BMCU Newsletter - September 2002
Volume 15 Number 2

Holladay Car Show
Late news for car show enthusiasts: the City of Holladay is having a town festival on the weekend of September 7. Along with a parade, live music, art festival, and kids carnival there will be a vintage car show. There is no charge to enter the car show and some awards will be given away. At press time we are unsure of the various categories, but a special invitation was extended to the BMCU to participate in the show, so I am guessing there will, at least, be a foreign division.

The event takes place at the Holladay Elementary School located at 23rd E 4580 S. The date/time is Sept 7, noon to 6 PM. Enter the school from the left (south) side. For more information, contact Bob Mikesell at 568-5143.

September events
Don’t put away the car just yet! There’s a couple of fun events for September. The key dates to remember are September 14th and September 28th.

Miner’s Day Parade . OK, the newsletter didn’t get out in time for this event, but like each year, it’s a fun parade down Park City’s Main Street on Labor Day morning. If you didn’t make it this year, plan it for next year!

State Street Cruise Night . It’s September, the kids are back in school, and the evenings are getting cooler. But there’s still plenty of time and many ways to enjoy driving your British Classic. Remember when you used to cruise down town on a Saturday night and end up at the drive in for some fries and a Coke? It was fun then and it still is. On Saturday, September 14, we will, once again, invade Salt Lake City’s State Street for a nice leisurely cruise from north to south, ending up at Joe Chou’s Dairy Queen in Sandy for some real, made to order drive-in food.

We’ll start our adventure at the parking lot behind the Capitol. Meet there at 6:30 ish for a 7 PM departure.

From the Capitol, we will find our way down State Street past downtown, past the motorcycle cops wanting to tag us for cruising. We’ll meander past all the used car lots, checking to see if there is anything interesting. Hey, was that a rusty old B back there by the shed? Anyhow, when we get all the way down to 90th South, we’ll head east up the hill to 1300 East and the Dairy Queen. There we can order food and snacks. Joe Chou will provide a dessert for the gang. There will be a raffle for a few prizes, so bring some extra dosh to spring for some tickets. (We would also be appreciative of any donated items for the raffle, if you are so inclined.) This is a great time for the whole family. We’ll probably wrap things up by 9 PM so you can move on to your next Saturday night activity. So, grab your favorite gall or your co pilot and meet us on the 14th for the second annual BMCU State Street Cruise Night.

Mount Nebo Fall Color Run . This one is a club favorite. On Saturday, September 28, we'll renew the BMCU fall tradition of circumnavigating Mt. Nebo to partake of brisk air and fall color. This is a long (200+ miles) but very enjoyable tour and will treat your eyes and clean your exhaust valves.

Rendezvous at the R. C. Willey Clearance Outlet, 9010 S. Redwood Road, at 8:30 am for a 9 am departure. Our route will take us south on Redwood Road (route 68) to Lehi, along the west shore of Utah Lake to Elberta, east on route 141 to Goshen, south through Goshen Canyon (a sports car treat), along the west shore of Mona Lake, to the Walker Bros. Phillips 66 / Wendy's truck stop at route 132 in Nephi, whence east and north on the Mt. Nebo Loop road, emerging via Santaquin Canyon.

Bring warm clothes and lunch, which we'll eat at a picnic area along the Loop. Logistics minimalists can pick up the latter at Walker's.

Organizers are Gary and Sandy Lindstrom, 532-1259, gary@cs.utah.edu . If you plan to join in along the way, e.g., in Lehi, Elberta, or Walker's in Nephi, please let us know.

Don’t forget these driving events for September. You’ll wish you could drive your once the snow starts flying!

