Just bought a '91 Festiva and joined up.

[mephi]

Hi. Just wanted to offer up a greeting to all of the people here. This is my first post, so hopefully I put it in the right section.

I just bought '91 for $300 with 207k miles on it. There are a couple of problems, like the main oil seal spitting oil, but I already know how to fix that. Hondas and Jeeps have always been my usual area of expertise, so I was wondering if there were any pattern failure type issues I should be looking out for while I'm resealing this thing and replacing the timing belt?

Thanks

[perucho]

Welcome! Good deal on the car. At that price, you have enough money left to swap the engine!

[mephi]

I think I'll stick with my fiery 1.3L for now. I got the car thinking there was absolutely nothing I could do to performance wise. I tend to spend too much money on my cars. Now I am happily disappointed. The only real problems with the car are the oil spurting issue and some abnormal wear on the passenger side tires. The guy I bought it from didn't want to pay someone $700 to fix the oil leak, so he sold it to me cheap. I've done this kind of work a few times.

[resuwrecked]

Welcome to the site. This is the right place to be for everything festiva.

I was wondering if there were any pattern failure type issues I should be looking out for while I'm resealing this thing and replacing the timing belt?

When my BP (1.8dohc from escort gt's and protege's) had a leak in the front main area it ended up being the oil pump gasket. From now on whenever I am going to do a front main on a b-series mazda engine it will get the oil pump gasket, main seal, and oil pan reseal. You might as well since the t-belt will be off.

[Team Lightning]

Before you get grief about it, you might want to edit your profile and add your location.
Welcome to the best Festiva site on the net!!

[stevewl1164]

Welcome to the site...wish I had a mechanic's thumb!

[mikeycar500]

welcome to the site the one place to get all the aswners u will ever need about festivas enjoy

[lanemeyer14]

Welcome! Post pics asap!! We love pics

[JohnGunn]

so I was wondering if there were any pattern failure type issues I should be looking out for while I'm resealing this thing and replacing the timing belt?

First of all, I think you should know that you have bought an extremely well designed car. I have owned my Festiva for 16 years and driven it 120,000 of its 181,000 miles. In that time I have never become aware of any weak point in the durability of its design.

But, as you may know, no matter how well designed, the rubber parts are the weakest link which can be counted on to eventually fail and bring grief. Your front engine seal is a perfect example of this. So my advice to you would be to do whatever you can to protect the rubber parts of your new car. Whatever expense you encounter in the process will be more than rewarded with many thousands of miles of additional trouble-free service.

Here is a list of some of the parts which qualify for this special attention.
1. Engine seals, front and rear crankshaft seals, and camshaft seal.
2. Valve cover gasket.
3. Oil pan gasket.
4. Distributor rubber o-ring seal.
5. Coolant hoses.
6. Brake seals and boots.
7. CV joint boots.

The most likely threat to most of these parts is heat. Last week I replaced the o-ring seal on my distributor. It had begun to leak. When I tried to remove the o-ring from the grove it is installed into, it broke as if it were the brittlest hard plastic. The replacement stretched like a new rubber band. I have no doubt it was heat that brought about this deterioration.

This is what you should do to prolong all those rubber parts that are effected by engine heat.
1. Install a good two-stage thermostat like they sell at the Ford dealership. It will cost at least twice as much, but I think it worth the additional expense.
2. At the first indication of over heating, immediately stop driving the car until the problem is fixed. No exceptions or excuses accepted.
3. I think it would be wise to find a junk yard radiator from a Festiva with an automatic transmission and install it the next time you replace the coolant. They are bigger. I haven't done this yet myself but I'm looking.
4. Take note of the normal position of the temperature needle, and take action as soon as you see it over that point.
5. Listen to how often the fan comes on and when you notice it coming on more often than usual, investigate.
6. Use the best high mileage synthetic oil you can afford. It will have additives which extend the life of rubber seals. I use Mobil 1, because I think my car is worth it.

Recommendation to preserve life of rubber brake parts:
1. Flush and refill the complete system with Valvoline synthetic brake fluid. That black color you see in the reservoir when using normal fluid is from bits of rubber. Not good.

I recently replaced the original master cylinder on my Festiva at 180,000 miles. For the 120,000 miles I had owned it till that time it had been filled with Valvoline synthetic fluid.

I need to do some research to find out if there is any topical application one can make to coolant hoses and cv joint boots to prolong their life. If I knew of anything like that I would certainly use it.

Finally, if your clutch hasn't been replaced, it may be getting close to that point. Mine is original, but I notice it now engages when the pedal gets pretty high up. My attitude is to never dog or abuse my car and wait for it to tell me when it's time to replace something. So far I haven't seen any indication that the clutch is slipping or making any noise.

I might say this is just my two cents worth, but this advice may well be worth a good deal more than that.

John Gunn
Coronado, CA

[kartracer46]

Before you get grief about it, you might want to edit your profile and add your location.
Welcome to the best Festiva site on the net!!

Beat me to it!

Welcome to our Little Shop of Horrors.

[TominMO]

Concerning performance, you can get more top end power out of the 1.3 by drilling some holes in the bottom airbox piece. This will let it breath much better at higher RPMs. No negative effect on gas mileage if you drive for mileage, and the mod costs nothing but a little of your time. You can also bump up the timing to 10 BTDC, but then you will need to put in a higher-octane gas to prevent detonation. But for me it's worth it; my Aspire is definitely more peppy than stock.

[mephi]

I'm probably going to stick with the gas mileage side of things for a while. I got it for a commuter car so I don't have to ride the bus quite as often. The clutch was just recently replaced, so I'm not going to worry about that all that much, and it seems to work just fine. The two stage thermostat is something I'm not really familiar with. How effective are they? Only available at the dealership?

[wybnrml]

The two stage thermostat is something I'm not really familiar with. How effective are they? Only available at the dealership?

They do help if you live in a cold area, you can get them at a Mazda dealer or a Ford Dealer.

And Welcome.:hello2:

[JPT]

Welcome to the site.

Wheel bearings are a trouble spot for some Festivas (like mine). Also, the parking brakes stick on some (easy fix).

[mephi]

Ha! Just read through the history and found out theses things were built by KIA. My first timing belt job was on a '99 Sephia. I loved that car.