What have you done to your Festiva today!?

[Festevil3]

Diggin' the purple springs

[frankenfester]

Installed what must be the first outer tie rod the auto's ever had new.. severely stuck in the knuckle, darn near welded to the inner tie rod. Took forever o_O.

Also, any tips on getting the inner out without the $50 Harbor Freight tool? The inner is insanely easy to move up/down/over, but doesn't have any in/out movement. I bought new inner/outers for both sides, but the passenger outer was the most important.

-Joe

Huge pair of channel locks with some good teeth, or a big visegrip. Don't do it jacked up. Try And get the car on ramps or something really sturdy So you can get underneath of it And crank.
Oh, BTW that harbor freight kit won't fit anyways. I tried it, then resorted to the redneck method. Reinstall should be easy. Just a 24mm spanner.

-James

[Prafeston]

I've been without my DD for almost a month and it's been nothing but setbacks since the beginning. Was just going do an oil change and found I was leaking oil all over the bottom of my car. So I decided to do my oil pan gasket and crank seal. While it was down I was going to do my struts and springs. Broke the rear strut bolt on the drivers side trying to unscrew it. Couldn't keep the flywheel from turning when I was trying to get the crank bolt off. I stripped the nuts on the front struts. Now I realized my oil pan gasket I just installed ripped I guess while installing. I broke the blade on my sawzall when I was trying to cut through the rear bolt I snapped and when reinstalling the the engine accessories I found out trying to get that dang timing belt tensioner spring on was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done!!! Finally had a good day yesterday though. Drivers side rear strut finally removed and front strut and spring installed. Tomorrow I'm hoping to finish all the struts and springs and then it's back to that darn oil pan.

How my car has looked for the last three weeks.


Broken blade! The hardest part about all this is I haven't had a vehicle to make runs to Lowe's or the parts store!


Finally got the strut out after cutting through the bolt. I had to cut a piece of the rear beam off the very back so I could get in there at the nut. How structure is that little piece in the rear?


I felt so good about finally having something go right I chucked my old strut into my front yard!


Front strut and spring installed.


Oh and while I had the front struts out I wire wheeled the top and bottom of the mounting points as well as the strut brace plates and painted them all with rustoleum.

[TorqueEffect]

Got my replacement mirror glass in the mail, and got that put in.

Woo! No more trashy looking broken mirror!!!

[200KGPGTP]

Installed what must be the first outer tie rod the auto's ever had new.. severely stuck in the knuckle, darn near welded to the inner tie rod. Took forever o_O.

Also, any tips on getting the inner out without the $50 Harbor Freight tool? The inner is insanely easy to move up/down/over, but doesn't have any in/out movement. I bought new inner/outers for both sides, but the passenger outer was the most important.

-Joe

I did mine without any special tools

[gutzybroad]

Drove it and thought Dang If I dont get to the work on this front end I'm in trouble lol. got major play in the steering. can't figure that 1 out. but I also need ball joints I believe.

[Spike]

Installed what must be the first outer tie rod the auto's ever had new.. severely stuck in the knuckle, darn near welded to the inner tie rod. Took forever o_O.

Also, any tips on getting the inner out without the $50 Harbor Freight tool? The inner is insanely easy to move up/down/over, but doesn't have any in/out movement. I bought new inner/outers for both sides, but the passenger outer was the most important.

-Joe

[1990new]

Today I replaced the rear lap belts with sholder/lap belts in Trixie.
Was fairly easy but I had to enlarge the back holes in the metal pieces that hold the lap belt to the side of the car, and also use the old lap belt bolts there.
On my 90's and 92's the both holes are the same size but on the 89 the rear holes are larger and the front holes are smaller.
The holes for attaching the retraction mechanism and the shoulder loop beside the rear window lever are the same.
Had to drill holes in the molded plastic for the retraction mechanism but there were little circles on the inside showing where and how big to cut the holes.

All in all a pretty easy job.

Anyone need a nice set of rear lap belts? I'll post them in the FS forum.

[frankenfester]

!3". Do they have Gunmetal gray plastidip?

If I'm not mistaken from Dipyourcar.com you can get just about any color Plastidip

-James

[bravekozak]

Finished the wiring for the cruise control system today. Cannot test it until I reinstall the whole wiring harness. The power for the cruise control was taken from a double wire connection to the green/white wire from the stop switch, through the lower to upper harness connector to the main cruise switch (left hand meter bezel) and then back to the Ford cruise computer. The green/red wire (for the operational light) was open barrel spliced at the existing factory splice in the upper harness in the middle of the meter (instrument cluster). The ground is through the black wire to the side of the body under the dash. It is combined with the ground from the power antenna switch + the ground from the cruise computer. All wiring looks completely stock and has the proper color codes.

[navdoc101]

!3". Do they have Gunmetal gray plastidip?

[frankenfester]

Picked up 4 AR Estrellas with tires for $70. today. A little curb rash I'll get fixed. 2 good tires, 1 okay tire & 1 crap tire. I have 4 good tires on my car & 4 good tires in the shed, so not worring about tires. Did some cleanup today , used Purple power to degrease. I'm a happy man!!!

I did mine with the lips silver And the rest Plastidip black


-James

[frankenfester]

Picked up 4 AR Estrellas with tires for $70. today. A little curb rash I'll get fixed. 2 good tires, 1 okay tire & 1 crap tire. I have 4 good tires on my car & 4 good tires in the shed, so not worring about tires. Did some cleanup today , used Purple power to degrease. I'm a happy man!!!

13 or 14"?

-James

[navdoc101]

Picked up 4 AR Estrellas with tires for $70. today. A little curb rash I'll get fixed. 2 good tires, 1 okay tire & 1 crap tire. I have 4 good tires on my car & 4 good tires in the shed, so not worring about tires. Did some cleanup today , used Purple power to degrease. I'm a happy man!!!

[TorqueEffect]

Just waiting on the A/C system from DAB440.

Will be nice to finally have A/C.