What have you done to your Festiva today!?

[bobstad]

Well, day before yesterday got sort of wild; at least. I ended up asking my upstairs neighbor to tow me to Seattle; where there's a shop I've chosen to fix up my now two summers down '91 Festiva "Hyugo." She's a great person, a career Alzheimer's care giver at that about three decades or more, close to my age; who was living in this apartment complex when I moved in during February of '08. Someone here quite a few years before me; who is a fantastic mechanic, a musician and a horse woman.

I was riding my old ten speed away from some grocery shopping Sunday afternoon, when I saw her on her pedal power bicycle at the local laundromat we all have to go to now, since this apartment complex is so cheap they refuse to repair the washers or dryers any more.

The reason she'd been astride, who also has mentioned she rides a suicide clutch Indian motorcycle; was due to finding one of the front tires on her white two-door '65 Ford Galaxie 500 hardtop flat that morning. After what amazed me, driving over to the Winthrop, WA area on some sort of a lark; mainly to buy a certain type of chocolate sold only at the Diablo Dam area city gift shop en route.

I'd told her that I'd imagined her car was pretty much an "in-county" ride, decent for getting around locally; though not really up for such a grand enough jaunt: Thus, my notion of the tow into Seattle; which she'd taken more than a little askance, I can tell I'll have to let sink in and mellow at least a little while. She's suggested I use the Mexican owned shop just a block up the street, so this is some heavy politics to work on; worth noting that the shop in Seattle's Rainier Valley also seems Mexican owned.

Simply a better vibe; in the sense of being someplace I like going generally...with both Seattle's jazz venue The Royal Room, and the Life Enrichment Bookstore in the same block there-the manager of the latter place, who recommended the shop to me. [http://theroyalroomseattle.com/ [https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lems-...03141953032997

The Galaxie sure is peculiar looking nowadays; after an ignominious experience for such a venerable rust bucket type, in reality sleeper; when a few years ago she'd managed to cream someone traveling at enough speed her car is now what I describe as "Popeye with a monocle." The driver's side single headlight still wildly askew if functional, and the two vertical stock sealed beams on the left, holding forth more normally; that for quite a while were all the forward illumination the car'd had despite her frequently working night shifts.

[bobstad]

[QUOTE=TorqueEffect;690077]Pic of the seats, one seat before and one seat after. Gotta say they look sharp, almost like racing seats painted black.

So, the darker seat is the "after" one? Behind the seat in front in the photo...

Are these for a Festiva; and what have you done?

I'm reminded of a red '67 Mustang fastback bought as a clapped out two year old repo someone's wife had gotten immobile while he'd been at war with the Army in Vietnam; with a white interior she'd let their children play in, so that the carpeting was covered by stale French fries when purchased through the loan company a couple friends of my father's worked at.

I'd gotten some spray stuff called Marhyde which was very popular then, and redid the whole interior black; which turned out great and lasted the several years I had the car, despite crappy moist Pacific northwest weather and a leaky rear window.

Unless a person is wealthy and/or into leather some other way; black seems about the best color for any car's interior. Not necessarily so for a paint job, since the most difficult color to hide any sheet metal flaws; somehow, black seems to be great for car interiors.

Probably a person could experiment, and come up with alternatives; though just the right color and shade would have to be an artist's conception, I think. Good, if you're lucky; otherwise, easily yucky. Like an other than black tuxedo, I guess?

[bobstad]

Painted my Purpleish Prelude seats black with a couple cans of Dupli-color Fabric and Vinyl paint. Will report back with pics later. Read some good things about this Dupli-color fabric/vinyl paint. So far I am impressed, it looks nice and dried very quickly (granted it was in direct sunlight) seems to work great on plastic too, painted the handbrake console with what I had left and so far it is better to adhearing to plastic than any of that crappy Rustoleum, or Krylon plastic paint. But we will see how long it lasts.

Also a couple days ago I installed the manual belt receivers into my 91' (Had been using the stock ones from the autobelts) also has the recall plastic slip over pieces.

Since my Full/Auto console broke, I removed it, and put the stock cubby console back in, and moved the radio back in the stock position, and because of that had to remove the Taurus slide out Coin/Cup holder. Back to having just the single cup holder/ash tray. lol

Hey, now I see what's going on; answering my own questions more or less. Nice to know if the product you've chosen has any relationship to the Marhyde of old I'd used; that seems quite similar. That was really a good product; which also marketed an anti-rust preparation I've found works good-though the far more intelligent lady upstairs a mechanic, says the same results are available with some sort of combination of vinegar and I forget what else.

[TWFodor]

Well, day before yesterday got sort of wild; at least. I ended up asking my upstairs neighbor to tow me to Seattle; where there's a shop I've chosen to fix up my now two summers down '91 Festiva "Hyugo." She's a great person, a career Alzheimer's care giver at that about three decades or more, close to my age; who was living in this apartment complex when I moved in during February of '08. Someone here quite a few years before me; who is a fantastic mechanic, a musician and a horse woman.

I was riding my old ten speed away from some grocery shopping Sunday afternoon, when I saw her on her pedal power bicycle at the local laundromat we all have to go to now, since this apartment complex is so cheap they refuse to repair the washers or dryers any more.

