Oh yes, what a great couple of days its been. Ive been so swamped working ive hardly had a chance to do much to the new pt besides drive it. Its nice cause I don't have to dry my hair in the morning! I have managed to paint the modesty cover and airbox. But its not done yet so I wont post a picture. Also ordered a k&n air filter and modified the airbox slightly. Maybe sometime next week I can finish it up.

The Collection Grows

Okay, I think its safe to say I am officially addicted to PT Cruisers!

Today I aquired another PT Cruiser, a 2005 PT Cruiser Convertible.

Yep thats it right there! A beautiful blue. This PT is 100% Stock. It crazy to think its been exactly 1 year since I Purchased my first PT Cruiser "Petey". The decision to purchase this PT came from the fact that my fiancees car, a 1991 eagle summit, crapped out on us. It was easy to agree that our next car would be a PT Cruiser since I know so much about them.

My fiancee was then challenged with the task of finding a PT Cruiser that would fit our budget of $5000. Initially this proved difficult but one day driving down Capital BLVD in Raleigh, NC we spotted the PT that was soon to be ours. Sticker price was a little under 6k, which was ideally a fair price for a PT Base Vert that was in excellent condition.

We took it for a test drive and decided there was just too many questions about the car that were unanswered for the price asked for it. We took it back to the lot and spoke with the sales manager there. I managed to get the price down to $5600 including taxes (so roughly like 5k for the car). This was alright but with a timing belt change in the near future I still wasnt so sure on the car.

This place (L&M Auto on Capital BLVD. Raleigh) was absolutely amazing! When I got back in my car the body shop manager came out and spoke with me. He wanted to know what was the issue with the car. I told him every problem with it expecting him to just tell me that the cars are just "as is" and that it runs and drives, but he actually told me he would fix EVERY issue wrong with the car that I noticed. This floored me.

So after speaking with him over the phone (and while the building may not look like that of a lexus dealer, by talking with them on the phone it seemed more like speaking to a friend more than a Car place) they ended up replacing the timing belt, tensioner, water pump, 4 new tires, all new brakes, two new rotors... I could go on and on! It was apparent that they were set on making me extremely happy with the deal. There was no way I could pass up such an offer. I do not know if they would do this for everybody, but I can imagine not everybody would know whats not acting right about a car to request it to be fixed.

The worst part of all of this is actually buying the car and driving it away! While leaving the lot today in my new PT I felt like I wouldnt have a reason to talk with my new friends at L&M. I'm half tempted just to run into a tree so I can visit them again to repair the damage. Thats another thing, these guys do auto body repair too. I saw some of the things they were working on and these folks are top notch. They have a skilled team of workers (who have natural tans, im jealous!) and they complete work quickly and at a great price. The next time I need a car, or need paint or body work done I am going to visit these folks again!

So alas now I have a new car to work on. You can expect to be seeing plenty of posts about it on here soon. But until that time, I will just enjoy it and think of the great experience I had purchasing it.

Say It Ain't So Pickled Petey! Say It Ain't So!

Peteys age is starting to show! When he was purchased last march he had 92,222 miles on him. Now hes got over 108,000 miles! Since my last post Ive been busy switching jobs and making a major move to North Carolina. Now that all this is done I will be able to focus more on keeping my Petey nice and happy.

However with the age comes repairs and theyre starting to show their ugly expensive heads (fortunatly around tax return season!)

The first noticable issue was the fact that shifting into reverse has become a pain. The amazing folks at PTCL (link to the right) helped me narrow it down to the Bushings. These bushings are basically rubber grommets that keep some rod thingy in place. The bushings eventually wear out and need replaced. This is supposedly going to cause my shifting to improve significantly! So of course I ordered my booger bushings (from Ebay). But ive been too busy to install them, so shifting into reverse is still a PITA until Ive got the time to do it. If it doesnt fix the problem then ill look into more expensive repair options but having performance bushings will be nice either way, and theyll never need replaced!

Also ive ordered a whole lotta Lights to change up the outside of my cruisers look (Brought on by my drivers side low beam light burning out!). So ive ordered all LED lights for the back lights (reverse, brake, turn, and 3rd brake) and new headlights (same as installed before the GP Thunders) as well as chrome turn signal bulbs for the front. The one ive installed more recently is the tail lights. I found that the stock bulbs on my tail lights actually make them look pink instead of red at night time. So I got some red LED lights off ebay for a few bucks a peice. The result, Check it out!