Garage sale—really!
The Fat Chance Garage is moving from its current location to, oddly enough, the shop on the other side of the back wall. To help clean up some of the stuff, there will be a Moving Sale on Saturday, September 14th, from noon to 4 pm. For those with web access, there may be a list of typical items available at
http://www.team.net/TeamFat/moving.html

The location is 3994 South 300 West in Salt Lake. Depending on how the actual move is progressing it will be at either unit #22 (site of several Tinker Days) or the new location a few feet south in unit #59. Hopefully the move and reorganization will be done in plenty of time for the fall Tinker Day.

Alpine Loop a success
The 15th annual Alpine Loop Event on August 17 was very successful. The crowd began gathering by 9AM Saturday morning, growing to approximately 23 British Cars by 10AM. Bill Robinson distributed donuts to sweeten the participants and to aid in loosening their wallets. Karen Bradakis collected donations from the generous participants who wanted a chance to take home some of the items donated to the club for this event. Bill Van Moorhem led the drivers meeting and reminded the drivers of the route and to use caution as they drove over the route frequented by fast moving high profile vehicles. As far as this participant knows, none of the cars had any trouble getting over the top and on to Heber. We gathered at the usual park for the picnic. A few club members from that side of the mountain joined us at the park. The crowd enjoyed their lunches as the donated items were laid out for easy viewing. More monetary donations were collected and numbered tickets were distributed.

Special thanks. We want to thank our generous donors. Items were donated by:

Apple Hydraulics
Fat Chance Garage
Moss Motors
Pep Boys
The Roadster Factory
Utah Lotus Museum
Victoria British

We would like to remind all of our members to please patronize the companies which donated the event.

Also, special thanks to our members Gary Lindstrom, Joe Chou, Sharon and Dan Forster, Bill and Julie Robinson, Julie and Don McElligot, Kendall & Connie Dewsnop, Marv and Sherry Marcus for their donations. Thank you all!

And thanks to those of you who donated $s to this event. We raised enough at the event to keep the club operating for approximately five months. If anyone got any photos of the event which they would like to donate to the club, please do.

Those who attended: Mike & Becky Chambers, Bill and Julie Van Moorhem, Bill Robinson, Mike and Susan Cady, Nick and Nichols, Duffy and Kittie Lawson and Chris Dunbeck. Todd and Connie Dewsrup, Greg, Sheeley and Mitch Johnson, Bill Walton, Larry Gobelman, Bruce Schilling, Gary and Sandy Lindstrom, Mike and Sharon Bailey, Kathy, Floyd, Doug, Dana, Jake and Bradley Inman, Doug and Ilene Wimer, Chris Shell, Mark and Joyce Noeltner, Jon and Susan Hermance, Laura Hermance-Maitzen, John Progress, Jean Glines-Linwood and Austin, and Karen Bradakis.

Editor wanted
The BMCU is still looking for someone to take the editor tasks for the monthly newsletter. This usually means gathering the information from the event organizers, and getting that information into the newsletter format.

It doesn’t take a huge amount of time, but you will have to spend a few hours each month. I simply have too many things to do to continue these duties. I will continue as editor for the remainder of the year; after that, the club needs someone else to step forward and take the reins.

Interested? Contact Nathan Massie at 486-2935, or email at nlmassie@mmm.com

Definitions for Common Household Tools
Some of these are new ones, and others are familiar. But they all ring of the kind of truth that experience brings.

Air compressor

1. A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air… that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench ... that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire ...and rounds them off.
2. A mechanical device similar in principal to harnessing the power of your mother-in-law's nagging complaints and using the resulting airflow to blast old paint off the side of the house.

Aviation Metal Snips
See Hacksaw.

Battery Electrolyte Tester
A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from car battery to the inside of your toolbox, after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail ... just as you thought.

Chainsaw
Allows you to cut your way out of the shed that you accidentally built completely around yourself.

Cordless drill
A device that lessens your chance of electrocution 90% over a standard plug-in tool.

Cordless telephone
The handyman's 911.

Craftsman 1/2 x 16-inch screwdriver
A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.

Drill Press
A tall upright machine, useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smack you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against the St. Provo girl poster over the bench grinder.

