Look what member Glen Enright carved out in just a few minutes. Quite appropriate for this time of year – plus it salutes the 50th anniversary of Sprite.

The other day while dropping some items off at the west side Ronald McDonald House, one of the staff members asked if we could please remind Healey Club members to save our pop tops. As most of you know, pop tops are used on a variety of products from beer to soda to tuna fish to soup cans, pet food, etc. Since we would only give Ronald McDonald House the tops, we’re still able to get the deposit refunds from our local grocers on soda & beer cans.
These tops can be brought to any meeting and given to either Jan Whittlesey, Glen Enright or Skip Monaco. Thanks for saving~

Ed VanTassel on a Saturday drive in Klamath Falls.  Nice car….

December 7, 2007
12:30 pm	to	4:30 pm

Start saving your nickles and get ready for our Club party with our Christmas Charity Auction which will be on Sunday Dec. 7 at the East Morland Golf Club.

As in years past, our Charity Committee is hoping that AHCO members will consider donating something to this great fundraiser. Remember, it can be a bottle of wine, homemade jams and jellies, handcrafted items, a weekend stay at your 2nd home or whatever. Your generosity in the past has been outstanding and our Club has been able to help many organizations in our area. Just this past year alone we’ve assisted:

• Oregon Food Bank
• Albertina Kerr Art Therapy Center
• Coffee Creek Women’s Correctional Institute
• Ronald McDonald House
• Vale High School Automotive Program
• Muscular Dystrophy Children’s Summer Camp
• Veterans Hospital Portland/Vancouver

Thank you again for your past support anI we look forward to another great auction on Sun. Dec. 7th.

Update (11/9/08 from Jeff):  The Club will hear presentations from Eugene and Seaside at the January 2009 meeting.  At the Club’s November meeting, the members decided in favor of selecting the rendezvous location by a vote of the membership.  A ballot will be mailed or emailed to all members following the January 2009 meeting.

 

The Club’s Executive Board has been gathering information and discussing potential locations for the 2010 Austin Healey Rendezvous, which we have agreed to host. After receiving suggestions from members on several potential locations, we have narrowed the list to four potential locations. Those locations, together with a brief summary of accommodations for the meet and other factors, are presented below. Please let us know your thoughts, by leaving a comment below or by contacting Jeff Mach or Mark Schneider, on which of these prospective locations you would like to see us select as the site of the 2010 Rendezvous. The Executive Board will be selecting a site and moving forward with planning the Rendevous in January 2009.

If you would like to volunteer to help us organize and put on the Rendezvous and you haven’t contacted us already, please let us know of your interest.

 

1. Seaside

Lodging: No single hotel/motel could accommodate the entire expected Rendezvous attendance alone. Lodging locations and current rates include:

- Shilo Inn (2 locations): Beach site has rooms at $229.00 and East Side of River site has rooms at $115.00

- Inn at Seaside: 47 rooms at $149.00-169.00

- Holiday Inn Express: 79 rooms at $150.00-220.00

- Rivertide Suites: 70 units at $200.00

- Comfort Inn & Suites: 65 units at $150.00

 

The Seaside Convention Center would provide a central venue for activities. The entire facility rents for $400.00 per day, which includes sound and lights. The facility contains several large meeting and breakout rooms, which also can be used for a banquet.

Potential Activities:

- Beach

- Golf

- Convention Center could not identify outdoor park for car show

- Tours

 

2. Eugene

Lodging: Valley River Inn has 257 rooms at $89.00 – $99.00/room

Meeting Rooms: Complementary

Banquet Rooms: Complementary

Audio/Visual Equipment: The hotel has full service AV company on site

On Site Parking: 400 cars.  A sector of the hotel parking area can be secured for exclusive use by Rendezvous vewhicles

Security: hired security available at $16.00 per hour (2008 rates)

On Site Car Washing: Yes

 

Special Site Amenities:

- Alton Baker Park could accommodate the car show.  The hotel has contacted the city of Eugene office of Parks and Open Space to gain information and guidelines regarding required permits, fees, and application processes.

- Convention and Visitors Board of Eugene has proposed conducting an activity along the McKenzie River

-Hotel is adjacent to 12 miles of riverfront jogging and biking paths with bicycle rentals available.

