It finally happened...

[nitrofarm]

Haha, well, running anything but these wheels is just out of the question :p I like them too much! I'll just keep rolling on them till something breaks. I'm ordering a rear transmission mount this week and I want to get those tracer knuckles mounted soon, larger vented rotors just sound like fun.

I put a hose clamp where it was bending for support, it isn't getting kinked like it was. I'm going to attempt to stuff a bigger radiator in sometime, mine is leaking (very small leak) from the top seam..and I want to see if a new thermostat will help anything.


To be honest, I can't even find the DLC box!! I was looking in the haynes manual and it shows a cluster of wires for an 88/89 engine with three sockets, I may or may not have those? Gonna grab the whole engine harness from the junk yard Festy Tuesday and get it swapped in to see if my temp gauge starts working in the cluster.

Thats probably your problem. If you've been making adjustments without jumping the wire your chasing your tail. The computer is confused.The hose clamp would work if it was discharge,but since its suction I doubt it helps once it heats up.Maybe just get some ugly flex-able ribbed for pleasure hose for now.

[Safety Guy]

The wire goes to the black single pin connector near the master cylinder, IIRC. Ground it out before using timing light or adjusting idle speed.

Karl

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Car running decent right now, I'm gonna take it on a 80 mile trip tomorrow, maybe have some fuel milage numbers by the time I get home! I took it out to the dam today and did a mini photoshoot Haha, probably should have washed er first but the sun was going down. Really I just wanted a new background pic for my phone!

Itching to get the Mitsubishi Spyder seats installed, hoping that will be happening sometime soon, also have my wife attempting to reupholster the passenger side door card, if that doesn't pan out well I can snag one from the JY Festy. Kind of curious to see what she comes up with for that Haha..

[zoom zoom]

Went camping, caught a few fishies, and everybody had a good time! Car survived the trip without any issues!! I was pulling on a Mazda6 in 5th over 80mph halfway home. He'd get beside me, we'd run 80-100 or so, slow down and do it again Haha..he started it tho! Unfortunately between driving like that and the revving to 4k in second and third is only netting me 32mpg

[zoom zoom]

Went up to Gomezes house yesterday and picked up his old engine and auto trans still mated together from his Festy. Bad water leak, but the tranny should be good 202k mi on both if I remember right! It's good to know I.have a spare auto for babyspire and a non lockup torque converter if I need it! And I got an engine to play with! It won't work in my aspire without swapping the oil pumps so ill have to find another use for it

I think I made a really good choice with the 150# springs in the rear, even with the weight of the engine and transmission, the car only squatted 1 1/2-2". I still had around 1" of suspension travel before getting into the bump stops, and the ride was great! Granted gravel road travel sucks!!! I couldn't even tell I had the engine in the car until I hit one corner a little too fast and one of the straps broke Haha, it was all good tho I had two on it and it was just the sound of the one breaking that scared me. I felt the rear slam once when I hit a decent pothole but other than that it was smooth sailing all the way home, and to work and back today.

Unfortunately I neglected to.get any pics of Bryants car, its a nice looking white car, has all kinds of goodies on it! His garage was pretty nice too, everything was sorted and organized with a place for everything and everything in its place! Wish mine could stay that well organized!

[zoom zoom]

The other day I started stripping the interior, worked on it some more today and I've got everything but the dash, driver seat/seatbelt and carpet out. I have some before pics I want to load up as a reference, I don't know how its going to turn out to be honest, I'm going to attempt something a little different than anything I've done before, so we'll just have to see how this goes..

When I took the spare tire out I found about 2" of water sitting under there, so I drilled a couple 10mm drain holes 180* apart front and back in the deepest spots. I'm going to spray it with rust converting primer and clearcoat it to keep it from rusting out where I drilled.

I don't remember uploading any pics of the steering column? There's one anyway of the Festy vs Tracer columns, the Tracer one was a hair longer, but it still bolted in with minor difficulties. I had to keep the Festy harness for the ignition switch, the tracer wires had the exact same sockets, but the wires were a little too short?!?!! Also had to cut off a little bit of the lower bracket to clearance for the brake petal, as well as cop off a short length of the outside tabs on the upper bolt bracket to let it clear the dash bezel, bolts are in good and tight and I don't think ill have any problems. I opted to use the tracer column cover and steering wheel but I could have gone either way with that. The tracer stuff was in better shape and doesn't require me to pull that ridiculous lower bracket anymore, its gone.

