December, 2009
The next club meeting:
Christmas Party at LaBamba, Dothan, north of SAMC
December 5, 2009 at 6 p.m.
From a billboard by GM for the
Woodward
Avenue Dream Cruise in Detroit, MI.
President's Comments:
Merry Christmas!!! Yes its just around the corner, another Christmas. Doesn’t it seem like time accelerates as you get older? Shoot, it was the middle of the summer just a few days ago, right? Anyway, all the more reason to enjoy life to the fullest extent each and every day!! So, did the club have any activities in November, why yes we did. On the 7th, we did the National Peanut Parade in Dothan. Then on the 21st, several from the club had an enjoyable morning at Mike’s Critters near Banks. We presented them with a $500 donation check, and then we had a private tour of the facility from Mike. Those big cats were incredible, and Kenny Mccabe will not easily forget having a 100+ pound Burmese Python around his neck!!
We have one more donation check to present, and we will be doing that on the 12th of December. The final of our 6 checks this year will go to the Seacrest Wolf Preserve near Vernon FL. This will be our December cruise courtesy of Jim and Charley Robertson. We will meet for lunch first, then go to the Preserve to present the check and visit the wolves. I’ll be sending an email about this trip a little later with all the details.
On the 5th of December, we will have our club Christmas Party. This year we will be having it at the LaBamba restaurant in Dothan. It will start at 6:00. After dinner we will have a short club meeting, and then play the Dirty Santa game.
Again, Merry Christmas to all.
Bruce
Click for the Museum Homepage: National Corvette Museum - opens in its own window.
Click here for Charley's NCM Newsletter
Courtesy of your NCM Ambassador -
Charley Robertson
-- top of page --
C5 HVAC control panel lights.
If you have a C5 with a few miles on it, expect your HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) control display to go blank. Mine did about a year ago. For a while, it would come back if I rapped it smartly, but eventually, it darkened such that I could only read it in the dark garage. Your local mechanic probably wants $300 to $450, plus labor, to replace the box. One of our favorite online vendor places wants $300 for the box. On eBay, I've read, you can send it off to somebody who knows the following trick, and will fix it for about $50.
The culprit is a lousy soldering job on the surface-mount components performed by the GM supplier. The components with the "cold" solder connections work loose - sometimes a percussive adjustment applied by knuckle will cause them to make contact again. But, that's tough on the knuckles and the display window.
At our going away party for Marty and Val the other night, I heard Andrew Country discussing a fix for this problem found on the internet. So I checked it out.
First series of steps is removing the box from the dash. Follow the instructions on this link to remove the box:
http://www.vetteessentials.com/instructions/g_bezels/bezel_howto.html
Removal is straight forward; the C5 dash comes apart much like a C4 dash, start at the back of the console and remove things going forward. No need to go past step 3g, as the instructions on this site are for access to the instrument cluster. ( Use them to put the shiny bezel kit on your instruments. )
Here's the link to work on the box, also contains the above link:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-tech/1583758-c5-climate-control-dim-dark-display-fix.html
Disassemble the box. Be careful with the screws, there's eight of them, all the same size. Find the offending components on the back side of the circuit board in the back half of the box. Don't remove the board from the front half unless you need to replace burnt-out light bulbs or are terribly fond of chinese puzzles.
The offending components are the eight large (1/4 inch), dark-colored surface mount resistors with the number "241" printed on them. Surface mount electronic components have copper band at each; the band solders to the mounting pads on the circuit boards. GM has at least two different layouts for this circuit board, but both have eight of these resistors. If you examine them with a magnifier, you may see a crack at the edge of the solder where the solder should flow smoothly to the mounting pad. Use just enough rosin core solder to make the end of the very hot soldering iron shiny and a little more. Do NOT use plumber's acid core solder! Press down on the center of the resistor with a very small screwdriver or similar implement, then press the tip of the iron to both the end of the resistor and the metal pad on the circuit board. Each heat application should not take over five seconds - we don't want to scorch the board or lift the metal traces from the board. Examine your work, the solder should flow smoothly from the resistor to the pad, except for the lump left behind by this fairly primitive technique. Clean the soldering iron tip in between uses to remove carbonized rosin; but not with your fingers, unless you're really really really into pain.
Reinstall, enjoy. Your mileage may vary - some forum readers botched the job, others simply reported it did not work. It worked on mine, we can see the display in the daylight again - good as new.
Brent Gourley
'93 Z25 / Z07 40th with 190,000 miles
'99 white Z51 coupe with 130,000 miles
December
5 CCCC Christmas
Party, 6 p.m., at LaBamba's, on the Ross Clark Circle just north of the medical
center, Dothan.
$19 per
person. Dirty Santa - bring a wrapped Corvette-related gift for each person
who will participate.
