Festy Fixes...... finally!

[SimonTuffGuy]

My 93 GL Sport has been running with a few issues... I've neglected to do anything with them until tonight.

I had a cracked tail light from sometime over the winter. Not sure if I hit it with a shovel or what. About a quarter size hole was put in it. Luckily enough, the plastic piece that cracked off stayed in the assembly. So I pulled off the tail light, got the plastic piece back into place and put a heavy coating of superglue on the outside and inside. It should keep it in place until I can find a suitable replacement.

My white tach gauge cluster would randomly just not work... The turn signal and high beam indicators, backlight, and buzzer would just randomly not work. I thought it had to do with the cluster itself, but seemed to trace down to the wire cluster behind the tach. A couple zip ties to keep things tight seemed to fix it. I thought it was the cluster itself, it started over the winter and I just figured it had to do with the cold... But when it continued with 100 degree temps, it was time to get it sorted out.

Couple months back, I hit a lady in the rear bumper (brake checked, she got cited for causing the accident). It ended up bending in the radiator support a little bit. That caused the hood to not close quite right and the drivers headlight was off. Took everything off, wrapped a strap around it and pulled it ever so slightly with the Jeep. It ended up working perfectly! The support came back out, headlight is aimed (mostly) correctly, and the hood closes great now.

At any rate... It's kind of the little things that made my day today. Getting those tiny little pieces fixed will make driving the car a lot more enjoyable.

Just dropped it off at the exhaust shop. The exhaust pipe broke off right at the flange where it bolts to the muffler over the weekend. That was a great ride home. Anyways, I asked him for a "quick fix", so I think he's going to cut the flange off the muffler and just bolt it together with a piece of pipe to get me running again. Cheaper than a full exhaust and it'll be fine until I need to replace it all together.

Anyone else do something minor that made a major difference?

[TominMO]

Anyone else do something minor that made a major difference?

I once fixed a friend's Mercedes with a tin can and two hose clamps. For some reason his B-pipe (pipe between cat and muffler) broke in two. I found a tin can, cut the bottom off, cut it down its length so I had a flat piece of metal; wrapped it around the B-pipe at the break, and secured it with the hose clamps. It got him home (100 miles) till he could do a proper repair.

[eurotiva]

Today I started to upgrade alternators again.

[25Horseplay]

Simon what side taillight do you need? I have some ribbed ones laying around.

[deathegg]

I once fixed a friend's Mercedes with a tin can and two hose clamps. For some reason his B-pipe (pipe between cat and muffler) broke in two. I found a tin can, cut the bottom off, cut it down its length so I had a flat piece of metal; wrapped it around the B-pipe at the break, and secured it with the hose clamps. It got him home (100 miles) till he could do a proper repair.

I did that exact same repair on my old Gremlin; the pipe broke on the way to Atlantic City, and with a 360 engine, it was LOUD. Thank god I had a pop can and a few clamps.

[bhazard]

Exhaust dumping under the car is nauseating, isnt it?

[batstiva]

Exhaust dumping under the car is nauseating, isnt it?

Yes!!

I remembered to close my sun roof before it rained the last time, does that count?

Actually, I did just install the escort mirrors I picked up at OSX, wired in the festy harness. So now I'm just waiting on a switch, and I'll have power mirrors. Woot!!!

[festyxfi]

I love little fix it days Swapping out bad bulbs or rotating tires. All these things need (or should) be done, but seem to get kicked to the side for bigger things....like surfing FF.com!

FX

[SimonTuffGuy]

Simon what side taillight do you need? I have some ribbed ones laying around.

It's the passenger side. My super glue fix will hold for now, but if you have one spare, that'd rock. (Possibly the old style bulb holder too? )

[SimonTuffGuy]

I once fixed a friend's Mercedes with a tin can and two hose clamps. For some reason his B-pipe (pipe between cat and muffler) broke in two. I found a tin can, cut the bottom off, cut it down its length so I had a flat piece of metal; wrapped it around the B-pipe at the break, and secured it with the hose clamps. It got him home (100 miles) till he could do a proper repair.

I didn't think of that, but something like that would've worked too. The fix ran me $18 at the shop... $15 of that was labor and the other $3 was for the clamps and piece of exhaust pipe that put it back together with. Cut off the muffler flange, put in the pipe and tightened it up. Works great and was cheap.

[GenevaDirt]

Yes!!

I remembered to close my sun roof before it rained the last time, does that count?

Actually, I did just install the escort mirrors I picked up at OSX, wired in the festy harness. So now I'm just waiting on a switch, and I'll have power mirrors. Woot!!!

do you need a switch? I have several.

[freshtiva]

It's the passenger side. My super glue fix will hold for now, but if you have one spare, that'd rock. (Possibly the old style bulb holder too? )

There is a NOS bulb holder on ebay right now. A day of fixing little festiva problems is a vacation day for me. Its a labor of love !! It was more than a little fix but just put new struts, LCAs, and rear wheels bearings in the wifes festiva ( Jewel ). Did the tape measure alignment and put new tires on it. Wouldnt have done it to just any car with 225,000 on it but its a good running festiva with A/C. She loves the new festy feel ! Still has the original front wheel bearings. She was ready to give up on it, but now the love is back.

[batstiva]

do you need a switch? I have several.

Thanks for the offer, but got one on the way from Fred.

[freshtiva]

Took care of a problem with Frankenstiva today. An annoying little problem which was diminishing my other wise passionate love affair I’ve had driving the car this summer. Every time I hit a bump or even a expansion joint in the road I would get a high pitched creak. Not a rattle or a squeak....but a creak. I’ve dealt with it until today when like Popeye says "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more" !! If you remember this car had a complete gutting including a dash off wire harness swap, an auto to manual swap, motor swap, aspire brake swap, etc so I figured it could be about anything. Sounded like it was coming from under the dash. Sure enough I found the problem. A little tab of the aluminum tubing that supports the dash was rubbing against the console bracket, took my longest screw drive and gave it a couple of swift raps with the hammer and bent the tab back about 1/8 of an inch. Problem solved in time to keep my sanity intact. The bliss is back.




You can see the offending tab with two fresh screwdrive marks on it. Glad it was a simple fix.

[batstiva]

Okay, this falls under the category of really, really minor. But annoying as heck. My 89 was a VA car before it was a WV car. As such, there had been 2 stickers at the bottom- center of the windshield. Inspection and county sticker. Anyway, they had been mostly scraped off, but there was that little bit of residue that was left on there. Finally got around today to taking a razor blade and getting rid of that. Minor, I know, but so damn annoying to glance that way and see all that gunk still on there.