After changing them I noticed that there was what appeared to be water in the lower brake lights, both of them in fact, right and left. Upon attempting to remove the water I realized to my horror that the stock bulbs MELTED the tail light so now theyve got a permanent appearance of rain in light! I have since contacted the person I ordered from and am awaiting a answer, hopefully replacements will be offered and theyll make a note of this defect on the page they sell them from.

Also today I was sitting idling in a parking lot when I heard a weird noise... Bubbling in fact! I looked and noticed Petey was headin in the RED! I quickly turned him off and ran under my hood and noticed that my coolant thermometer was reading into the red, after letting it sit and cool down I drove around and no overheating or bubbling noises (so I think luckily it was only boiling coolant vs exhaust bubbles!) Im assuming im suffering from the ever popular dead fan issue which seems to happen on alot of PTs. This issue will be repaired soon once the income tax check arrives!

Till then, Fingers Crossed!

Strut Your Stuff Pickled Petey!

After much wait I decided to finally order a strut tower bar. This bar allows the pt cruiser to better handle sharp curves and turns by keeping my strut towers fairly Parallel to one another.

The strut tower ordered was a polished metal texture, that wouldnt do for my red themed PT! So upon arrival I went crazy sanding it with some 2000 grit sand paper to make it not so shiny anymore.

I used some of my left over engine enamel (which is great since its hot under the hood) and I painted it completely red.

Installation was extremely easy, Not too much effort was needed to unscrew the nuts on the strut tower and place the bar on them. As far as torque is concerned Crewzin from PT Cruiser Links informed us forum goers that the nuts should be torqued to 25 foot pounds. Simple as pie!

In terms of changes while driving, It is extremely handy on the tight curves of the mountains. Its certainly worth the measily 20 buck investment.

Heres a picture of my engine compartment. The strut bar is at the top of the photo.

Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions you may have below. Also you can subscribe to my blog on the right side towards the top of the blog so youll never miss any of my posts!

It Should Be A Sin To Look This Good!

Alas after a long while of relaxing without doing any car related things, im finally back in the groove.

Today I washed, clayed, and did all that other great stuff that you do to a car you really love. Petey has never been this clean before and you wont believe how amazing the clay bar is...

Im now a believer in the power of the Clay!

But also today I finished up a project ive been wanting to do for a while.

Back when I installed my shelf under the drivers seat I also purchased a rear view mirror from a 2001 pt cruiser. This rear view mirror had map lights on it. I decided that I would tint these red to create some mood lighting where I normally couldnt secretively get a red glow.

My PT has a overhead area with map lights already, so using this rear view mirror allows me to have red tinted map lights while still retaining all the original white light so I could actually see if I needed to.

In the picture above you can actually see both sets of map lights.

The red tint is actually vinyl, Ive never had the pleasure of working with vinyl before but needless to say it was very simple! To tint the lens all I had to do was stick on the vinyl and use an exacto knife to cut it to the perfect shape! The red vinyl I used was scraps sent to me from my buddy Danny (and his PT Eve) from way out in San Ant Tex!

To wire the new mood lighting I just tapped into the wiring in the overhead map lights... nothing too difficult at all!

Since Danny sent me enough vinyl I went ahead and made the cubby light red as well.

This was done by taking apart the light fixture (Super simple), then removing the bulb and sliding out the blue peice of plastic they have there. I then used the blue plastic as a template and cut out a rectangle of red vinyl and just slid it into the slot the blue plastic used to be in. Then I reassembled the light and viola!

Heres the finished product. Sadly cameras like to do odd things to pictures, but trust me, the cabin area glows a nice red color. I have red LEDs in the center console near my shifter installed by Morkeste but I didnt turn these on so you could see exactly how the lighting I did today looks.

Im very happy with the way things are going and believe it or not, my exterior LEDs finally arrived! So be prepared to see Petey glow in the dark!

Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions! Also you can now subscribe to my blog by simply entering your email address at the top of the right side menu. That way you'll never miss a new post!

Special Thanks To Danny (AKA WolfmanG from PTCruiserLinks.com) and his PT Eve for sending me some red tint scraps!

Cruizn' Clarion X

Yesterday was Cruizn' Clarion and It came and went so fast I wish it was everyday!