- Hotel is adjacent to shopping center with over 140 stores and ne multiplex theater.

- Hotel has outdoor pool, whirlpool and saunas.

Potential Activities:

- AHCO member of the Eugene Country Club will host a pool party at the club

- Three AHCO members from Eugene area have offered to conduct technical sessions

- Eugene based AHCO members have identified tour routes with destinations including Willamette Valley wineries, covered bridges, Thomson Mill, Yachats via Alsea, and Bandon via Smith River.

- Visiting local art galleries.

-Downtown Eugene shops, boutiques, lounges, and restaurants are five minutes away.

 

Potential AHCO Event Planners/Helpers: Seven Eugene based AHCO members have offered to help plan and conduct the Rendezvous.

 

 

3. Redmond/Bend, Oregon

Lodging: Only Eagle Crest has been contacted. They have 100 rooms at $100.00 – $ 130.00 per night.

Meeting Rooms: Yes; $100.00 service fee

Banquet Rooms: Yes; $600.00 service fee = cost of meal

Audio/Visual Equipment: Yes; costs depend on equipment used

On Site Parking: Yes

On Site car washing: Yes

 

Special Site Amenities:

- Use of field for car show. Cost $500.00

 

Potential Activities:

- Golf

- Tours

 

4. Welches

Lodging: Resort at the Mountain. 198 rooms, 10 crofts, 15 suites and 4 villas. Rooms range from $128 to $184 per night for June 2009.

Meeting Rooms: A 7,000 sq ft room and 12 break out rooms

Costs: Depends on the number of lodging rooms rented and minimum expense of $5,000.00 for banquet

Banquet Rooms: See Meeting Rooms notes; $200.00 set up fee

Audio/Visual Equipment: Available; costs depend on equipment used

On Site Parking: Yes; $10.00/car/room added to room rental rate

On Site Car Washing: Yes

 

Special Site Amenities:

- Extensive remodeling underway. All rooms will be significantly renovated

- Covered tent area available for car show or Concours judging

 

Potential Activities:

- Golf, bicycling, tennis, croquet

- Tours

I recently purchased the complete set of Austin Healey manuals (parts, workshop, owners manual) on CD from the Heritage Motor Centre in England and thought I would offer a review here.  Heritage Motor Centre is where you can also get a certified copy of the factory record on your Healey.  The CD may be purchased directly from Heritage Motor Centre, or from Victoria British Ltd and others.  I checked the currency conversion rates and decided to buy direct from Heritage.  I received the CD in about one week.

To quote the blurb from Victoria British, “Each CD-ROM, focusing on one model or family of models, has the same format: the original parts catalogs are followed by the workshop manuals and driver’s handbooks, all reproduced in an easy-to-use and easy-to-print PDF format. There’s never been before in one package anywhere near this level of detailed, comprehensive information about your Austin Healey! Also included on the CD-ROM is PDF reader software. (System requirements: Windows 98, Pentium 266 MHZ and 64 MB RAM.) If the tamper proof seal on the CD case is broken, it may be returned for an exchange for the same part number only.”

The key points here are two, first the CDs do not work on Windows Vista, and do not work on non-windows systems (ie Mac or Linux).  Second, the actual manuals are in PDF format.

What they don’t tell you is that the CDs are strongly copy protected.  You can not make a back-up copy of the CD.  While you can browse the CD and find the individual PDF files, you can not open them up yourself with a PDF reader because they are encrypted with a program called Hexalock.  You must view the content using the Flash based interface provided on the CD and it requires that you use the Adobe  Reader or Adobe Acrobat programs to view the PDFs.

They do provide the Reader program on the CD, although it is an old version (6.0).  The current version of Adobe Reader is 9.0.  All of this caused significant issues for me.  First of all, I wanted to read these manuals on my laptop.  But my laptop does not have a CD player.  It does have software that can read an image file made from a CD, but the copy protection that this product uses, requires special CDs and senses that you are not using the original CD.  So that did not work.

