I'M Back from PT DAVE

[ptdave]

Wow:
Its been 2 long. I think we all had real life issues, But I think Candy man an Bruce had/has a lot more than me. I just logged into yahoo an got the June 6Th MSG. I miss the days we had back at cruiser world. Candy man an Bruce i hope nothing but the best for you too.

[Candyman]

Hey ave,

Man its so great to hear from you again! Its been too long for sure! How are you doing?

Dang man, most of our group is gone. I haven't had much chance to talk to Bruce in a couple of months but last I talked to him he was still hanging in strong.

Poi finally sold his Vert a while back and completely disappeared all together. Last I heard his ride was at a Dealer up north in Oregon somewhere but lost track of it after that. I hear he still talks to Bob and Bruce pretty regular but has never returned any of my calls or emails which kinda got me down for a while as I would have liked to think we were kinda good friends but who knows. He always has my number and I hope one day he might say hi or something.

Most everyone kinda went their separate ways after that and I have been kinda sorta running solo as far as our old gang is concerned ever since. Earlier this year I got up enough steam to finally make my way back over to the River for the first time since you and I were parked next to each other. It was fun, but not the same without the guys for sure! I did see and got to hang out with Qman for a while which was cool, and this year I actually took home my very first trophy for flames which was way cool so it was fun. Even Dave Davidson finally made it out in person so I finally got to meet him which was nice as well. This was also the first time in history I opted to tow my ride rather than drive it out. I have been working a bit on my suspension and am now on my second re-design of a custom air ride set up which is fine but my Wife doesn't feel all that sure about it so I had to make her and the kids feel a bit more at ease, and besides the truck was way more comfortable, plus I had plenty of room for chairs, bags, and a cooler which their is now little to no room for 4 people and much of anything else in the PT anyway so it all worked out. ;D Here are a couple of pics.




Unfortunately, it was announced that for 2011 the River Run will no longer be just PT's but open to all Mopar including hot rods, trucks, and so on, and will just retain a couple of special categories for the PT's which I can understand but I kinda think that might just diminish the interest from a lot of PT People from attending. I could be wrong and hope I am, but since its always been a strictly PT Event, and now cutting back to just one or two trophies for a small class I think will just greatly reduce the number of PT's who will travel that far for the Show.

And here is my second redo of my air ride set up. I am still working on getting it in to have a completely new rear axle set up fabricated out of tubing and redo the wheel tubs in back, as well as cut and redo the front strut assemblies so that I can literally lay it on the ground which is my eventual goal but I want to get either a set of 19" or 20" wheels first so I can build the suspension around them to get the stance I want so I am waiting on funds to do that at the moment. Anyways, here is what it looks like at the moment.




Here is my goal though, but I am going to relocate my exhaust for clearance to see if I can ultimately get it to lay out completely.





At least that is the plan along with a couple other odds and ends. I also have a Teazer roll pan that has the reverse lights shaved and a cool Lexan cover that sits flush over the license plate box so it will all be one smooth piece whenever I get it into paint and finally on to my ride. The idea is to apply a couple of coats of my Candy Orange over the lexan so the license plate box will have an orange tint to it to blend in with the paint but still be visible. If all goes according to plan, I am going to go ahead and shave the tail lights and rear hatch handle as well all at the same time and smooth in two LED tail lights towards the bottom of the pan, and then I want to have the pan smoothed into the body so everything is one continuous piece before going back in the booth for final paint again. I tell ya its a never ending evolutionary process. ;D I also redid my audio again which I can't remember if you saw since last time we talked or not. The dash is now painted, and a single DIN head unit is glassed into the center bezel along with a custom EQ directly under in a custom built chassis which [retty much maxes out room in the center bezel since we had to get the spacing just right so the face of the head unit would still have clearance to rotate out and down to access the CD controls. It came out pretty clean overall, and then I redid the trunk layout a bit more by adding another amp mounted on a custom amp rack along with another monitor, and new upper sub floor which is acting as a second tier at the moment with two Fosgate amps directly under, and then my big amp and capacitor mounted directly over in the sub floor so their is enough room for the moment. Eventually I am planning on going to 4 bucket seats and a custom one piece console which will extend out from a smoothed and glass dash all the way back to the trunk and finish with a new custom glass box at which point I will finally upgrade to all Fosgate amps and make them all visible but mounted inverted with the bottom electrical exposed and back lit via LED's like Poi's were done. I have always dug on that look. Anyways, here are a couple more pics of the interior.




Anyways that is all my excitement here. Still struggling a bit with health issues, but trying my best to not let it get the best of me. Still been in and out of the hospital and have spent a total of 18 days out of the past couple of months due to my back, liver failure, and most recently diagnosed with diabetes which I am now on insulin along with a medicine cabinet of other meds which has taken a bit to get all worked out and more stable so I have been laying kinda low for a while, but am getting better every day. In fact I have been putting in a bit of polishing time a couple of hours at a time on my baby in hopes of hitting a big Lowrider Supershow this Sunday out at our local Casino. I really am hoping on making this one as I got a personal invite to attend, and they are giving a big time cash award for the top 3 in each category of which PT's have their own, and last time the Show was here, their were only 5 PT's in attendance. First takes home a big trophy plus $3000.00 on down to third which also gets a trophy and $1500.00 which would go a loooong way to more mods!!! ;D ;D ;D So hopefully. We shall see how it all plays out.

