fit. So, I happened to have one sitting upon the pegboard, grabbed it, and we walked out to the '91 and I told him, see, it is exactly the same. We walked over to the '89 Lx and I said, see, exactly......
different!

Well I'll be!

I told him that they must have changed after '89. Well I got to talking to Monsoon tonight he said , "hey, doesn't your Lx have tilt?" Then the lightbulb went off in my head.

Is the tilt speedo bezel different than for a stock steering to allow the tilt to go up?

or

Is the speedo bezel different in '88-'89 than the '90 and up?

and

Are the tilt dashes so different that the whole dash needs changed when doing a tilt upgrade in a non-tilt ride.

All I know is this. The face of the speedo bezel, above the steering column, between the aux blanks and defog switches and whatnot, is narrower, up and down, on an '89 Lx than on a '91 L with standard steering.

Just thought this would be interesting info for those, like myself who may be swapping to tilt....all 1 inch of tilting ability!

[GenevaDirt]

I do not think it is a tilt thing....it is just the years....I noticed a differance when I was swapping tachs and such between a couple of differant speedos...I believe it was orange versus white. I was going to swap the speedo from one to the other and the trip reset button was in differant places between the 2. Never went as far as you....just abandoned what I was doing and went a differant route.

[FB71]

88-89 are different from 90-93, as are the steering column shrouds. Dashes are not significantly different from 88-89 to 90-93, no difference for fixed column vs tilt that I am aware of.

[festivaWES]

The ignition lock cylinder are in different places as well aren't they?? I remember seein one back in the day in CA

[geezerstiva]

with the 88-89 style one, its really hard to get the bezel out without taking off the steering wheel. no idea why they're so different.

[Damkid]

88-89 are different from 90-93, as are the steering column shrouds. Dashes are not significantly different from 88-89 to 90-93, no difference for fixed column vs tilt that I am aware of.

i found this out when i wrecked an 89, but somehow the 89's dash made it over to a 90 LX where i noticed this difference

[sam.1956]

V8Festiva and I discovered this the hard way as well. The "depth" (in the vertical plane) between the bottom of the dash & the top of the steering column is different on the bezels, as cited per above.

[mattswabb]

I swapped in an 88 lx dash from a car that had a tilt column into my blue car with a fixed column. The bezel did not fit. I had to trim it a bit to fit around the fixed column.

[elcamino1]

So has anyone swaped in a tilt column into a fixed column car?
Didn't the 1990 LX come with a tilt column?

[elcamino1]

So nobody has swaped in a tilt column? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[neanderpaul]

I have heard the 88-89 LX tilts don't work in the 90-93 festivas. I don't know if switching the bezel will make that possible or not. So.... how do you pronounce bezel anyway? Bez like Pez or Bez like Bees?

[Levitan]

Will, leave it to Midwest Festiva Inc. to be the first then, huh!

[Levitan]

Rhymes with Pez as in Pez candy.