I also had problems because I have both Acrobat and Reader installed on my system.  The CD always launched Acrobat whch would display the first page of the PDF but then hang.  Now I don’t know if that is an issue with the copy protection software or with Acrobat.  But if the CD is in the player, and I have run the program to view the CD  (which loads a system service on your task bar), then I can browse the cd and manually open the PDFs in Reader.  Whew….

Now other people who only have Reader installed may be able to run and view the contents without any problems.  I’ll review the  interface later on.

But since I really want to read these publications on my laptop I went looking for a solution.  I finally found one, a program that would allow me to fool the copy protection software and save unencrypted PDF file copies.  That will let me load the PDF files onto my laptop, but I will not be able to view them via the CD interface.  That isn’t much of a concern for me.  If I want a pretty interface I can create one myself.  For now I’ll simply open the individual files with a free third party PDF reader (Foxit).

So enough of my rants.  What is the CD like?  Well it does have all of the original 3000 manuals and publications on it.  The publications you get are:

Parts Publications
3000 BN7, BT7 1959 to 1962 – Service Parts List
3000 BJ7, BJ8 1962 to 1968 – Mechanical Service Parts List
3000 BJ7, BJ8 1962 to 1968 – Body Service Parts List

Service Publications
100/6, 3000 1956 to 1968 – Workshop Manual

Owners’ Literature
3000 BN7, BT7, BJ7 1959 to 1963- Driver’s Handbook
3000 BJ8 1963 to 1968 – Driver’s Handbook

When you load the CD and launch the start program a Flash file begins to play.  Here is the first screen:

You click continue and go to:

From here you use the menu on the left to select the type of publication you are looking for.  For example, you can select workshop publications which takes you to a screen with only one publication on it.  Click on that one publication and you go to a screen that shows:

Click on the topic you want to view and the program launches Adobe Reader to view the PDF.  Note that the PDF is protected and you can not save a copy of it from the Reader.  You also can’t print the entire document out as a PDF file.  If you try to, you will get the following alert:

But you can print pages out.  Which is great because you can print the four or five pages out that you need for the task at hand and take those into your shop to work from.  This keeps your real workshop manual from getting torn and greasy.

Here is a sample of a portion of a page from a PDF:

So there you go…. If you are a Windows user, pre Vista, this is a nice addition to your CD collection.  Even with the issues I found I am happy that I have this.

Bob Wallace

Quite a few AHCO members attended the recent Northwest Meet in Harrison Hot Springs, British Colombia, hosted by the Austin Healey Owners Association of British Columbia.  Photographs from the weekend are posted in an events album.

 

I met up with Tom and Skip Monaco, at their house, on a cool, overcast, Thursday morning for our drive to the Meet.  After Tom finished packing their car and we decided to head north topless (the cars that is), we set off for Longview, to meet Chuck and Barbara Gowen.  Fortunately, and unfortunately, Chuck discovered he’d left his wallet at home, so he and Barbara departed to retrieve it, vowing to catch us farther up the road.  Tom, Skip, and I continued up the back roads of southwestern Washington to Centralia (on a route familiar to those of you who went on the recent Centralia overnighter), where we stopped to refuel at the Olympic Club.

 

After lunch, we resumed our drive north on the back roads east of I-5, with Tom and then me leading the way.  I missed a couple of turns while in the lead and we did a little backtracking as a result, but nothing too serious.  All went pretty well until late afternoon, when a turn from one road to another, which looked fine on Google maps, turned out to be only an underpass without the option of a turn.  Suffering a lack of what mariners term “local knowledge” of the area and fatigue, we opted to drive onto I-405 at Renton during rush hour.  Traffic moved at a snail’s pace, neither car seriously overheated, and we finally managed to get to Woodinville, the day’s planned objective.  A nice chat at a service station with a fellow, who had owned a 100M and a Bugeye Sprite in a previous life, revealed there were no motels in Woodinville, so we headed on to Snohomish, where we found lots of restaurants and bars, but couldn’t find any lodging there either.  It was dark-thirty by now and we reluctantly drove over to Everett and I-5, where we knew we could find lodging and food, which we did in short order.

