Tale of a Tiny Traveling Fiesta

Hello GRM. I've been lurking and occasionally posting on the forum for years. I finally decided it's time to start a build thread for my most recent acquisition. I've wanted to attend the challenge since around 2010 or 11 when I first started subscribing to GRM. I even bought three different cars intended for the challenge but sold them because my job didn't allow for taking time off in October. As of the middle of January I'll have a new job that doesn't have insane hours in the month of October. That means I can start working on a challenge car with the expectation that I can actually attend. Which brings  me to the star of this thread...

Back in August, this for sale thread popped up:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/cars-sale/svt-powered-1980-fiesta-challenge-priced-must-go/186011/page1/

I REALLY wanted it then, but I couldn't get it because a bunch of executives were coming to my work for a visit on Wednesday, then I was having knee surgery on Thursday.

In October, this for sale thread popped up:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/cars-sale/want-another-shot-at-the-1995-svt-swapped-1980-fiesta-heres-your-chance/187365/page1/

I totally missed it (see above about how busy I am at work in the month of October). It moved back to the top when captainawesome offered it back up for sale.

I jumped on the opportunity and arranged to pick it up yesterday. This tiny traveling Fiesta started in Maryland, moved to Michigan, then to Arkansas, and is now residing in my garage in central Illinois. Perhaps the BDT is growing a bit more obtuse.

I left my house around 5 AM in my wife's Honda Ridgeline en-route to Arkansas. I made excellent time and made it to the U-haul location nearest the car around noon. Managed some very respectable MPGs on the way there:

captain awesome helped me get all loaded up in the rain and I was back on the road around 1:45. For some reason, Google Maps decided the best route back home was on some EPIC twisty roads. They are a lot less epic in a Honda Ridgeline towing a U-haul trailer. I am super jealous coming from flat and straight Illinois.  About 45 minutes into my trip captainawesome (who is even more awesome than his username suggests) called me and reminded me that we had forgotten to load the bumpers..DOH! I turned around and headed back to pick up the bumpers. I headed home (again) around 3:15. This time Google Maps decided to take me on a less twisty route (which is probably the only time I will appreciate fewer twisty roads).

I didn't manage to get a picture at captainawesome's place, but I did remember to take a gas station pick just west of St. Louis.

It stayed mostly dry for the trip until the last hour when I encountered some freezing rain. I finally made it home around 11:15 PM. It was an exhausting but exciting day. The truck pulled the trailer great. It was comfortable enough until about 850 miles in when I was really wishing for a little more lumbar support. It managed to get pretty decent mileage towing this little car.

Our 4000 lb travel trailer gets me a best of 12-13 mpg but that thing is a giant box.

Subscribed.  

Good to see when you want to sell I'm near Joliet, a mere 2 hours or less from you.  

Lemme get the popcorn done before you start...

A couple days ago I spent some time clearing a bay in my garage for the Fiesta and parts stash. This spot had been occupied by my Explorer that you see in the background (which is apparently is a classic now:https://classicmotorsports.com/articles/classics-you-should-buy-now-according-experts/). I thought this would be enough room for both the car and the parts...I was wrong. So many parts!

When I got home last night, I was pretty tired so I threw the cover over the car to keep any more water from getting in and went to bed. This morning my kids helped me unload.

This little harbor freight winch was worth its weight in gold:

It helped both loading and unloading. The Fiesta was almost too small for a Uhaul trailer.

My son helped me push the car into the garage. It gives a bunch more space than the Explorer did.

The parts. There are sooo many parts. I was a little overwhelmed when captainawesome was showing me all the parts. When I decided to buy this car I was a little worried about what was included and what I would need to buy to get this thing to the challenge under budget. There is way more here than I expected. I'm sure other stuff will come up but the biggest piece I think is missing is the windshield. captainawesome threw in some extra parts that he had laying around that may be useful as well, including a roll bar that fits really well.

So what's next? Well those parts are in the stall where my wife's Ridgeline goes so that is priority number 1. When the kids go to bed tonight, I am going to start sorting through the boxes and picking the best parts of the ones there are multiples of (lots of multiples). The rest will probably get stashed in the mobile storage unit (Explorer).

2. Make it run. There is already a build thread for this car that was started by the original builder, Saron81. He has had this running already.

Original Build Thread:https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/fiesta-mk1-project/136627/page1/

3. Make it drive. There are some really bad noises coming from the passenger side axle. I need to pull that and try to figure out why. Brake lines, clutch lines, shifter linkage, exhaust gauges etc.