The reason she'd been astride, who also has mentioned she rides a suicide clutch Indian motorcycle; was due to finding one of the front tires on her white two-door '65 Ford Galaxie 500 hardtop flat that morning. After what amazed me, driving over to the Winthrop, WA area on some sort of a lark; mainly to buy a certain type of chocolate sold only at the Diablo Dam area city gift shop en route.

I'd told her that I'd imagined her car was pretty much an "in-county" ride, decent for getting around locally; though not really up for such a grand enough jaunt: Thus, my notion of the tow into Seattle; which she'd taken more than a little askance, I can tell I'll have to let sink in and mellow at least a little while. She's suggested I use the Mexican owned shop just a block up the street, so this is some heavy politics to work on; worth noting that the shop in Seattle's Rainier Valley also seems Mexican owned.

Simply a better vibe; in the sense of being someplace I like going generally...with both Seattle's jazz venue The Royal Room, and the Life Enrichment Bookstore in the same block there-the manager of the latter place, who recommended the shop to me. [http://theroyalroomseattle.com/ [https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lems-...03141953032997

The Galaxie sure is peculiar looking nowadays; after an ignominious experience for such a venerable rust bucket type, in reality sleeper; when a few years ago she'd managed to cream someone traveling at enough speed her car is now what I describe as "Popeye with a monocle." The driver's side single headlight still wildly askew if functional, and the two vertical stock sealed beams on the left, holding forth more normally; that for quite a while were all the forward illumination the car'd had despite her frequently working night shifts.

I have a strange feeling you are an author. Perhaps you're not, but either way, your vocabulary is impressive! Despite this simply being a retelling of how a day went, it was astoundingly interesting to read.

[iriegnome]

Complete Exhaust system.. Control arms and tie rod ends in a couple days!!

[herk518]

installed a miata coilover kit.... man does that make for a good lower on a bit stiffer springs.. i am super happy

[TorqueEffect]

Pulled the fuel pump/sending unit, and fixed the fuel level float arm so it no longer catches on the baffles of the tank. So now my fuel gauge works 100% now.

Pulled the metal sleeve off the valve stems since I couldn't use a gas station air compressor to inflate the tires with them on, they were only on there for show, and now that they are not shiny anymore they are just a nuisance. So after that inflated all 4 tires to 40psi for minimum rolling resistance.

Filled it with 89 Octane (Was running 93 since my timing is still off, so I am just experimenting to see what give the better gas mileage and running condition.)
Idle seems allot happier with the 89 over the 93.

Timing belt tensioner pulley is getting worse, gone from chirping at idle to a very quiet constant squeak under acceleration. Literally can only hear it with the windows down, and as I pass a close wall or car for the sound to bounce back to where I can hear it.

Painted seats seem to be holding up, didn't really want to paint my splitback rear seat, but I left an almost empty can of that vinyl spray on the back floor without a cap, and when I had the seat folded forward so I could access the fuelpump today, it sprayed all over the front of the seat. =/ Oh well, time to take lemons and make lemonade and paint the splitback seat black.

I also figured instead of buying a whole new carpet for the car, just pull it out, use a carpet cleaner, then use this same stuff to turn the grey carpet black, and then it will be like a brand new carpet again. Hoping those center seat mount brackets don't fight me, they look kinda rusty.

[bhearts]

florescent orange b6 valve cover

[boydg1]

Pretty color, is that an oven rack? hmmmmmm

[bhearts]

Yep. You should have seen it floating in the air once I was done, super pretty color

[TWFodor]

This weekend I changed the fuel filter, pulled a cruise control system out of a junked Festiva at the yard, checked and corrected tire pressures, spray painted my wipers black (they were very weathered) and my wife spray painted all of our rust spots. I also spent some more time cleaning up the engine bay and valve cover.

[TorqueEffect]

Yesterday I rotated the tires, and did a thorough inspection of the front wheel bearings, and brakes. Found that the inner passenger pad wearing very unevenly with one side of that pad almost completely gone, and there is a deep edge step on the inner side of the rotor on both sides of the car, and found a very pitted spot on the inner side of the driver's side rotor. Also chipped as much rust off the edge of the brake rotors to see if I can get rid of the wheel vibrations on the highway, and after the tire rotation it seems to have mostly one away, nowhere near as violent of shaking, but it is still there, and that may just be down to the alignment being off.

But since my front brakes are in a sorry state, I really need to get my Rio/Auto Aspire brake swap soon.

[muleskinner]

I was driving my 89' Festiva (Shadow) last night and got tired of it stalling all the time when I go down hill or come to a stop, so I hobbled out of the car & tweaked the idle speed a tad and it fixed it!
Also the head lights decided to go out again too so I pressed in the inline fuse and ta-da! fixed!! Someday I will have to replace that inline fuse .....

[TorqueEffect]

Swapped the LX hatch onto my dd, and installed the Smart Car washer nozzle.

I recommend the washer nozzle to anyone who doesn't mind modifying the hole in the hood for it. It's nice to be actually able to get good coverage to actually wash your windshield instead of hoping for rain just so you can wash off the big spot of bird crap.

[william]

Swapped out the junk speedometer cable for A good one.
And drove it for the first time in almost a year.
Topped off the tank with fresh gas and aired up the tires.