Little Festiva on the Prairies..

[Zanzer]

Sweet! Glad to hear you found someone up there that knows how to cut a key from a code :thumbup:

[freshtiva]

^ You're living large now !!

[darrenryall]

Yup..

Bit of an update finally. Spent some time on the weekend to reassemble my passenger door after pulling the lock code (everything was mostly on, except the retaining clip for the lock wasn't on), took the door cover off and put the clip in and put the crank back on.

Have gone over all the seats again with carpet cleaner to help remove the grease from the previous owner some more, still not all out, but it's getting there.

Think I've settled on a name after my wife had me buy and bring home some animal feed (weird I know, but living in the country and having things that make eggs and such means animal feed) in the back seat. I think it's definitely going to be "Farmstiva" now.. haven't seen anyone else use the name (probably for obvious reasons), and I now have some alfalfa pellets in the carpet of the car.

Was also playing with the idea of painting the car.. I like the red, but I think it draws too many eyes. Not normally a bad thing, but a bad thing when you're driving 90 miles a day through areas that aren't as well off, and have highway patrol out looking to stop people for whatever reason. So am going to try a little psychology experiment and try painting the car traffic light (or John Deere) green. Red means "stop me and give me a ticket because I'm fast" and Green means "I'm cool and safe and good and harmless, let him go to work without stopping him and strapping his budget more". I hope anyways..


Picked up a set of lit mirrors from Princess Auto.. want to see if I can either mod them into a set of the stock Festiva non-powered mirrors, or the Protege's power mirrors, or maybe see about adapting the powered innards from one of those into these. I also have an idea for a set of mirror defrosters, need to check on that and see if it'll work. Oh! And found a place that sells a Kia/Hyundai washer fluid heater.. curious about that in the -40 type weather we sometimes get.

Also, finally got my brake lights working! Amazing how having a teeny bit of time without anyone bugging you tends to lead to fixes and such. Issue turned out to be.. unplugged brake pedal switch. Once it was dry and warm enough I was able to get under the dash to see and make the fix.

Also, am looking at a replacement deck for the Festiva, the thing for me is that I sometimes drive on gravel roads. So I don't want something with a CD/DVD in it. Found something that looks like what I'd like, will look to get it sometime after May 1 I think. (AM/FM/MP3 on SD/USB)

Also, need to pick up a new headliner and drivers window crank, Mazda alternator I think, map light interior light, cargo light and back cargo cover. And then start painting, add the new Festiva decal on (thanks Marcus!) and probably the 13's. And now that I have the brake lights going again, thinking more seriously about the third brake light mod to get it up onto/into the spoiler.

Just a biiiiit to do yet..

[darrenryall]

Small update..

On the weekend, managed to find a pair of swoopies (sans driver's side glass in the mirror), and the control switch. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), the wiring harness under the dash was cannibalized leaving the wires cut at the doors and at the switch. So I have miirrors and switch and no wires between them.. and the drivers mirror needs to be rebuilt using the "Protege kit" if I can find a set in the wreckers. But it's a start. Also, the swoopies are bigger than the mirrors I picked up that were lit.. but maybe I can still make it all work.

Also, found a rear cargo light in the same car! You guessed it, no wires down to the taillight and no switch. So, that's going to have to be juryrigged (probably go Marcus' route with the OEM front door switch just because I can find them).

All because I went looking for the cargo cover..

[Oren09]

Think I've settled on a name after my wife had me buy and bring home some animal feed (weird I know, but living in the country and having things that make eggs and such means animal feed) in the back seat. I think it's definitely going to be "Farmstiva" now.. haven't seen anyone else use the name (probably for obvious reasons), and I now have some alfalfa pellets in the carpet of the car.

My mom hauled several bales of hay in my car while I was away in Texas with my truck.
There's still hay everywhere even after vacuuming it..........

[DriverOne]

Wow. I thought I was the only one with the farmer car idea! Dude go paint it John Deere green, get the logo and put it on the hood, and paint the wheels yellow! Yee-haw!