 

Friday morning, we backtracked to Washington Highway 9, and turned towards the border, which we managed to cross a couple hours later without incident.  We made an obligatory stop (at least for me) at a Tim Horton’s, chatted with a couple of locals who were interested in the cars, then drove the final leg to Harrison Hot Springs.  We found the hotel and met up with some earlier arrivees from Oregon, who were in the midst of trying to help John Carter fix his windshield wiper motor.  I went off to find the bed and breakfast where I had a reservation (having been slow to decide to attend the Meet) and spent the remainder of the day catching up with folks, sightseeing around the village, and viewing the recent World Tournament of Sand Sculptures along the lake’s shoreline.  I capped off the day by attending the great welcome reception.  I recall someone saying there were about 70 people at the Meet and it seemed as if half of them were from Oregon or were AHCO members.

 

I awoke Saturday to overcast, but dry weather.  Since the CBC was forecasting rain showers, I hustled outside and installed the hood and sidecurtains on the Sprite before breakfast, just so I wouldn’t be forced to do it in less convenient conditions later.  After breakfast, I had a soak in the hot springs, then continued sightseeing.  A couple who spotted my Sprite hat waylaid me during my wanderings.  They are in the process of re-building a Bugeye to add to their collection of assorted vehicles and we talked Bugeyes for better than an hour on sidewalk.

 

After lunch, I gathered with other Meet attendees for a drive to the Othello tunnels, a series of closely spaced, 19^th century, railway tunnels above Hope.  Fourteen or so Healeys and a couple other cars made the trip.  The rail bed is now a hiking and biking trail, which features several interpretive signs about the railroad along the route.  The area the tunnels pass through is very impressive, with vertical cliffs above and below the tunnel mouths and a river winding back and forth between a couple of the tunnels.  After walking through four of the tunnels, admiring the views, reading the interpretive signs about the railway, and taking a few pictures, we returned to the cars and had a great drive back to Harrison Hot Springs.

 

Saturday evening featured a buffet with salads, breads, vegetables, and a choice of chicken or a gigantic roast beef (it looked like it had come from a small mastodon, at least before everyone devoured it).  Dessert included a selection of fruit and pastries that you could drown in a chocolate fountain.  After dinner, a troupe of tribal fusion belly dancers from Chilliwack (that hotbed of belly dancing) entertained us.  Overall, it was a very enjoyable evening.

 

Sunday morning dawned even more overcast and damp than Saturday.  After a leisurely breakfast, I made my way over to the Harrison Beach Hotel, where we remaining AHCO members had a brief membership meeting and then prepared to hit the road.  At Walt Harrison’s suggestion, we convened a quick Bugeye photo-op with the four Bugeyes attending the gathering, and then we headed south.  The lines at the Sumas border crossing were slow, but we eventually got through.  When I arrived at the booth, the agent passed on a message that the rest of the group would be waiting for me at the Chevron station up ahead.

 

The Monacos, the Gowens, and I set off south, after reconvening at the Chevron Station in Sumas, while another larger group of Healeys, mostly AHCO members, stopped for lunch or pie and coffee at a restaurant next door.  We headed back down the same route we’d followed north.  Unfortunately, I became separated in traffic from the others while entering Sedro Wooly and missed the fact that they had pulled off the road, despite the fact that I was looking and they reportedly were waving and honking a car horn.  A few miles past Sedro Wooly, I pulled over and waited for a while, but finally decided to continue on home because I had to go back to work the following day.  I thought I’d try to avoid I-405 at Woodinville this time (which I didn’t) and take another of the small back roads at Puyallup I’d marked on my map (which I couldn’t find).  So, I returned home the rest of the way back on I-5, which other than being boring, was alright for traffic and speed., 

 

The Sprite and I experienced no major problems on the trip, which capped a summer during which I drove the car to San Diego and Canada without any serious problems.

The following may serve as a reference guide for planning of a Healey Rendezvous.  It was put together by Pat Bolton (wife of Bill Bolton).

As far as AHCO, the President asks that each person interested in chairing the event here in Oregon put together a proposal that will be presented at a club meeting where the membership will determine which one to accept by a majority vote.

