Hello! New to my old Festiva

[TominMO]

To be on the safe side it's always a good idea to disconnect the battery before doing anything on a car. Especially if it consists of unplugging wires around the gas tank!!

I'm sure Dan will +1 on this....

[Coldhand]

Erin, we are in Houston. You could drive your Festy to where we are working on ours. It's in Friendswood. We are putting the engine back in the car on Saturday so we will have all the tools and manuals out. Welcome.

[Spike]

^ You need a new sending unit!

I have 4 LOL. 2 with pumps attached (for $8/ea, whole assembly!) One from a 67k Festiva.. just never got around to taking the 2 minutes to flip the seat up and put it on!

[Prafeston]

Erin, we are in Houston. You could drive your Festy to where we are working on ours. It's in Friendswood. We are putting the engine back in the car on Saturday so we will have all the tools and manuals out. Welcome.

Sounds like a good deal Erin, better send them a PM and figure out where they are!

[Prafeston]

I'm sure Dan will +1 on this....

Haha right!!

[db2u]

I think the thing that might concern me the most is the eating of oil. Oil consumption is not a good sign, of course if its just leaking then no big deal... Does it smoke any?

Haynes manuals are good but in my experience they are better for helping you do something when you already know what you are trying to do (eg if you have an idea of what is wrong but need to know how to test it or remove/replace it). Sitting is always hard on cars, usually you have to replace EVERY maintenance item so I could see a $900 bill easy if you had an actual mechanic do it.

For the misfire, does it happen just at idle, or when revving the engine?

[Team Lightning]

Welcome!!
To answer your question, My book says 9.9 gallons to fill a dry tank.
Good Luck with your Festiva!!!
They are a blast to drive!!

[1990new]

Another Welcome to the forum.
Do you have an itemized list of the repairs that were made for the $900 you spent?
You "should" be able to eliminate any parts which are on the list as being replaced, from your remaining problems to be taken care of.

By all means follow up with the offered help on Saturday. Your problems may all be identified, if not solved just by having people who
have experience with Festivas, take a look at yours. Take your "repairs to get it running list" with you if you go on Saturday.

[frankenfester]

Welcome!!!

Hey advanceddynamix aren't you close? Kinda?

-James

[muleskinner]

Welcome Erin, those in Houston can help you with your car and you should take them up on it. If not there is always another day.
Everyone on here are festy fanatics!

[FestYboy]

high Erin: first thing i would do is inspect the condition of the plugs (first indicator of internal issues). next, i would pull the fuel pump assembly and inspect the rubber tube that goes between the pump and the feed tube at the mounting flange. those rubber tubes are known to break down/crack and/or devlope holes that bleed off fuel pressure. this issue is made worse once the fuel drops below the level of the leak. the lack of pressure and more importantly, volume can cause a lean miss (this is bad). once the condition of the pump assembly is determined (repaired if nessisary), do a compression test. you should see at least 150 psi in each cylinder with no more than a 15% deviation between cylinders.

[drddan]

^ What he said.

[roller skate]

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Erin, this is a wonderful community of Festiva enthusiasts. A major portion of the folks here are very mechanically inclined. I you read around a bit, you'll get tidbits about adding giant engines and all sorts of other stuff. It is really important that you have a good book for the car. I was never satisfied with Haynes and Chilton books because of a lack of detail. I found the Ford brand manual (FPS-12133-91) and wiring diagram supplement (FPS-12136-91I) invaluable. It tells you everything but the wrench sizes.

You should be using 5W30 oil. It holds under 4 quarts. There are many things that get under-maintained on cars. After it gets going well, consider having the timing belt checked for integrity. It's a fat cousin to the belts that you can see; it connects some of the engines innards together and is supposed to be replaced every 60,000 miles or so. Since you're not up here in the rust-belt, you should be able to get another 100,000 miles out of her.

Good luck!