[DriverOne]

My mom hauled several bales of hay in my car while I was away in Texas with my truck.
There's still hay everywhere even after vacuuming it..........

handled utility brush and high-power vac should do the trick.

[darrenryall]

Wow. I thought I was the only one with the farmer car idea! Dude go paint it John Deere green, get the logo and put it on the hood, and paint the wheels yellow! Yee-haw!

Completely read my mind on the paint job and have a logo idea in mind already..

My wife loves the idea, and she's only gotten excited with one other car idea I've had.. so it'll work for me.

Means changing the color on the registration, but this is okay.

[darrenryall]

So, here's the idea's logo... Farmstiva it is going to be, and yes.. the Festiva will be painted to match a John Deere tractor.

My wife came up with the idea for the logo, and this is the rough draft based off the John Deere logo and apparently Subway seeing I'm hungry.

What do you think?

[DriverOne]

That's awesome.

[darrenryall]

Mmmmm.... SCORE.

The gent that I initially bought Farmstiva off dropped off some goodies last night after he was "cleaning out his junk" from his brother-in-laws. Came across some of the parts he was going to give me initially (and which I thought that I wouldn't get).

Left and right doors, a new hatch with defrost and rear wiper, and a spoiler (don't think it came off a Festiva because it has a third brake light built into it).

Excuse late night crappy quality cellphone shots.. it was pretty dark and this was with my "night mode" on on the phone. Guess that means I'm getting my window repaired sooner rather than later..

[freshtiva]

Did you get your John Deere yellow Festiva decal for farmstiva yet ?

[darrenryall]

Yes I did.. got it last night. Probably came in earlier, but we've been a bit lax in getting our mail lately. :p

Thanks Marcus!

[freshtiva]

Glad it arrived safe. US to Canada mail takes forever. Now get that festiva farming.

[darrenryall]

Hasn't been much to add to this for a while, daily driving until the weather got really cold, then had to park Farmstiva for a few months until it warmed up again (still don't know what's affected in cold weather). Come April, Farmstiva was on the road again. Started to make use of some of the parts I got, plus started a few upgrades.

Dome light with map lights are in, factory radio was purchased and is in the car and running. This gives me what I needed for the radio harness now if I want to put in another radio in the future (I now know what goes where instead of the jumbled mass of cut wire from before). Wore out a set of 12's, and are they getting hard to find! Think I have a source though.. but am starting to look for 13" rims. Cup holders on way (I hope), rear cargo light and US speedo are in the box waiting for me to install.. (am old enough that MPH is still my "native tongue" instead of KPH, and with the 13's on the car, the speedo will be partially inaccurate anyways. Have a GPS unit in the car providing a more accurate speed. (about 4MPH off at 60 MPH road speed on the speedo).

Paint is purchased, windshield needs to be replaced, got a good rock chip in the window which was fine, until the wife's goats started jumping onto the roof of Farmstiva via windshield. Crack, crack, crack. The roof of the car now also looks like cake frosting because they were liking to sleep on the car roof. ding, dent. :p

So there's going to be some bodywork to do to get all the roof dents out. What else.. oh, more modern stereo was purchased for the car, I just need to see if it was burned out when I *didn't* have the correct wiring figured out for the car.. (hence the factory stereo to do so). Found out that I have a read right speaker possibly blown and might need to get replacements.

Initial painting done, spoiler is now green base.. gas door is yellow as well as door handles. Rest of the car is still red, so it looks kind of like I stole the Hanburgerlers car as I'm in works.. but I have to keep the body primarily red until I get the papers/plates renewed by the end of the month.. then I can paint. Otherwise its $150 or so to change registration (money grab). Once papers are done, then time to finish the paint job.

Should hopefully have a stock clock on the way in the next few days, have some power swoopies in the back of the car, and a power mirror switch in the dash (no wiring to the mirrors though and when I tried flipping it on "just to see" I blew a fuse so it's stayed off since).

Gas mileage is staying pretty consistent around 38 mpg or so.. oil use about a pint every month and a half or so I think.All in all, still very very glad that I am DDing it and am still a proud owner of a Festiva.