It was so wonderful to meet many other PT lovers like myself and it was also nice to be able to get tons of great ideas for future mods.

But enough talking, heres some pictures from cruzin clarion of Pickled Petey and Arcane with a description here and there. (There arent any pictures specifically of other PTs as I dont have permission from the car owners to post them here on this blog!)

Arcane and Petey sittin side by side. If you look closely between us youll see the ricers started getting jealous of all the PT's and started calling all their Ricer buddies in their hondas to have their own mini show! HAHA!

Pickled Petey started out in a crappy spot all alone, so no one really saw him. But next year hell be right in the center!



ahh yes... I love my nicely painted UIM!

The tires and calipers are one of my favorite parts of the whole PT.

That outlet looks so awesome. Thanks Morkeste!

We moved the subwoofer around so people could get a look inside the box. I love this angle as it shows off the car nicely.

Morkeste and Arcane won a Peoples Choice award (WOOT!), and while I didn't I still left feeling like a winner! Hopefully in the next year I can get to know some of the people there so I can socialize more. Im looking forward to going again and I cant wait to see what I can do in that time!

Finishing Touch!

In the rush to get ready for Cruizn' Clarion I have tried to do as many little projects as possible! Ive flushed and drained all the coolant and added fresh new Zerex coolant, as well as done several small painting jobs.

Included in those jobs was my hatch struts. These things were all rusty and were in need of some serious love. So I went to Lowes and got the torx screw to remove the struts. Whilst my Fiancee, Emma, held the hatch up I unscrewed the struts and we closed the gate carefully.

I proceeded to sand the struts till they were nice and smooth and I cleaned them off very well. Since I had tons of left over caliper paint I decided to use it on these struts. Thus they are now painted red! It adds a nice sporty look to them overall and im very glad I decided to paint them.

Another small painting project was my reverse lights. Ever since I got my new tail lights the reverse lights just stuck out too much. To fix this issue I lightly misted them with VHT Nightshades until they were a close match to my replacement tails.

Heres a picture of the struts and the finished reverse lights.

Among the biggest thing I had to get done was the power inverter. With help from my friend Morkeste we managed to wire up my car to have AC power with the flip of a switch! Pretty sweet right?!

To do this we had to first find some nice locations for the outlets. I picked out under the radio and on the cargo net cover. The inverter is in the cubby where the cargo net goes.

Once that was figured out we had to dremel everything nicely. Morkeste did an excellent job making the install look super clean.

Along with running the outlets we also decided to install some LEDs in the center console (soon to be expanded) as well as installing my Amps volume knob. So without further wait, heres a picture of everything installed.

Yes your eyes dont decieve you, theres a new shifter knob on the car as well, and I love it cause it makes shifting seem so much more smooth versus the old cue ball. Also I love the location of my switches! If you look below the radio you will see the outlet in the center. It looks like it belongs there. Once again Morkeste did an excellent job there.

Now its time to sit back and wait... Cruizn' Clarion is in Two Days!

Wheels Just Keep On Turnin'

One of the most important things to do before clarion is to get my wheels looking nice. Currently I am unable to afford nice rims so I took the easy way out by painting the rims I have.

Heres a before shot of the rims

Now in order for these rims to look good I needed to do this the right way. The rims were cleaned throughly and sanded until they were no longer shiny. The paint I used is made for rims and once applied correctly and cleaning off any overspray on the tires the rims turned out wonderful!

Of course while the wheels were off I decided to paint the calipers as well. This was fairly simple and the paint I picked to paint the calipers was a red color.

Once the calipers were painted just right and the wheels dried I went ahead and put everything back together and the final result was so perfect. It really makes Pickled Petey look so much more different.

When I go to clarion Ill get any stray overspray off, as well as shine up my tires!

Pickled Painting

Cruizn' Clarion has lit a mod match under my butt!

There are so many things to get done before the event later this month and hopefully I can get it all done by the event.

So today I decided it was time to do some magical painting under the hood of the car.

So heres a photo of what everything looked like under the hood before I did anything.

Now to paint everything I need to I had to remove the Airbox, Vanity cover, and the Upper Intake Manifold (UIM). To remove the UIM I had to unscrew plenty of bolts and odd wiring harness'. So I decided the best look for the engine would be red. Putting the vehicle back together was fairly simple and the finished result is certainly awesome!!

