Breaking News - Feb 11
From the Newsletter Lady
February is here, and love is in the air! Can you feel the love tonight? Or is love more like a battlefield for you? Maybe love stinks? Or maybe love is a many splendored thing and you are dreaming of your Funny Valentine? Or maybe your crazy newsletter editor has just been going on too many nights of little sleep with a new baby, and has a few songs stuck in her head this month…..
February can be an odd sort of month. After the holidays are over and all of the Christmas decorations are taken down and put away, (they ARE put away right?) many of us just want to skip through the last few months of winter and bulldoze right into Spring and Summer. After all, how many Mustangs do you know that can snow plow, canoe, or ice skate through our crazy Western Washington weather? It is this time of the year when a lot of us start getting anxious to break those ponies out of the barn and letting them run free again! But never fear! Mustangs Northwest still has a lot of fun events and activities to offer, to help get you through the long winter months and pass the time until Spring arrives. Just check out our “Coming Events” section for the latest and great opportunities.
And speaking of love….Due in part to the incredible success of our 2010 MCA Grand National Show, I just recently learned that Mustangs Northwest was able to donate over $10,000 to local charities last year. Way to go Mustangs Northwest for “sharing the love” and being a force to be reckoned with in our local community!
May you have a Happy Valentine’s Day filled with LOVE!
Janell Seabrook
MNW Newsletter Editor
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2010 ANNUAL YEAR END BANQUET IN REVIEW
January 15, 2011—Members who attended the Mustangs NWAnnual banquet at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, were treated to an evening of good food, great friends, and fun! From Ford Mustang cars to P51 Mustang airplanes, guests were treated to the amazing Museum of Flight exhibits, and a fantastic Pacific Northwest buffet spread by McCormick & Schmick’s. Guests were also given the opportunity to thank our 2010 Officers and Board Members, and our 2010 Judge Committee, and MCA Grand National and Roundup Committee Members were also recognized. Emceed of course by our very own Lance Lambert, with all of the proceeds going to the many Mustangs Northwest-supported charities, both a silent and live auction, and a presentation of our 2011 Officers and Board Members, rounded out the evening.
Many thanks to Vice President Mike Zimmer and his new fiancé Connie, for putting together such a memorable event!
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Mustang Blog: The Sparky Chronicles - Part 3
MONTH 4 – December 2010—After stripping off everything I could get the grinder or the wire wheel to, Scott decided the easiest way to determine the extent of the damage to that quarter panel was to put Sparky on a rotisserie. That meant, of course, that the engine & transmission needed to come out. AJ Brubaker of Reflections Custom Detailing got this major job, which entailed replacing all the gaskets & hoses, repainting the block & tranny, sandblasting the intake & clear coating it, and cleaning up the wiring. Essentially – it will look new.
Once the heart was out, Scott bolted Sparky to the rotisserie, I took a huge breath, and with his wife Lois’ trusted help, turned my car over on its side. Not something you see everyday, and a bit nerve wracking on my part. But nothing cracked, nothing fell off and both Sparky and me survived. The undercarriage didn’t look too bad; in fact, the 44 years of oil & dirt had caked up, protecting it from rust. I started chipping away at the layers. A few days later, it was clean enough for Scott to repaint in red oxide primer. I decided against painting with black, as the interior is black, and I’m not putting much underlayment back in, so I was concerned about road heat seeping through the floor boards. Plus, as Scott pointed out, it contrasts nicely with the black suspension & differential.
MONTH 5 – April 2010—I started the nasty job of stripping & cleaning the engine bay. I now can easily say that I agree with Scott; it’s my least favorite thing to do. Whomever had painted the bay before used some sort of rubberized paint that wouldn’t come off, even with a wire wheel; I had to manually sand it off. It took me about 12 hours to completely clean the bay, then Scott came along after me and painted it satin black. It looks like a million bucks now.
Scott started work on the doors, and I started on the vent windows: replacing all the weather stripping and cleaning the chrome & glass. Scott ended up cutting off the passenger side door skin, after sanding back a few inches on the old one and cutting into what had to have been a good ½” of Bondo. Not worth saving. Scott ended up welding up a new skin to that door, while the driver’s side door was saved with minor repairs. We test-fitted it, put the glass & regulators back in, and we’re ready to roll.
I decided that instead of messing with the door hinges, that I’d re-bushing the tops and just replace the bottoms. The driver’s side lower hinge had been knocked into the car, bending it irreparably. I should mention that we’ve figured out at this point that Sparky was involved in a nasty front t-bone accident, bending the radiator support channel under, pushing the door hinge into the frame, and breaking a tab off of the vent window – inside the driver’s door. Amazingly, the actual frame itself was not harmed, but the evidence remains of what had to have been a bad day for all.
Scott found that my fuel line was crimped pretty badly in 3 or 4 spots, and really should be replaced. Since we were just about to put the exhaust back on, we held off until the new fuel line came in to make it slightly easier on us.
MONTHS 5 through 7 - May/June/July 2010—As I wasn’t going to sacrifice quality on the restoration by rushing to get the car into the Grand National show, Scott & I put Sparky on hold. He had other cars that had a much better chance of being completed in time for the show to do. We installed the new fuel line, replaced the exhaust, took the little coupe off the rotisserie and wheeled it into the paint booth so it was out of the way.