4. Make it nice-ish. Body work, interior trim, paint, wire tucking/cleaning.

I have a little bit of concern with the position of the engine/trans. It isn't mounted square to the shock towers. I'm guessing due to clearance issues but haven't looked into it yet. I noticed this in the for-sale pictures but figured it was a bit of an optical illusion. Maybe it's fine and I'll just leave it?

I'm sure I'll be looking for guidance on this as this is definitely my largest project I've taken on. I am hoping I'll be able to stay motivated and keep the progress going to make it to the challenge in 2022 but I am not going to try to force the issue. If I have to wait until 2023, so be it.

Sub'd. This thing is awesome!

So glad this wasn't my forst impulse purchase ford. 

Subbed to see it get finished!

Yay I'm here for this!  And If you don't get this done for 2022 you're obviously welcome to come as a member of the LMP360 team.  

In reply to karplus2 :

Totally subscribed. This car should be a riot when it's done.

Don't forget to join the Fiesta US/N. America groups. I am a 4 time Fiesta owner and I know where parts can be had if your missing something.  For the Challange I would consider just going with a Lexan windshield as new ones are NLA.  I plan something similar on my latest Fiesta but keeping the Kent engine but swapping in the Getrag 6 speed.  

In reply to jimbbski :

I joined the Mk1 NA facebook group. I am definitely going to do lexan for budget reasons. Hopefully I'll be able to find a real windshield for post challenge life. I will let you know if I come across anything I really need.

I got a lot of parts stowed away in the Explorer this afternoon. It was getting dark so I didn't fit as much in as I had hoped. I at least made space for SWMBO's truck to go back in the garage.

I spent a lot of time sorting through parts last night. There is more there than I had even thought, including a lot of fittings for brake/clutch plumbing. I found this interesting cable and realized it's a brake balance adjuster for the fancy pedal assembly. 

I think I am going to try and pull the noisy axle tonight and maybe start sorting through wiring.

I'm so jealous!

SV reX said:

I'm so jealous!

Yeah - I've no time right now but I'm with you Buddy.  

Got a couple hours in the garage tonight.

I got the noisy axle out and figured out why it was making noise. Actually, I figured out the noise before I got the axle out. The outer shaft was spinning but it wasn't moving the inner shaft (going into the transmission) at all. Once I got it pulled from the inner CV it was clear why. I could spin the piece on the right by hand.

Neither the shaft nor the cv looks damaged so I'm guessing they are slightly different. It was dark so I couldn't go digging through the crate that has tons of CV parts to see if there is anything I can make work. It's supposed to freezing rain tomorrow so we'll see if I actually go dig out the crate.

I also got the shifter linkage connected. It goes into 1st-6th just fine but doesn't like going into reverse. I'm guessing it's just the cables needing a little adjustment but we'll see.

Join the Focus SVT Facebook page. The talk a lot about the shifter cables causing the cars to not go into reverse. I have a newer set of cables if yours end up bad. 

Good luck with the project! 

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

I think I found the adjustment procedure. I didn't try to do that tonight because it's tight in there and didn't feel like cutting up my hands. I will let you know if I cant get these adjusted and think I need some I'll let you know.

I didn't get much done on the car today because I farted around and failed at a project that I have been promising my wife for years.

I did manage to get the car to turn over. Everything had been disconnected when it came to me. It took me a while to figure out the wiring diagram that Saron81 made because reading wiring diagrams and transferring that to actual wires is NOT a strong suit of mine. I am going to use my wife's label maker to re-label the wires since some of the writing is getting worn off. I am assuming it didn't start because there isn't any gas in the tank. I may put a little in tomorrow just to see if it starts. I didn't take any pictures today so here is one captainawesome sent me when we finished loading it at his place.

I love this project.

I've been going out to the garage every night but haven't really accomplished anything. Been doing a lot of staring and pondering what I want to do first. I keep jumping to wanting to make it look nice, but that has to come later. I need to make sure I can get it to the challenge operational. So my plan right now is this:

Get it operational:

Get it to run again (I hope I am close since it turns over... still need to buy some gas)

Make brake and clutch lines

Mount Pedal Assembly- While the pedal box is a pretty trick part, it won't be in the car post-challenge. I'm 6'1" and it pushes the pedals too far out from the firewall. Eventually I want to find a rear seat for this so I can take the family out to cruise and where I would have to put the driver seat isn't conducive for backseat passengers (Not that the backseat was ever conducive for backseat passengers)

Install e-brake cable

Figure out axles. It looks like I need a 22 tooth tripod bearing with 34ish diameter bearing spinner parts to make the passenger axle work. I have found some that are close online but none that are perfect. When the driver side suspension is drooped that axle makes noise too, so I'm going to pull and inspect that one.

