I am not sure what Im going to do yet... I bought my car used and the guy had the chrome package ~$250 added to it...so that makes blacking out the car a whole lot more work. The chrome beltline doesn't really bother me that much on the cabrio, but it doesn't look good on the hardtop. I still have chrome mirror caps, rollbars, boot-cover thing, and the light housing.

I am probably going to do the mirror caps and maybe the roll bars in a year. I am about to spend money on some ponies now, balancing out looks/performance. My car looks fast now, but it just needs to be fast now!

Unfortunately it is raining bad here so I will have to take some pics later today or tomorrow. Should I use photobucket...? I suck at posting pics.

 

the chrome belt line looks fine on the hard tops if you keep the factory
chrome bits on the car. when you start blacking out it needs to be
completely (or very close to all) black, otherwise it's like you're wearing
a checkered shirt and striped pants...basically a clown car.

just load it up in the gallery and link the pict here.

 

man it's hot house side... was sweating buckets. and it's only 75F.

took me 1hr to wash 2 cars and clean the interiors. i honestly
HATE washing cars. such a big waste of time. i just like the end result.

 

Tell me about it, ken. We got some showers and thunderstorms this morning. Didn't cool things off, just added to the humidity.

I managed to wash both of the Coopers between the rain showers though. Also cleaned up the interiors, hit them with the 303, cleaned the inside of all the glass, and vacuumed them.

I think I lost 3 pounds this morning.

 

Well got the Alta sway bar installed. Good opportunity to clean and wax the wheels. Also waxed all the suspension parts and BW'd the gas tanks and underside of the trim and wheel wells. Now if I could just park it and have a garage queen my work would be done. Guess I wouldn't have needed to install a sway bar then.
Best part of the Alta (besides the really improved handling) is it is red!
Blimey - you were right. Cooper convertibles are very easy for the sway bar install.

 

Uh-huh. When am I NOT right?

don't answer that

I bought an H-Sport BECAUSE it was black... (well, that and the nice bushings).... back then I didn't think I wanted any tacky performance mods... but now wish it was red...

 

nice! even lost 3 lbs. which means time for more charburgers and cheeze fries.

 

funny you should mention cause my 22mm alta rear bar is black.
i hate alta's customer service btw.

 

went to a local festival and came back with no dings.

 

going to motor my G this am again.

i need to do a drain and fill on the G's coolant later on this month.
it's now 4yrs old. i cant believe it. time goes by so fast. she
has at tad over 20K on the odo.

 

Yikes! I bet you had a few people come up to your car and check it out while you were away though.

I've come back to my car and seen someone lying on tarmac looking at my exhaust before.

 

How do you like it? I think I may do this mod, especially since I have a cabrio.

 

LOL!

 

guys, i need help. im looking for 2 nice torque wrenches. what do you
recommend?

one shall be 3/8 drive low torque range (5-50lbs)
one shall be 1/2 drive higher torque range (40 to 250lbs or so)

this is going to be my 10th wedding annivarsary present from the wife, so
dont need to go cheap. hey, i bought her a ring with 10 diamonds
which set me back quite a bit...

 

Heh... my MO is two Harbor Freight torque wrenches and a keg of good beer beats two nice torque wrenches...

 

yeeeehaawww!

 

snap-on 3/8" flex ratchet 5-75lbs, 1/2" ratecht 30-150lbs, with a 10pcs
crowsfoot set.

how's that sound? still only a fraction of wat i spent on the ring. hummm... i should add more.

 

also added a 1/4" ratchet 40-200in.


going to slick the G's wheels later on.

 

Night and day difference around corners. Much flatter so you can really push the speed.
I've got mine in the middle hole, but I'm going to play with it a bit to see if stiffer would be better.

 

Hey gang, how goes it, eh

We made it home at 2:45 AM, motored straight through, as there were no motels to be had in Cedar Falls, Iowa So we decided to just push through to home.

The GPS says we were "moving" Just shy of 16 hours, with 1.5 hours waiting in line to get across the border, long weekend in Canada, so the Canucks were going shopping in the U.S. It's 1051 miles door to door, whole trip was 2424 miles. We spent $300.30 on 71.28 gallons of gas, that includes one fill at $6.00+ a gallon up there. The GPS says our moving average speed was 68 MPH, North Dakota has a 75 MPH limit, so that helps keep the # higher, but for the most part I was moving about 5 over any limit. Just crunched the numbers and it works out to 34 MPG, not bad for old Poco, who arrived home 20 miles short of 100,000 miles

We had a great time, got to see family and friends, relax, hang out.

Now I need to go scrub bugs off Poco, then maybe motor around till he turns 161,000 kms to get into the 100k mile club

Mark

 

Welcome back

 

+1

 

so my neighbor recently got a brand new CTS.... only to be delivered with
dealer installed swirlage. he asked me to take a look at it and it
was pretty bad. not horrible, but clearly visible swirls. told him to ask the
dealer to polish it out and rewax.

he went back to the dealer to complain and they claimed they added
3 additional coats of wax when they returned the car to him. i
looked at it and it still looked pretty bad. they didnt polish it.
that's cadillac service for ya.

 

Thanks guys Got the grass cut, man it rained here while we were gone, grass was long, and gardens are looking great. Now I'm going to debug Poco, and Black Wow his trim.

Mark

 

Welcome back, Mark...missed you around here.

Sounds like a nice trip !

Now go wash that MINI !!