James Stanbury

Fresh test for PT Cruiser

My wife, and countless female friends and relatives, often express their frustration at the difficulties of finding the “right” hairdresser. And I completely empathise. Naturally, I’m not talking about the poor sod who tends to my increasingly receding barnet. For me, getting the “right” MOT guy is the much sought-after difficulty.

These days I prefer cars that get from A to B without knocks, bangs, shudders, or important bits falling off. And transporting little ’uns also errs me towards increased safety, so I prefer my MOT inspector to be a bit strict. But there are definitely two forms of strict: sensible and silly.

I used a local guy, for many years, who was absolutely in the former camp, but he retired. Next, I tried a chap who gave the PT Cruiser a completely clean bill of health – despite me knowing of at least three faults that should have prevented a pass. The seventeen-year-old me would have loved him, but today’s me wasn’t inclined to use him again. Twelve months later I came across possibly the most obnoxious MOT tester in the country. On handing him the keys he bellowed “Look, is it worth me wasting my time and you wasting your money?” After waiting for a punchline that never came, it turned out that this chap honestly believed anything made by Chrysler couldn’t possibly still be roadworthy more than ten years down the line. He even thrusted the failure list at me with a triumphant “See, t’aint wurf it mate!” That’s despite the list being short and slightly ridiculous. Such as the “obstruction” on the windscreen (a correctly positioned mobile phone mount), and the “unable to be tested” rear seat belts (yes, there was a child seat in the back seat, but I’d unravelled the seat belt from it – but he claimed he wasn’t allowed to move or touch it).

Last year, I used another garage and found their modest failure list completely fair and sensible. Naturally I went there this year too – and got an even shorter list. But one failure point jarred: the front indicator bulbs apparently needed replacing because they weren’t orange enough. Really? Yes, I know, sometimes these bulbs fade to almost white, but that wasn’t the case here. And now the newly fully Tango’d indicators only look the slightest smidgen darker. I’m sure, in around six months, they’ll be identical to the old bulbs. Hopefully this isn’t a drift towards “Silly Strict”.

More tasks

After the bulb debacle, just three jobs remained. The shot nearside bottom balljoint was best sorted by replacing the lower arm, and I was glad to source a premium Blue Print component. The previous arm is the perfect example of why not to buy cheap unbranded parts. The original OE arm made it to 65,000 miles, the quality replacement I

fitted lasted to over 130,000 miles, but the cheapo one after that failed before reaching 150,000 miles!

The remaining jobs both concerned the nearside rear brake – neither the foot nor handbrake was doing much. I briefly wondered whether there could be a grease leak, or something similar, that affected both, but quickly reasoned that knocking out a disc-based footbrake and a drum-within-the-disc handbrake would be a tall order. A quick examination confirmed this. A partially-seized caliper sliding pin was soon rectified to return the footbrake to full order. But the handbrake was more of a saga.

Let me vent...

I hate these handbrake-only minidrums, so beloved of Volvo and others. They nearly always rely on manual shoe adjusters, and said adjusters are often inaccessible, seized, or gnarled. Fortunately, this drum/disc came off easily, but revealed very little: good shoes, healthy drums, and nothing obviously seized. Great – so why wasn’t it working? Next, I got my other half to work the handbrake lever, which exposed the culprit: full movement at the handbrake resulted in minimal action in the drum. But minimal, rather than no, movement ruled out the obvious conclusion that the cable had snapped.

With the manual offering little help, I had a session online and found out that the PT is suffering from a common Chrysler-ism. It seems, a couple of decades ago, Chrysler decided to not so much reinvent the wheel as the wheel stoppers. And so delighted were they with their innovation that they’ve fitted it to every Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep made since.

Instead of a simple cable going from the handbrake, through a balancer, to one wheel (with another cable running from the balancer to the other wheel), there are two separate cables – BMC Mini style – running to the back of the handbrake assembly – where it gets really weird.

The handbrake lever only rotates a cone clutch. The other half of which is sprung and attached to a very short single cable, which leads to a balancing plate attached to the two-wheel cables. The idea is great in principle: when the levers fully released the clutches disengage and the sprung clutch pre-tensions all the cables so that every bit of subsequent lever movement applies pure breaking force. In practice, though, the system doesn’t cope well with old age. Many owners pin the blame on the spring becoming weak – and sort it with extra springs or bungee cord – but I reckon they’re only half right. Nothing banjaxes the mechanism more than one cable going stiff. The spring won’t be strong enough to pull the tired cable taut, and the balancing plate almost applies the other side’s brake fully before pulling the stiff cable at all.

Not keen to remove the PT’S centre console, I put my theory to the test by deluging the cable with Plus Gas – and working it with Molegrips – from the wheel end. And it worked. The handbrake became balanced enough to bag the car a fresh MOT. But clearly, this is only a temporary fix. New cables, and maybe a few inches of bungee cord, will be needed to sort the issue properly.

If you want a new suspension arm to last, it’s absolutely critical that the bush nuts aren’t tweaked until the car’s at its normal ride height. Otherwise, the bushes are under rotational strain even whilst the car’s parked up (which, of course, is how most cars spend most of their life). Before taking the road wheel off, measure the distance from the ground to the hub nut. Then use a jack under the suspension arm to raise the car off any stands, then lower it until the hub nut is at normal ride height... …obviously it’s not really safe to start tweaking suspension nuts when the car is only supported by a jack under the arm, so place other supports beneath failsafe positions like subframes or chassis box sections. Forget using stands though – they won’t fit in. You’ll be surprised how close to the road everything is at normal ride height. Stout blocks of wood are the best option.

It was second time lucky for the PT Cruiser to get a fresh MOT ticket.

I hope, and fully expect, the Blue Print replacement arm to dramatically outlast the cheapie arm I fitted last time.

For all its balljoint was dreadfully worn, the bushes – which have a tough life on a PT Cruiser – looked pretty healthy.

Here’s a Chrysler-ism I really like. Many of the critical suspension bolts use this nut with welded on tab washer arrangement. Like a captive nut, you only need a socket on the bolt head to loosen/tighten the bolt. But it’s also dead easy to wriggle out the tab and nut if the thread needs cleaning, repairing, or replacing. Granted, you can see that the indicator’s amber coating is starting to break down, but the light emitted – at the moment – is very definitely orange. The unusual bulb base meant sourcing a replacement was far from easy.