Eight-foot long Douglas Fir 2X4
Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.

Electric hand drill
Normally used for spinning steel pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling roll bar mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that goes to the rear axle.

Electric stud finder
An annoying device that never goes off when you point it at yourself.

E-Z Out bolt and stud extractor
A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

Hacksaw
One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

Halogen light
A worklight that lights up your backyard with the incandescence of a football stadium, causing you to cast a heavy shadow over the area you're working on so that you need to use a flashlight anyway.

Hammer

1. Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.
2. In ancient times a hammer was used to inflict pain on one's enemies. Modern hammers are used to inflict pain on oneself.

Hose cutter
A tool used to cut hoses 1/2 inch too short.

Hydraulic floor jack
Used for lowering a Mustang to the ground after you have installed a set of Ford Motor Sports lowered road springs, trapping the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.

Mechanic's knife
Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.

Multi-pliers
Contain a handy assortment of sharp and dangerous tools. Best left in it’s leather sheath and worn on a homeowner’s belt to increase testosterone levels.

Oxyacetelene torch
Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer ... (what wife would think to look in there?) ... because you can never remember to buy lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Hill Field.

Phillips screwdriver

1. Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt. Can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.
2. The bar drink that you order when the damage estimate is over $1,000. Contains twice the vodka. See Screwdriver.

Pliers

1. Used to round off bolt heads.
2. A device used to extend your reach the necessary few inches when you drop a one-of- a-kind screw down behind the new wall it took you two weeks to install.

Prybar
A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a 50 cent part.

Screwdriver
The drink ordered at the local bar after you call in a professional repairman to undo the $500 in damage you did while trying to change out a light socket with your handy screwdriver. See Phillips Screwdriver.

(see more next month)

The Lucas Calendar
This calendar works about as well as its namesake, so use it with care. Club events have red dates. The others you may find interesting. All events are subject to change.

September 2 . Miner’s Day Parade in Park City. Floyd Inman.
September 14 . State Street Cruise Night. Bill Robinson, 947-9480.
September 28 . Mt. Nebo Fall Color Run. Gary Lindstrom, 532-1259.
October 19 . Fall Tinker Day. Mark Bradakis, 364-3251.
October 26 . End of the Season Dinner. Gregg Smith.
October 31-Nov 2. High Country Tour, Sedona, AZ. Racermoss@sedona.net November . Tech Session. Date and time to be announced.
December . No event.
January 2003 . Utah Lotus Museum. Mark Bradakis, 364-3251.

Autojumble
For Sale: 1969 MGB. I never was able to get it legally licensed and running properly, and now I’ve lost my storage facility. I have decided that my baby needs a new parent to take her on as a project. I simply can't afford yet another “project car” at the moment. Contact-Katie Gleaves (801) 759-3386 or email turtlegirl_kat@yahoo.com

Board of Governors:
Bill Robinson, 947-9480, email: brobinson@redwoodmusic.com
Marty Van Nood, Chancellor of the Exchequer; 467-0525 (H)
Gary Lindstrom, 532-1259

Newsletter Editor: Nathan Massie, 486-2935 email: nlmassie@mmm.com

Membership director: Bruce Schilling, 486-0425 email: partsmaster@sisna.com

This Newsletter is published by the British Motor Club of Utah, Ltd., a non-profit corporation of British automobile owners. The group holds monthly events such as drives, picnics, technical sessions, and more. We welcome owners (or potential owners) of British cars, in any condition, to the group. Membership is free, but we ask for a donation at events to support the Newsletter and other activities. If you would like to join the group, send your name, address, and a list of British cars owned to
Bruce Schilling
917 East Mill Creek Way
Salt Lake City, Utah 84106
or to Bruce’s email address shown above.

Check us out on the web! http://www.britishmotorclub.org

A Chapter of the North American MGB Register
British Motor Club of Utah
1944 East 2700 South
Salt Lake City, Utah 84106