May god help me

[Epixstar]

started tearing the festiva apart and try to fix it with little mechical skill today. the car is messed up in many ways o well let the fun begin :lol:

[Safety Guy]

Good luck!

If you don't have a Ford shop or Haynes manual (preferably both), then get some!

Karl

[Epixstar]

i should but that's over my budget ya Ive gone from broke to poor

[Safety Guy]

Yep, that sounds pretty bad!

What all problems does your car have?

Karl

[Epixstar]

ya this is probley the wrong section but my car does not idle at all and when I'm driving it at speed when i take my foot of the gas it stumbles and barley stays alive(sounds like it is dieseling even tho it cant)

[anomoly40]

Sounds like a head gasket. Check to see if your oil is a nice milky color.

[Epixstar]

no oil is fine

[Epixstar]

what are other signs that it chould be a head gasket

[nonamekid]

Uneven compression or oil in the water

[Epixstar]

no oil on the water and no overheating

[gdawgs]

Does it run fine when you have your foot on the gas? What year is this car? If it's fuel injected, it could be a bad throttle position sensor or a bad connection to it. Of course it could be a lot of things, hard to say. Have you pulled the spark plugs to see what they look like. They can sometimes offer some clues.

[Epixstar]

it runs fine when i have my foot on the gas the year of the car is 1992

[batstiva]

My 88 festiva acted like that last year, new plugs, wires, distributor, and rotor button fixed it. Don't know if that's your problem, or not. But may be worth checking into. Good Luck.

[Epixstar]

i will pull the spark plugs out in the morning when i get to school (cars in shop at my high school)

[gdawgs]

Duh, I guess I could have figured that out if I had looked at your signature. Like batstiva said, changing out the spark components can sometimes make a world of difference. After you check the plugs, pull off the distributor cap and inspect that as well. There's probably a fair amount of corrosion in there. If so, you can either replace the cap, or since you're broke, scrape off the contacts with a small screwdriver or knife, then take some emery cloth or sandpaper and rub them down a bit. Do the same to the rotor. Then I usually place it tiny dab of tune up grease on each contact as well.