[zoom zoom]

Alright, so on to the fun stuff that I did today! Aside from getting that engine/tranny out Haha..that was fun! (I don't own a cherrypicker)

While Karl was down last time he was already thinking ahead and brought me material he purchased from JoAnn Fabrics(IIRC) to make new gaskets for the rear taillights! I had heard of this mod but I never really understood what it was about until today Haha, the Aspires I'm used to are sealed units!

The old gaskets came out in pieces, totally shot/dryrotted and junk. Luckily Karl brought down a couple different thickness sheets of gasket material, my passenger side was (easily) hit and it bent the metal just enough to where I still had a gap in the seal with the 1/8" stuff. I bent the sheet metal back into shape as close as I could get it and used the thicker 3/16"? Stuff, and it sealed all the way around!

The paper sized piece of 1/8" stuff was enough to make 4 gaskets, and the thicker sheet made 2 gaskets, I went ahead and cut out all that I could to give back to Karl! He may or may not have a couple festivas in need?!

It was a pretty simple and straight forward job, made easier by the template Karlx left for me to go off of. Didn't take long and I think this stuff will hold up for a long time!

I did a quick vacuum job and loaded up some scrap crap I had laying around to take in tomorrow. Who needs BF chassis struts anyway... I'm hoping to get the new door locks and possibly a ...well I guess I'll wait till its mounted on the car to reveal that, its another one of those secret project things that will compliment the lift and brush gaurd well, IMO!

[Safety Guy]

I'm glad you could use that foam stuff Matt! It does the trick.

Karl

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Yea thanks man! I cut out extras, you'll get those next time I see you :p

If your not busy Friday after this, July 5th, you should come down to mcconnelsville for a JY run with me and Bryant.

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Anybody know the difference between 89 tracer door levers and Festiva door levers?

One has nice new looking plastic with Chrome levers and the other one is old scratched and dirty!

Installing door locks now...

[nitrofarm]

I looked at a Tracer two days ago. Its got Int Wipers & electric mirrors and factory sun roof.

[zoom zoom]

Did you happen to get a look at the rear suspension? It's a little different, I'm wondering what Charlies take on it would be Haha.. honestly is love to have a tracer to drive daily, they're suprisingly comfy and all around not bad at all. Not sure if I like the 2 door or 4 door best yet.

I suppose ill go ahead and reveal the secret project for the week...kinda needing advice as to what WATERTIGHT bolts I should use in the roof, or if there's a better way to attach it. I don't want to just run self tappers or drywall screws thru the roof that will leak and possibly rip out easy. I may have to take the headliner out to tac weld a couple captive nuts or whatever I gotta do..as long as it doesn't leak and stays in place!

Custom Roof Rack!!

Inspired by Karl and the wifey who claims to need a crap handle!

I pulled this off a early 2000's Chrysler minivan. I like it a lot better than most other roof racks, its sleek and streamlined in a low profile fashion that compliments the Festy roof well, IMO. I don't particularly care for a big gaudy roof rack that looks like antlers on the roof. I just need to shorten the width of the spiders which looks like it will be as super easy as shortening the length of the runners...but I would like to get some opinions of how to screw/bolt the endcap pieces that hold the whole thing in place to the roof without any leaks. Any and all advice welcome, thanks!

[Gomez]

That rack looks pretty sweet. I may have to copy it and do some custom stuff for a bike rack. I had a hard time fitting the boys' bikes in the trunk yesterday. Had to bungee the hatch. BUT with a roof rack I can also take Me and wifeys as well. hmmmmmm

[rmoltis]

I'm thinking a bolt with washers with gaskets between each layer anything contacts.
that way the bolt threads are sealed in a semi cylinder of space while the gaskets keep the water on the outside side.
Also the gaskets may very well prevent paint scratches between metal surfaces as well.

Bolt head
Gasket
Washer
Gasket
Roof rack
Gasket
Washer
Gasket
Roof
Inside
Gasket
Washer
Gasket
Nut

[FestYboy]

take away the gasket between the bolt head and first washer... no nessisary and will be the first thing to rot away and cause and issue, and then again at the roof, that washer between the runner and roof is redundant because the roof IS a washer, AND the gasket between the nut and washer (another fail point). Use a nyloc nut and run a small beed of silicon between the runner and bolt above the outside of the roof to seal the threads and there you go: weather proof.