I just acquired a new project vehicle

From what I can tell it's the cheap aftermarket hood that I used. It came with the car so at least I did not pay for it. According to some informal measurements the upper section of the hood is 1/4" too narrow. That would be right about how far it's off. That's not the only problem with this hood though. Read my rant on the hood a few pages back to get the whole story.

 

I still have the old SHO. It's about to go under the knife for a "refresh" as it's gotten kind of "tired" from the 190 mile a day commute I was doing last year. Moonlight blue and Spectra Blue Mica are almost the same color.

 

Around 265000 miles. It will be a combined refresh. There is nothing really wrong mechanically other than a noisy power steering pump (it's the original one) but it's time to do one of the major tuneups (timing belt, plugs, intake cleaning, valve shims, and a few other things). The interior is "tired" and needs to be taken apart, cleaned, touched up, and put back in properly to eliminated rattles and creaks. Some of the power window motors are noisy and need a little work also. The paint is the big problem; after I painted it I tried out color sanding on the clear coat. It worked great...for a while. I got the clear coat too thin and it failed after a few years so it needs to be totally repainted. I may do some suspension upgrades while I'm working on it, it just depends on how long the old Neon holds up while I'm working on it.

 

There are a few ways to go about it depending on how much of a factory look you want. The cheapest way would be to buy a prepackaged kit off of eBay. It will come with the fog lights, wiring harness, relay, and a generic switch. You will still need to buy the fog light grills but they are cheap from some place like parts.com. Installation is straight forward but will require removal of the bumper (it's very easy) and possibly the wiper cowl (it's very easy also). The next way (which is what I did) will give you a fog light button that fit's in one of the blanks to the left of the steering column (Note: this is for 2006-2009 models only, the 2004-2005 models use a different sized button that could be sourced from another Toyota). You will need to buy a fog light kit for Toyota Yaris plus you will need to buy a set of Prius fog lights (the Yaris lights are different). You will still need to buy the fog light grills also. You will use the wiring harness, relay, and button from the Yaris but not the fog lights. The final way would be to buy the Prius fog light kit and rather than using the supplied button buy a multi-function switch for a Prius that factory fog lights and wire the new fog lights to that.

 

Other than the broken passenger side axle (look here: http://priuschat.com/forums/prius-m...found-source-my-moderate-speed-vibration.html ) it has been flawless. We have put about 6000 miles on it since we started driving it including several day trips out of state and a nice long trip to Florida. I have looked at a few other salvage cars including a very easy to fix 05 but I have not bought anything else yet. I may wait until someone bashes one of the '10 models and pick up one of those .