My new 1989 Festiva L...

[Zman86]

Picked her up today. It was so nice driving standard again. It runs and drives good, kinda stumbly at idle. Thermal switch for the fan and the sensor for the temperature gauge is not working and theres a slight pulse while braking. Suspension is kind of soft, but that seems to be the norm among festivas. Clutch may also be slipping a bit, but overall its not too bad. It has about the same amount of rust of the black car, little more in some spots, little less than others. The seats are almost mint, it came with a Factory manual from Ford, and it has four brand new 12" snow tires, which make it worth the $200cdn I paid for it in my mind.

Now, the decision making has to begin. What do I do with it? EFI swap into this car. Swap the transmission and related stuff into the black car? Take transmission from this car and engine from my parts car and put it in the black car? EFI engine from parts car into this car? I dunno what to do...








you can see the factory manual here



I love this cluster


Standard!


Carb. Yuck


No passenger side mirror from the factory. Love it.


Opinions on what to do?

[batstiva]

Nice score!! Especially for 200.00!! Wonder where all the 4 speed decals on the shift knob all went. See plenty of 5 speed decals, but all the 4 speed ones seem to have disappeared. Anyway, nice car!!!

[doylerl]

Is that a CB in the ashtray area? That fills the hole pretty well IMO. I like that alot. Nice find by the way. The new tires alone are worth what you paid for it!

Batstiva, how do you know this is a 4 speed? Were all the 'L' series 4 speed? I guess mine was lucky enough to be able to keep its 4 speed shifter logo.

[Safety Guy]

So your new snow tires came with a free car!!

Good score. I'd fix it up and keep the car the way it is for the winter. A beater with snows is a good thing!

You can plan the major improvements over the winter.

Karl

[batstiva]

Batstiva, how do you know this is a 4 speed? Were all the 'L' series 4 speed? I guess mine was lucky enough to be able to keep its 4 speed shifter logo.

All the standard Carbies are 4 speeds. Or, at least that's how they are in the US.
Zman, if you need a set of front speaker grills, let me know. I've got a set you're welcome to.

[Zman86]

I have two sets of speaker grills in the other cars, thanks for the offer though.

I've not yet decided what I'm doing with it. I want a stick festiva, but I dont know how the carbed car will be in winter, specially our winters. What is the average fuel economy with a carbed car? Plus I have a ton of work into the black car, and I'd have to swap everything into the stick car.

[batstiva]

I'm averaging around 41 mpg, or so. Only had it for a couple of months, so I'm not sure how it's going to do when we switch to our crappy winter blend.

[25Horseplay]

Nice car! My carbed car was great in the winter, it started with the first turn of the key everytime!

[Zman86]

Decision has been made. It dipped into the single digits (*C) here last night, so I thought I'd go outside and see how the carbed car would start. The answer? Not very good. Theres no way I'm putting up with that all winter, specially with the winters we get here. So the carbed car is going to donate its doors/hatch/transmission and related stuff/instrument cluster/snow tires/seats/rear 1/4 glass to the black car.

Allready swapped over the rear glass since it was tinted, painted up the doors and the hatch on the 89 to match the flat black on the 90, took the seats out of the 89 and scrubbed them with a hard bristle brush then powerwashed them, going to take forever to dry, but they were disgusting. Have not yet looked that deep into what its going to take for the manual swap, going to do a search right now...

[batstiva]

^^ Hmm. Interesting, because before Batstiva developed it's idle/running problem, it was usually the car that would start in the cold when nothing else would. Fired right up at 0 degrees F, after sitting outside in below freezing temps for a week.

[Safety Guy]

Yep, when Muttstiva, my '89L, had dry cap and rotor and good plugs, and a good battery, etc., I don't ever recall any winter starting problems.

Karl