Sorry for the uneven lighting! The new paint job makes the under the hood area really stick out and look custom.

I'll Make A Man Out Of You Yet, Pickled Petey!

Finally!

Today after about 2 weeks I finally got my new Flowmaster Exhaust System in. I got a really great deal for it ($125 Shipped) and only paid 60 bucks to get it installed. I paid the guys under the table (theyre somewhat a local down home shop) so they were willing to do it for alot less than the over 130 bucks everyone else locally wanted...

Alot of folks have been wanting to know what this exhaust sounds like and if they should buy it for themselves. Well this exhaust system is exactly what I wanted in my PT, A Close to stock loudness but with a bit of a meaner tone to it. This certainly accomplishes this. The resonator on it keeps the noise down and without it the exhaust would be very loud. The muffler is a Flowmaster Series 50 Delta so it could be pretty loud without the resonator (and give me a nice drone in the car to drive me nuts, search youtube for series 50 flowmaster if you want to hear it raw)

The one thing I dont like is the giant exhaust tip! 3.5 Inches! I feel like ive got one of those honda tips on the exhaust! Its so big that it melted a nice spot for itself in my bumper!

So first heres a video of the sound comparison... My voice has been changed to keep the secret identity of Dill well hidden! HAHA!

Please Note!!! While I attempted to record a inside sound of me on the highway driving, all the sound ended up being was road noise... Seriously this exhaust is loud when you want it (High RPMS) and quite when you need it (low RPMS)

Not Bad Right?

So here's some pictures of the PT during installation. I blotted out the men's heads cause I was taking these photos without them knowing and also since they did this under the table it protects them a bit as well!

So the process was simply remove the muffler, which was simple.

Step two was to break out the big toys and heat up a seriously rusty bolt then go nuts on it with a crowbar until it broke off...

Step 3 was to hang the resonator and the following pipe

And that was it! Now time to admire the work from a lift, I loved seeing how nice and rust free Pickled Petey is!

So now I'm all ready for Cruizin Clarion (Almost!). Speaking of Cruizin' Clarion...

Pickled Petey had a chance to meet his old neighbor and darker, speedier counterpart, Arcane. Arcane is a friend of ours PT and it so happens that the PT used to belong to a neighbor of ours who recently traded it in. (Its a funny story really how we ran into each other, although not literally)

Heres the two of the buddys hanging out together in a parking lot (Cars just love to congregate there!)

Well thats all for today! Im looking forward to doing more to Pickled Petey and the Catfish soon!

The Catfish's Eyeballs

The Taurus (AKA The Catfish) just got its first real bit of love today, some shined up headlights!

Ive done alot of work to it the past few days getting it up to par. Most of the work will be done sometime this week!

I fixed the hazy headlights using 3m's headlight restoring kit. Basically I sanded all the uglyness away and polished the headlights into like new condition! I did the same thing on my pt back when I got it, but man these lights needed them worse!

So Heres a Picture! If you need to know which is before and which is after then you need glasses.

In news for my PT, Im prepping the car for its new exhaust! A Flowmaster Catback exhaust made for the PT. This'll give the car a deeper and slightly louder tone without making the car stand out too much like a riced out honda.

I Can't Wait To Get This On And Upload a Comparison Sound Clip To The Stock Exhuast!

The Pickled PT's Sister

So my great friends Kevin and Becky have a 1996 Ford Taurus GL that theyve been trying to get rid of. But somethings the matter with it, Its spewing coolant everywhere which is causing it to overheat!

After almost a year of it sitting at their house and it not selling they decided to give it to us as long as we paid the transfer fees for it.

So we decided wed take the risk and get it so we could have a second car for emergencys or something.

So alas heres our new car on the day we got her (about two weeks ago, I didnt post it on here cause I wanted to make sure I could fix the problem before I started doing things to it)!

Besides needing a good cleaning and fixing the issue and the rust on the hood, its in great shape. Only has about 79,000 miles on it.

So I joined a website full of taurus owners and we quickly narrowed the issues with the coolant exploading down to...

Tank
Cap
Water Pump
Rust
Head Gasket

I was able to fix the issue by giving it a new cap. When the coolant is under pressure its boiling temp is raised therefore the old cap wasnt holding the pressure and the coolant would "boil over"

While I was fixing the issue I went ahead and drained all the coolant and put in a new thermostat! Doing this job made me feel like I am learning alot about cars!