The proposals should include information about:

Location - accommodations (should have about 100 rooms), room rates (should be reduced from standard rates through negotiations), restaurants, interesting activities in surrounding area, place to hold popular car show and concours judging, food arrangements for hospitality evening and banquet dinner (if hotel can handle or caterers needed and room available large enough to handle large group), rooms available for any tech sessions planned plus regalia, registration, photo/hobby displays, etc.     Once the club has voted which venue they prefer, it should be determined if the person who presented the proposed site wants to be chairman or if someone else needs to take the job on.  The person presenting the proposed venue generally expects to be the chairman.  The chairman will then make a request for volunteers to take charge of various tasks.

The areas of responsibilities include:

Chairperson - Work with the hotel/motel or resort to make all of the arrangements necessary for extra rooms needed for any tech sessions, regalia, etc., room rates, blocking rooms for the Austin Healey Group, area to be used for car show and concours if they will be held there or at another location, area needed for registration, hospitality and banquet dinner location, parking and security, and any other needs that may arise.  Make arrangements for microphone for speakers.

• Develop a core group of volunteers to take on areas of responsibility.  Meet with them regularly to get progress reports and determine if there are any problem areas that need to be addressed.     There are the basic committee chairs that would always be necessary, but other committees may need to be added for additional activities.  Sometimes we’ve had soap box derbies, funkanas, gymkanas, photo contests, craft contests, etc.
• Develop a budget based on information provided by the committee chairs for each area of responsibility.  This should cover all of those forgotten areas such as phone expenses, postage, envelops, etc.  There will be other areas where the budget will be based on quotes received such as foods, trophies, etc.  If the quotes are obtained many months prior to the meet, I would recommend adding at least 10% anticipating an increase by the time the orders are placed.  I would also recommend adding at least $500 to the budget for miscellaneous costs, those that were unforeseen.
• Once the budget for expenses is complete, project what income is anticipated from the auction and any other income areas except for the registration fees.  The difference will then be used to calculate what the registration fee will be.  I recommend basing the expected income from registration fees on 100 people.
• Report progress and ask for assistance where needed at club meetings each month.
• Contact insurance agent advising of the meet, location and dates.  Also request liability waiver forms that must be at the registration desk for all to participants to sign.  In the past, AHCUSA has insured this meet and provided the waiver forms.  We have always taken their seed money of $1,000 which then legally tied their insurance to the event.  At the end of the meet the seed money has been returned to them.  Check with them to be sure that this is still offered.

Registration - Once all of the pricing has been set for foods, regalia pre-order items, registration fee, concours fee and any other fees, the registration form needs to be designed.  The promotion chair should then be given a supply.

• Receive registrations with payments, send letters to confirm receipt of their registration with total due and total paid, collect any shortages or refund any overages, keep a list of those registered along with all of the events and regalia signed up and paid for, put together registration packets, handle registration desk at the meet along with other willing volunteers.  At the registration desk each registered person must sign the insurance liability waiver.

Promotion - send out packets to the other clubs promoting the event and what other activities are available in the surrounding area.  Send write ups and registration forms to the other clubs.  Check to be sure these items are appearing in the other club newsletters / magazines or on their web site.  Be sure to get registration forms and  regular write ups to AHCO for the Healey Northwest about the venue, points of interest, and progress on planning meet more often than to the other clubs.

Regalia - meet regalia logo needs to be designed.  Designs can be submitted by club members or the meet committee that should then be brought to the general club for a vote.  Quotes should be obtained for cost of several items with the meet logo and then be brought to the committee to decide which items to use.  Place order based on pre-orders through registration plus an additional amount to sell at the meet.

• Develop a group of volunteers to assist with regalia sales and pre-orders at the meet.  Assure that the regalia room or booth is manned during the posted hours and that regalia is secure when not open for business.

Food - work with hotel/motel, resort or caterer to gather menu items and costs for hospitality night and banquet dinner.  Bring information to committee meeting to discuss options and decide on foods to be served.  Be sure to include gratuities that will be charged in addition.  Make all arrangements for foods and quantities based on registration numbers plus a few that may register at the meet (this is usually a low number).

• Work with concours chairman to make arrangements for judges food and drinks that may be needed.
• If there is to be beer and wine offered to the registrants at hospitality night, provide costs to the committee to determine which should be purchased and place order with the hotel/motel, resort or caterer.  Tickets will need to be included in each of the registration packets for the free beer and wine.