So now that I have typed the lowdown out west, whats new in your neck of the woods? Do you still have your Dream, and have you done anything more to it since your body kit? I remember that thing was looking really sick last time I saw pic's of it! How is your Dad doing?

I hope all is well, and look forward to hearing from you again soon, and hopefully you won't be a stranger around here! You already know you are like family to us, and welcome here anytime!

In addition to here, I have also been hanging out a lot for some time now over at the Link below. Along with the Crew, PT Links is pretty much the biggest and best in PT Forums these days of which the Crew is still a bit of a tougher crowd than I am better suited for. So I hang more so at PT Links these days as well as try to hang here whenever I can.

www.ptcruiserlinks.com/forum/

So, you go easy my friend, again it is so great to hear from you again for sure! Stay cool and I'll catch ya later.

Candyman

[The Chief]

All sounds good Candyman.

Love the look of your ride now. Certainly grabs one's eye.

[Candyman]

Hey their Chief,

I big time thank you as always! Much appreciated! Now if I could just keep my mind off wanting to o all the rest of everything on my mod list I would be alright. LOL

I am seriously still big time wanting to go ahead and stick my ride back in my buddies shop and tear into the body finally to do my suicide rear doors, full power ragtop, split the tailgate in two so the top opens up and the bottom half either opens down or possibly go with dutch doors on the bottom, smooth and clean up, and reshape the fender lines to give a better more smooth and tucked look to my big wheels when they go on, do a custom reversed hood set up out of an older modified BMW reversed hood mount which should work great and will be twice as strong as anything on the market set up to hold a heavy metal hood with no problems and then set it up to work off actuators via remote so you click the key fob and the hood comes up automatically, shave the handles, as mentioned above smooth in my custom roll pan, shave the tail lights and relocate LED's to the bottom of the pan, smooth in the lexan cover over the frenched in license plate box, french in a shorty antenna, Then I am looking at reproducing a custom wrap around grille and then I have a friend who is working on prototyping a new front end which is somewhat similar to the old APC front ends but modeled after a Japanese Import front end offered by a company called J-Cal that is not available here in the US.

Then on the interior replace the back seats with two more bucket seats, smooth and glass the entire dash, fab and glass a one piece center console that is molded into the dash all the way to the audio layout in the trunk which will also be all be smoothed and custom glassed in as well. Then I am going to smooth and glass in parts of the doors as well as add new fiberglass structures for speaker pods in all four doors to allow for bigger and better sound, and I really am wanting to smooth and completely glass in the floor as well so everything can be custom painted to match complete with flames, air brushed skulls, and so on throughout the whole PT.

Then I recon I would be completely satisfied and never have to do much of anything to it ever again. ;D ;D ;D Hey, if your gonna dream, might as well go big...right? ;D ;D ;D

Anyways, I thank you once again sir! You go easy, stay cool as always, and I'll catch ya later.

Candyman

[The Chief]

Canyman with your rear hatch were you thinking of something like this?



This PT belongs to a lady in the state of Queensland over here and had this done a few years ago now.

As always it's a pleasure to come to this site and many others and to be welcomed and spoken to by so many I know from other PT websites.
Even if we all never meet we will go to our graves knowing we have internet friends world wide.

[Candyman]

Hey their Chief,

Yes sir that is what I am wanting to do. Either that or this.



And then for the fenders I like this smoothed over and pulled down look:




And here is the grille I want to reproduce for my ride. Still one of my all time favorite grilles by far.



And the prototype import front end I am working on producing to work in conjunction with the wrap around grille:



here is another PT with a similar shaped front end which has been molded and smoothed in like I plan on doing along with also having smoothed out the fenders as well as the shaved handles, body line, and so on. I really love that smooth look.





That is about the just of the direction I am wanting to do at the moment. Its always so much easier to get a better feel for something when you can see it in pictures. Again thank you for that way cool photo of that split tailgate. I am going to add it to my collection of cool stuff.

Go easy and I'll catch ya later.

Candyman

[The Chief]

As I find cool pics of PT's I'll put them on here for you.
Might even just have a topic like Just Cool PT's or something like that.
I like to let the imagination wander at times even if it never happens to my 2 PT's. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Candyman]

Hey their Chief,

Sounds like a plan my man! I am always on the hunt for new and cool ideas for custom PT stuff as well. I love to see people think a bit outside the box and wish more people would when customizing their PT's rather than try sticking to the norm. That's why I love stuff like these.

Chopped big time, front fenders removed and Prowler fenders added.



Same but Roadster style with no fenders.



Another cool fender-less concept.



To me, I can kinda see with a lot of re-working that someone could tweak a PT body into something like this Volvo Concept.




or if someone could make something like this.



Or this.



Or one of my all time favorites that I wish I could put together one of these days big time!!! I love this concept!



That's what I wish people would open up to. Just go buy an old run down 2001 PT and let your imagination go and build something cool instead of buying a bunch of stick on chrome and call it custom. To me real custom is things you make yourself. One off stuff that only you have which makes your ride unique and apart from the crowd. Ya know what I mean?

Anyways, yes sir, if you ever run across more unique and cool stuff from your neck of the woods please post them up. I would love to see them for sure!

I also know what you mean about how its nice to have good friends even if we never meet in person. I have made so many long time good close friends online over PT stuff and it really is the coolest thing. You never know though, one of these days you just might decide to take a vacation out here to sunny Southern California and we could hook up. I'll show ya around Disneyland! Ya never know, stranger things have happened. ;D

Anywayz, you go easy, and I'll catch ya later.

Candyman