12 Cruise to Seacrest Wolf Preserve to visit and present check. Lunch first.
 |
The check presentation on Friday [the 13th] went very well with five CCCC couples participating. The folks at all three locations were very grateful for the donation. The folks at the food bank told us they will be picking up money from Country Crossing from an event there in December, and the House of Ruth ladies said they received a grant to build a new building so they can take care of more folks. |
 |
 |
| Presentation of check at Mike's (hungry) Critters ...
|
|
 |
To Noreen on behalf of the Individual and Family Support
Council..
|
Member Journeys:
The classic C5 in white, by the Maccabes
| We have always been car crazy, but mostly involved with imports. my previous street cars included a 67MGB, 70Lotus Europa, 76 Datsun 280Z, 85TVR 280i. My oldest son, Mark and I ,began racing in local SCCA events in 1971 ,with the Lotus Europa doing autocross (solo2) and solo1 (real race track) time trial events. This led me to buy my first real race car, because street cars just don't hold up too well and maintenance costs were eating my budget.The racer was a 67Merlin Formula Ford (single seat, open wheel, 4cylinder).With it ,we won many local events, but soon traded it up for a Lola342, then a Royale ,a 84 Reynard, and a Vector. We started road racing in 1984 with the Royale, got serious and bought the Reynard with which Mark won several races including the South Atlantic Road Racing (SARRC) Series Championship in 1992. We bought the new 93Vector, and continued racing until Mark's growing family needs and my retirement ended our racing. I sold the Vector and trailer, etc. |
 |
 |
So, with cash in hand, but no toys to play with, I bought a nearly-new 1995 C4 Corvette, and joined the Circle City Corvette Club. The club members were very much in support of the new C5, and I finally decided it was, indeed, a much better car than my C4, and went looking. Noreen and I were members of CorvetteForum.com, and saw an ad by Maxie Price Chevrolet for CorvetteForum.com members only ,offering a $6,000 discount on new C5's. Noreen put one condition on it---it had to be white with tan interior. I called Monica Dean and she got approval to give this discount for an inbound (i.e., not in current inventory) as an exception to the advertised sale. |
| I bought it when it came in. Monica met me at the airport, took me to her dealership, thoroughly briefed me and we test drove the car, before I drove it home. and that's my story and I'm sticking to it. |  |
 |
I didn't give much detail about the car itself. Our Corvette is an automatic, has a limited slip performance rear axle, cold air intake, long tube headers, steel coated brake hoses, Hawk performance brake pads, computer tune performance to engine parameters and transmission shifting, and a set of Toyo Proxies high performance tires on BBS modular light weight racing wheels. Bruce Carter did the performance modifications, and I can really feel the improvement--both in power and better mileage! The car only has 25,000 miles on it, because I keep the car cover on it to protect it from my cat. Dick and Noreen Maccabe
|
We welcome our new members to the club!!!
Al and Pat Fleming, Enterprise, 2000 white convertible and Warbonnet Yellow '72 coupe.
Jamie and Paula Flowers, red '67 convertible.
CJ and Vivian Cancel, black '08 Z06.
| HAPPY December BIRTHDAYS 3 Marty Cochran 6 Jerri Gourley 12 Len Simpson 14 Judy Lewis 15 Pat Fleming 18 Russell Lewis 21 Suzanne Hammitt 22 Brenda Hancock 22 Roy Williams |
and
December ANNIVERSARIES:
3 Mike & Cindy Walker 12 Jeffery & Micky Young 16 Russell & Judy Lewis 19 Juan Carlos (J C) & Vivian Cancel 21 Dave & Teedy Lummus 27 Dan & Hassie Green 28 Richard & Irene Stuhmer |
FOR SALE: 2006 A6 Machine Silver Coupe with ~35K miles.
Many extras!!! Please call me @ 334-790-7856 with any questions.
ASKING $32,000
Thanks
Kelly
Suzuki self-assembly - http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/12/suzuki-motorcycle-assembles-itself/
Will Cooksey's burnout at Carlisle '07 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v0P2LHSBvo
GM's HyWire - the car of the future on Top Gear
Building the last C4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YII-h21xJvw&NR=1
Think you can win that ZR-1 and the '67/427 advertised on Facebook?
Read here before you donate:
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/12/05/Northpinellas/Wish_granting_charity.shtml
If your kids really need to play a violent video game, play this one: http://www.americasarmy.com/
U.S. Army Freedom Team Salute - http://www.freedomteamsalute.com/Default.aspx
Corvette Stories - http://www.corvettestories.net/
Old Chevy v. New Chevy Crash Test - http://www.wimp.com/cartest/
Top Gear in the U2 spy plane - http://www.wimp.com/breathtakingfootage/
The Detroit - Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise
How to make your car last - http://tinyurl.com/qwdp7t
Nostalgia videos - http://www.oldbluewebdesigns.com/
LS2 Engine Assembly - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2ZQQRDmlJc&feature=related
President:
Bruce Carter
Vice
President: Russell Lewis
Secretary: Barbara Pattberg
NCM
Ambassador: Charley
Robertson
Treasurer: Jim Robertson
Caravan Coordinator: John
Hickman
Local Event Coordinator: Bruce
Carter
Newsletter
Editor: Terry Weldon
Member at
Large: Greg Prettyman
Member at Large:
Kelly Walker
Webmaster: Brent Gourley
Save the Wave