How the ZipMonster Came Alive... First of all, I should probably preface everything by explaining that for many years, our family had (lovingly) referred to the Ford Festiva (any Festiva we saw anywhere) as "Zippy". This nickname came about after my wife test drove a white one in 1989, and pronounced it to be "cute and very zippy". When the engine swap was complete, and the little red Zippy had it's new bigger, badder engine in it, my wife renamed it to The ZipMonster, in honor of it's Frankenstein-like return to life... The true story of how the ZipMonster came to be. My best friend owned an auto repair business. The business went under but he kept a few of the vehicles, one of which was a bright red 1991 Ford Festiva GL. We have known each other for over 30 years so I was able to the car for free! We towed the car to my house in June 2003; the original plan was just to get it running. The condition of the car appeared to be OK; parts of it had been repainted, one of the windows had been left down part way, so the interior smelled very strongly of mildew, and the head was off of the engine. Although the care wasn't complete, it appeared that all of the parts needed were there in the back seat with the exception of the radiator. With the car at my house, further investigation revealed a lot more problems. The bottom side of the carpet and floorpan were completely mildewed, one of the cylinders had a broken chunk out of the top edge of the piston, nothing electrical worked on the dash except for the heater control light. The original dome light was nowhere to be found. I removed the engine/tranny first, then started removing the interior. The more pieces I removed the more upset I became. In a nutshell, the car had been hit on the drivers side "A" pillar and pushed everything in about 6" including the right front fender, drivers door, the " A" pillar, the roof, and the whole square box assembly under the windshield that holds the steering column, the heater assembly was cracked in 2 places, the dash was compressed from the drivers side door to the heater controls, and last but not least the floor pan was buckled. Most of this had been cosmetically repaired to some degree or another, so that when we brought the car home, we had no idea of the extent of the damage. When the dash was pulled I found my electrical problem; it turned out to be the blue dash plug (all the electrical connections for the dash) was totally smashed and just hanging there useless, additionally the steering column bracket that connects to the square box assembly was bent 3/4" over to the passenger side and bent up 1". At this point in time I wasn't feeling to good about repairing this car. Its now the beginning of August 2003, when low and behold on Ebay a red 1991 Ford Fiesta GL shows up and its location? Oklahoma City, less than 2 hours down the turnpike from here. I won the auction for a whopping $108.49. The reason for purchasing this car was to hopefully make one running Festiva out of two not-so-good ones. The OKC car had been impounded when it's owner was arrested, and was never reclaimed. How to get it home? We made a fast trip to OKC to see if the engine would fire; hopefully I could drive it home. At the impound lot, we realized quickly that the car wasn't going to move without some work, so I ended up having the seller, who had a wrecking company, tow it back to my house for $180.00. From the pictures on Ebay I knew it had been hit in the front end, but not to what degree. To help keep things simply, we'll call the OKC car "Festiva #2". When #2 arrived in my garage, the condition of this car was not all that I had hoped it would be; it had been hit in the front end, no key for the ignition (the steering was locked), and the transmission was locked up but I was able to start the engine (it ran fine). The transmission had no go in any gear. So I pulled the engine out of Festiva #2 to install in into Festiva #1 (later christened the ZipMonster). I had purchased a headgasket set on Ebay and had a brand new reman head from Festiva #1. So I took the best of both engines and made one hopefully good engine out of all the parts. I now had to decide which Festiva to use. #1 had been hit in the "A" pillar and had all its damage but looked cosmetically better than #2. Number 2 had a very straight body but faded paint and somehow I would have to fix the front end damage (engine bay sides damaged up to the front strut towers). In hindsight I should have probably used #2 and cut the front end off forward of the stut towers and grafted #1 front end on it. Then it would have been a completely straight car with a straight body, albeit with mismatched paint. But, this was also supposed to be a "bare bones/no bucks" project, spending as little money as possible! I decided to use #1, which had the "advantage" of having shiny red paint all the way around. We strip so we can Zip The first order of business was to clean the mildew out of the car. The complete inside of the car was stripped except for the ceiling, thus exposing all of the problems that I previously mentioned. The biggest hurdle was to get the steering column bracket in the right location so the dash and instrument cluster (from #2) would fit properly. The short version of the story is that the bracket would not (of course!) move so I used the bracket off of #2, drilled off the spot welds to remove it (I had done some triangular measurements before removal so as to get it into the right location), removed the damaged bracket from #1 and fitted the straight bracket onto the bent square box assembly. I do not weld or have easy access to a welder, but I do have a few years doing aircraft structures. So I shimmed and cherrymaxed (aviation steel locking pop rivet) the bracket onto the box and fiberglassed around the whole edge of the bracket (not the ideal repair, but very strong and functional). The repair that had been previously done to the damaged "A" pillar was very poor. In a nutshell, whoever repaired the car basically grafted a piece that consisted of half of the rocker panel, the vertical piece that has the door hinges, the left hand side of the windshield structure and half of the outer roof structure (just above the door). They welded this piece onto to car with globs of weld every few inches then filled all gaps with large amounts of bondo. So to tackle this (and remember I'm try to keep this a cheap project) I cleaned up the spot welds with a grinder and filled every gap that I could find with some clear RTV silicone. Once again, this is no where near the repair I want to make, but at this point it was still just to get a running vehicle (the notion to find and use the BP wasn't even in the picture yet!). So now at least I have something that seems to be workable. I cleaned up the whole inside of the car, which is at this point still totally stripped except for the headliner. Then I proceeded to take the best interior pieces of both vehicles to make one interior. We scrubbed the carpet, and hung it out to dry, and I carried all the seats in the house so that my wife could clean them. After that was done I still had the dash, heater, and interior wiring to contend with. Took both heater assemblies completely apart, once again took the best parts from each one, and built one good assembly. Installed this in the car. Took the dash apart, cleaned all the vents inside and out. Remember that blue electrical plug up under the dash, that was totally smashed? I removed the pins from the plastic plug and installed the pins from the smashed plug into the good plug. Now I can install the dash, NOT!! Because this car had been hit in the "A" pillar, the good dash (from #2, which is now all clean, shiny and ready to go in the car) wouldn't fit because it was too wide by about 3/8" - or the car was too narrow. Once again the culprit was the body work from that previous repair. If you have ever had the dash out of your Festiva, you will remember the left and right sides of the dash have about a lip that is about 1/4". I ended up grinding off the drivers side lip to be able to force the dash into place. Another solution that I am not happy about, but it works, and this car (at this point) was intended to be a bargain basement daily driver. I finished installing the rest of the interior, steering column, gauge cluster, carpet, seats, etc. Finally it is starting to look like a vehicle again! Coming soon... It runs, it drives - it's a Zippy! In which Zippy springs a leak, Chuck blows a gasket, and we find a BP engine just looking for a good home...