In the meantime, I cleaned up all the stainless steel trim pieces, ordered the custom billet grills (upper and lower valance), and generally kept tabs on all the parts and pieces strewn around my garage. We decided that a complete wiring replacement would be best as the old wiring was really ugly, so I ordered that as well. On ebay I found a set of ’67 lower door grills that I repainted and added a custom touch. I also found a nice ’89 GT to keep me busy, and from time to time would clean up our ’07 and help my husband with his ’71. Around Grand National time, Ernie got horribly ill with kidney stones, a kidney infection, and intestinal flu, and I had to cut my show/volunteer time short and head to the hospital - so it actually was a very good thing that Sparky wasn’t on the show grounds!
MONTH 8 - August 2010—Now that the Grand National was over, we turned our sights back to Sparky. Scott starting cutting out the rear quarter, only to confirm that the outside wheel well needed to be replaced. While that piece was on order, I attempted to make sense of the box-o-bolts that encompassed all the parts that Randy had removed. After several hours and Scott’s help, I managed to get the wiper arms reattached to the cowl. It was such a pain that I actually considered at one point of just leaving them off...then remembered that I live in NW Washington. Oh. Yeah. Need those wipers!
- Liz Greene
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Help needed from our members
Many of you may have heard about a fire in Ballard on the morning of December 31st. Seven people were forced to jump off the roof, and two of the injured are relatives of Mustangs NW Member, Shannon Wolk. Shannon’s 72 year-old aunt had smoke inhalation and her 12-year-old niece had fairly severe burns on her arms and hands. Her Aunt’s hospital stay was mostly covered by insurance, but there was no insurance coverage for her niece, and the bill is around $40,000. The house and contents are a total loss.
Special thanks to Don Bernasconi's girlfriend Peggy McCool for her generous gift of tools, and to Steve Janik and Bob Doran for their cash donations. Any additional help would be greatly appreciated, as they have to start from scratch and homeowner insurance only covers so much.
For those who would like to contribute, an account has been set up at Key Bank under the Luberts Fund.
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It’s the Law!
House Bill 1134
Committee Will Not Take Action on Washington State Bill to Increase Fees for Collector Cars and Horseless Carriages
According to House Transportation Committee Chairperson Judy Clibborn, legislation (H.B. 1134) to require annual renewal fees for collector vehicle and horseless carriage license plates will not receive committee consideration this year. As you are aware, under the bill, the initial $35 license plate fee for these vehicles would have remained and a new annual $30 renewal fee would have been added. Under Washington law, a collector vehicle is any motor vehicle that is more than thirty years old, while a horseless carriage is defined as a vehicle that is more than forty years old.
Representative Clibborn indicated that the legislation was introduced in response to concerns that people were using vehicles registered as collector cars on a daily basis and avoiding fees.
On behalf of the SEMA Action Network, thank you to those who wrote letters and made phone calls requesting opposition to the bill
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From Your 2011 Roundup Committee
Your 2011 Roundup Committee continues to work towards our 31st Annual Mustang Roundup and All Ford Picnic which will take place July 14 thru 17 this year.
We are now less than six (6) months away from our biggest event of the year. We have a good nucleus for our committee but are lacking volunteers for some key positions. They are as follows:
- Pony Trails Chair – This person (or persons) is responsible for planning the Pony Trails portion of Roundup. We have a tentative volunteer for this position but if he decides to do it he will need someone to help him out.
- Club Visitation Chair – This person will coordinate visitations to other Mustang Clubs to get their members to not only come to our show but to help us put the show on.
- Event Magazine Chair – This person is responsible for putting together the Roundup Program and incorporating all the ads that are sold with articles that are included in the program.
- Event Magazine Ad Sales Chair – This person is responsible for selling ads for the Roundup Program.
- Publicity Chair – This person is responsible for coordinating all the publicity that leads up to our show. Last year for the first time we expanded our publicity to Facebook.
- Tack Shack – This position is filled by the Club’s Tack Shack Chair. As you may have heard we are still searching for a person (or persons) to fill this position.
- Trophy Chair – This person works with the Roundup Chair and other committee members to solicit bids for trophies for the Judged Show and People’s Choice Show.
- Vendor Coordinator – This person works with the Roundup Chair to locate all the vendors (non-food) within the show site.
- Parking Chair – This person is responsible for recruiting and supervising all the volunteers need for the People’s Choice Show (Sunday).
At the Banquet last month I asked those attending to think about how they could assist the Roundup Committee to put this show on. The more people we have working on the show the better. At the conclusion of the Banquet I declared the “Begging Season for Roundup” officially open!
I know that a lot of you may be suffering from “burn out” after all the work that went into putting on the MCA Grand National Show last year, but as they say, “the show must go on”! So those of you “old timers” with previous Roundup experience I ask that you consider coming back to help the Roundup Committee once again! For those of you “newbie’s” I ask that you get involved and help out in any way that you can!
The next committee meeting will be on Monday, February 7, 2011 at 7:00 PM at the Overlake Roundtable Pizza. Please come and volunteer to help the committee work towards making this the best ever Roundup.
Feel free to email or call me anytime you have questions or concerns.
Jim Couture
2011 Roundup Committee Chair
Roundup@mustangsnorthwest.com