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!