Festiva repairs

Steering had been twitchy for some time. Last time to town it was pretty bad. So crawled under and it was missing one of the swaybar to frame rubber bushings. You cant get original replacement, the car is 30 year old and only sold in USA for three years. But you can get aftermarket by size. I measured and it was 13/16 inch. Also noticed outer boot on CV axle split. Only polyurethane ones sold in USA seem to be the split one that you glue together. So ordered the smallest one and pair of the bushings.

The bushings worked but think could went to 7/8 inch. Had to make couple flat plates to put under. The originals were rounded on bottom, the Energy ones were flat. That helped handling whole lot. Then today put on the boot. It theoretically can be glued on without removing axle. But my notion that better be one clean car and have lot wiggle room around CV joint. I even watched youtube of guy putting one on. I finally decided to just glue it together and remove axle to install it. No chance of contaminating the surfaces that have to be glued. The end bushing for small end of boot was a weird two piece thing that sort of fingers together around the axle shaft and then you glue the boot to it. Mickey Mouse would be proud. I think if I do another of these, will use short bit heater hose or something as bushing. For clamps I daisy chained aircraft (worm gear) hose clamps, the small narrow ones into a length long enough. The worm gear on them is small enough it has clearance. They make lot better boot clamps especially if you dont have the banding tool for regular CV boot clamps. And far superior to the wimpy things included in boot kit. I have used them before for steering rack boots and driveshaft boots and such things.

Truly annoying, my little fixes and steering kept getting worse.  Finally put it up on blocks and went through everything.  Noticed some play on drivers side where inner tie rod end is.  Ok, since they have it pretty well hidden back there ordered a inner tie rod end off ebay for $8 and tool to remove it.  

Go to install it and its not the tie rod end, its the stupid rack itself, bushing in end is gone.  Probably not bronze, probably some cheap plastic or something.  They dont sell kits to rebuild your own steering rack, so....

Nobody sells Festiva steering racks, neither new nor rebuilt.  But finally find one on ebay.  Brand new.  Guessing this guy bought up some NOS leftovers cheap and trying to cash them out to people still trying to keep Festiva on the road.  Festiva was sold like 1989-1993.  Oh and the steering rack may also fit mid to late 90s Aspire.  Not sure on that.  Either way be struggle to find a good used one in junkyard.  

This guy was selling buy it now at $110 or auction with starting bid $92.92.  For $20 I can wait three extra days.  Of course I won it.  Then after a few days he finally ships it.  I get it and install it last couple days.  Not that hard to get actual rack bolted in place, though kinda close quarters to swing a wrench.  But getting that linkage to steering column.  That was a pain, engineers went out of their way to make this troublesome, first with a non removable boot on engine side of firewall.  And a metal truncated cone shield thingie on inside of firewall.  Big effin deal to remove them, they are sandwiched every which way.  Wasnt going to remove bunch stuff just to save the boot.  And that cone thing didnt leave much wiggle room.  You really need a helper, to stab the thing from engine side while you guide it on inside.  No chace of a helper so I cut some access on the bottom side of the cone with angle grinder.  Big enough to get small pair vise grips in there.  That worked.  Then to get it attached to rack, had to loosen brackets on rack so it could get low enough.

Anyway all that crap done and outer tie rod ends installed and front wheels aligned....  Take it out on road.  Yep, can now go into a curve at highway speed without feeling I am going to crash and burn.  Its fixed.  Still need to patch a bit where I slit that rubber dust boot and cut into that metal cone dealie.  Not super important I suspect but just well do it right.  I assume they put that protection on linkage from steering column for a reason.  I wouldnt want to hunt down replacement for that, it would be a junkyard only part unless I wanted to make a custom swivel linkage.  Lot such parts available for custom hotrods.

Just lucky somebody still had one of these new Festiva racks for sale.  I assume the junkyard ones from 30 years ago only marginally better than my old one.  I would either have to custom rig some sort of replacement bushing (yea like that would last unless proper one custom made by machine shop out of bronze.  Or adapt one off newer car.  And good luck with that, new cars, even tiny ones like Festiva have electronic power steering.  Cause American's muscles have atrophied apparently.  Seriously no 1500 pound car needs automatic power assist anything.  Or finally can get China clone of the old Mustang II steering rack sold to hotrodders.  Lot of adapting there.  But that would be way to go I suspect.

Hopefully this rack I bought lasts as long as I need to drive the car.  Its a really nice low mile engine (like 60k or so) or I wouldnt mess with this.  Its not a comfortable car long distance, but nice grocery getter in city traffic.  And its still mechanically pretty simple.  Though no front drive car is THAT simple or easy to work on.  Buying something now, try to find a single cab long bed pickup.  Not many out there at low end unless they are ancient rust buckets that need everything.  But few F150 from late 90s to early 2000s, even some with manual transmission.  They are more plentiful than Rangers.  Just not seeing Rangers for sale anymore unless basket case or its a low mile one and they want crazy money for it despite its age.  If I really just had to, I would find an Explorer or Expedition and retrofit with carb V8 and manual transmission.  You can find nice looking older SUV bodies, cause nobody putting the bucks into then  for the high dollar engines and transmissions.  Luckily dont have the emissions inspections yet where I live.  That would nix that idea, have to find the newest old car exempt from emissions.  Most places arent as bad as California and do exempt cars over 25 to 30 years old.  Actually now usually anything before OBDII systems are exempt.  They dont have the equipment to plug into older stuff. They dont do actual tailpipe sniffing either, its all plug and play testing anymore.  And just go based on idea there arent that many older vehicles still on road.