Fabricate exhaust

Install seats/Seatbelts- Still debating on whether I want to install the roll bar that came with the car. I'm leaning towards trying to keep the interior mostly stock.

Figure out gauges- The car came with some Autometer gauges that I might use. Not sure if I can get the stock cluster to work using the Focus wiring. We'll see.

Once I get to this point, I'll start with trying to make it look nice. I think I will probably re-do the quarter panel patch. There is a body line that kinda disappeared from the previous repair and I don't want to use a bunch of body filler to recreate it. This may be a giant fail since I haven't done much body work before. I found a gallon of Summit Racing single stage paint for only $83 and $30 for the activator. I don't think I would need a whole gallon for this tiny car so It'd be cool to get the paint done for under $100. The car came with most of a gallon of Eastwood Primer and some body filler.

Tonight I worked on 3-d printing a bracket in preparation for running the fuel/brake line down the tunnel. I took drafting classe in high school and loved it but I suck at it now. I used Sketchup and then export the .stl to Cura

I started printing it and realized it wasn't going to work because I didn't raft where there is a big overhang. So I switched around the orientation of the halves of the bracket and hope this works better.

That looks better. I've never done rafts before so I generally just try to model stuff so that they aren't needed. I need to get more practice modeling printing stuff.

Printing now...we'll see how it turns out in 30-40 minutes.

Looks like you are already blazing ahead on this one. I think the car found the right home, really excited to see where it places in its Challenge debut.

In reply to captainawesome :

I hope so. I really love this little thing and it is definitely the most motivated I've ever been on a project. Hopefully I can keep up that motivation.

Print went OK but I didn't design the receiver part if the bracket with enough space for the clip part to fit through. That'll be easy enough to change tomorrow. I am printing this in PLA and will try my hand at ABS for the final iteration. I have a new roll of ABS so I should be able to weight it as I use it for easy budgeting of 3-d printed stuff.

Really glad to see that this car is finally being worked on, even if it had to go from saron, to me, to captainawesome, to you, for that to happen. It's also kind of weird to see pictures of a car that was in *my* garage in someone else's garage, since every other car I've owned has disappeared forever once it was out of my driveway.

I'll definitely be following along, and I wish you the best of luck with getting it to the 2022 Challenge!

No room in the back seat?  Look at how big that dog is!

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

They clearly removed the front seats for that picture.

I finally got my brake/fuel line bracket about where I want it.

Unfortunately, dinner tonight called for 1/2 a cup of red wine. Of course I drank the remaining 7/8s of the bottle so I ended up breaking the male part of the retaining clip off.

I guess I should go back in the sketchup model and reinforce that a bit.

I also picked up a spider slide gear for the passenger CV axle. I'm hoping this will make the passenger side CV work. I ordered 2 since it's shipping from Australia and maybe it will help on the Driver side if I have issues with that.

I am going to work on starting to piece together the braking system and mounting the pedal box this week.

A guy on the Mk1 Fiesta facebook group was giving away a front strut tower brace for the price of shipping. Turns out he is also giving away his rear brace and some sport mirrors. I snatched those up and got a line on a possible NOS windshield for post-challenge.

Nice scores!

karplus2 said:

Tonight I worked on 3-d printing a bracket in preparation for running the fuel/brake line down the tunnel. I took drafting classe in high school and loved it but I suck at it now. I used Sketchup and then export the .stl to Cura

I started printing it and realized it wasn't going to work because I didn't raft where there is a big overhang. So I switched around the orientation of the halves of the bracket and hope this works better.

That looks better. I've never done rafts before so I generally just try to model stuff so that they aren't needed. I need to get more practice modeling printing stuff.

In the bed adhesion/support tab in Cura if you tick support it'll generate a support raft by itself, you don't have to do anything. If you input the weight of the roll of material and the cost in the material properties, Cura will tell you the cost of your print when you slice it.

In reply to Gammaboy :

That is extremely helpful information. Thank you! I really enjoy 3d printing but have a ton to learn. Right now I'm using a Monoproce mini that my wife won me. Once I get better at it I plan to get a bigger printer.