So since the day that I got the Pickled PT's sister I have done quite alot to her. So now along with my PT on this blog, you all get to see me work and fix issues with this car too!!

Reflecting On My Pillars

Anyone with a car usually ends up having issues with the pillars. Whay are the pillars you say? Well theyre the peices or plastic or metal that are between your windows along the side of your car. Example:

Behold my PT's Lowly Pillars... They are discolored and sad looking. Since Im all DIY I decided to paint them versus buying pillar covers. Now while the original pillars were a glossy black, I think it was dumb cause well... nothing else on the car is glossy black... So im going to paint them to match the side mirrors, Flat Black.

To do this I bought a can of adhesion promotor (from an auto store) and Krylon Fusion Flat Black Spray paint for Plastics (I sware by this stuff). Basically I did what I did for the bumpers when I painted it and covered the car with newspaper to catch overspray. Then I applied Adhesion promotor (which is optional but I had some left over from the bumpers) Then I started painting.

Dont be alarmed that wet paint reflects! It will dry flat trust me... So while its drying I did the other side. After I was done I removed the newspaper and was just about floored at how amazing of a difference the PT is with the newly painted pillars!

This made me so excited that I decided to paint my antenna bezel chrome! While I was planning on buying a chrome ABS plastic cover for it, I figured why not try chrome paint first before coughing up the money for a cover!

So once again tape and newspaper...

The trick with chrome spray paint to make it atleast a little convincing is to spray it with glossy black first. then with the chrome enamel. Spray Enamel comes out thick so be careful to avoid runs! Once it was done and dried I was happy with the results! While its not as realistic as a cover wouldve been in recreaing a chrome look, It will do for now until finances allow. Note my short antenna! My fiancee had to have a short one.

The other day when I was at the junkyard getting the shelf for the shelf mod I also got a rear view mirror out of a 2001 PT. While my current mirror is fine, this one had something I wanted... Map Lights!! While my PT has map lights and a overhead console I want to add mood lighting to the car eventually. And while most people change out their map lights with colored lights, I still wanted white light if I actually wanted to read something. So Ill hook up the new mirror one day eventually and post the results of it. And if it turns out great then ill tint the lights so the map lights on the mirror can be part of the mood lighting while retaining the factory consoles white light. The new mirror is pictured below and its the one on the left, mine is on the right. I like the oval shape too!

Im so pumped for Cruizin Clarion this year. Im hoping my PT holds its own amongst all the other much more impressive PT's!

It's A PT Thing!

So I orderd alot of merchandise from Cruiser Motorsports and it all came today! Above im showing off a cover that goes over your third brake light so when you press the brake it says something. And what better for it to say than It's a PT Thing. It was extremely easy to install and adds a great custom look to the PT.

I also got decals to cover up the airbag warning label that comes on most vehicles. This classy decal adds alot of PT style when the sun is bright! Also I got one for the bench in the back to cover up the directions on how to use it. While these look to be made from brushed alluminum they dont seem very alluminumish. I would liken them to one of those thin magnets that people hand out like business cards. Still, Very great product and easy to apply.

Wonderful!

Now there was something I really wanted and its a thermostat radiator cap. Its quite useful really to get an accurate reading on your coolant temp and people always seem to notice it. Unfortunatly they only had orange... Which doesnt work for me as well as red or some other color wouldve but I'll make it work I suppose! Either way its very handy and I should install something like this in all my vehicles!

Another thing that I ordered was the chrome door handle cups. These things basically keep your pt from getting scratched in that area. Plus they add a nice touch to it! Before you stick these on please use rubbing alcohol or something cause they dont stick too well. I went to walmart and bought some locktite double sided adhesive strips and put on em and they will never come off.

Last but not least by any means is my hood ornament. It adds a bit of retroness to the PT and while some may not like it, It will eventually flow very well in the grand scheme of things... Also did the locktite strip on it too. This is probably my favorite thing of all that ive done to the PT besides the grill and the diy painting ive done in some areas!

This was my first time shopping at CMS. Overall I would say Cruiser MotorSports is a great place to go to get some of these great items at a decent price. Shipping was very good as well. Out of the main PT Cruiser accessory websites to go to Cruiser MotorSports is now one of my favorites!