Trophies - find several options and pricing for awards to be presented.  Once the various events have been determined, the committee should decide how many trophies / awards will be presented based on number of events and whether to award 1st and 2nd only or 3rd place also.  Place order, pick up when ready and deliver to the meet.

Sponsors - if desired, this position would make contacts with businesses to sponsor an event.  A sponsor fee schedule should be decided in the committee.

Accounting - all of the income and expenses should go through the club’s Treasurer.  The registration fees collected by the registration person will be forwarded to the Treasurer.  Accounting for the meet should be separate from other club income and expenses.  If there is an auction, sit at the table for collection of monies.

Popular Car Show – set up layout for car show, placement of ballot boxes and organize a team of people to help.  Organize your group to set up for placement of cars and ballot boxes prior to car show, direct people to where their car should be parked, collect ballots and count votes at the end of the day.

Concours - speak with Bill Bolton to see what should be included on the registration form.  This is a self-supported endeavor.  Registration fees are paid to the concours committee to cover their costs.  Food and drink arrangements may need to be made for the judges.

Auction - if it is decided to hold an auction, the items donated need to be received by this person, logged and organized into silent auction and oral auction items.  The items need to be kept in a secure room prior to the auction.  Move items to room and organize layout prior to auction.  Volunteers will be needed to assist and to collect monies.  One person at the table collecting payments will need to write down the auction item and registration number of the highest bidder.  The Treasurer for AHCO should be at the table with 2 to 3 other helpers.  In the past, Jim Morrison of Vancouver, BC has been an excellent auctioneer since he knows how to work the crowd to get the most income.  His significant other, Elaine, has worked well with him in the past to organize the auction items also.

Tours - lay out self guided tour(s) and a guided tour or a poker rally or a timed rally with questions about items along the way to be answered.  Organize and lead tour or check people out of the gate and returning for the rallies.  For the rallies, keep record of the times and poker hands or correct answers.   Hospitality Night – the President of AHCO should be prepared to speak briefly to welcome everyone and kick off the meet.

Trophy / Award Presentations – Determine when, where and who will make the presentations.

Banquet Dinner – Determine if there will be any speakers and who.

I have been asked many times for information about where to purchase an Aston type gas filler cap. The US distributor is located in Sarasota, Fl. There are many sizes and styles available for purchase. Also, they are are sold in various finishes including polished aluminum, unfinished aluminum, and chrome plated. In order to attach the cap to the filler tube you must purchase and install a threaded collar into the gas filler opening. They are also available from this source. In my car the 2.5″ size for the cap and the collar was the proper fit. Their phone number is (941)355-0005. The actual company is call BAT, Inc.which is British American Transfer but the items are sold by MOCAL. The website address is:www.batinc.net/aston.htm.

The Austin Healey Club of Oregon regalia now has a fresh stock of the club badge. The new badges are beautifully done and are configured as grill badges. That is, the badge is intended to be affixed to the grill of the car. This is accomplished by threading two 3″ long rods into anchor points on the back of the badge, sliding these rods through the grill works, and locking the badge in the desired location with a small bar and nuts. The rods and nuts are part of the badge kit.

An alternate method of displaying the badge is to mount it on a badge bar as shown in the image at left. To implement this one needs a badge plate and a badge clip. Oh yeah, a badge bar mounted on the front bumper is also sort of handy. There is an important piece of information that you will also need. The 3″ threaded rods are of little use for a bar mounting. Mounting the grill badge to the badge plate is achieved with two small screws instead. The required screw is metric. Specifically, the screw is a M4 x .70 thread pitch. I found a 10 mm was the the best length. The badge plate will need to have two 3/16″ holes drilled in it to match the anchor points on the back of the badge. The holes may need to be relieved a little with a round file to achieve a full contact between the badge and plate. I also used a couple of washers as shims surrounding the two anchor points on the badge back. Finally, two fender washers and the two 10 mm metric screws complete the conversion of the grill badge to a bar mounting. Fasten the converted badge to a badge bar with the aforementioned clip and the job is done.