NEWSLETTER GTO Association of Maine
September 2012
President’s Message
Got a nice letter from Alan Woodman, in July, announcing some sad news that his dad, Albert, passed away this last November. Albert Woodman drove a ’67 GTO convertible and was a member of GTOAM (#190). He owned Woodman Jewelers in Sanford.
Alan stated that his dad loved to show his friends and customers his goat and his GTOAM membership card. He was proud to be a member of GTOAM and always felt welcome.
Alan and his wife, Joyce have maintained the GTO since 1971 and are grateful for the wonderful automobile that has been passed down to them. They plan to continue as members of GTOAM.
That’s great Alan and Joyce! We are glad to have you two as members. Hope to see you and the ’67 convertible soon……How ‘bout the Fall Foliage Cruise in October?
GTOAM is teaming up with the Penquis Cruizers for our Fall Foliage Cruise. Check out the details in this newsletter.
A Big Thank you to Susan and Fred Worcester who provided all the material for this newsletter.
Prez PJ
NEXT EVENT
October
7th, 2012
Fall Foliage Cruise to Sugarloaf and the Stanley Brothers Museum
Who: GTOAM
and Penquis Cruizers team
up for this one
Where:
Kingfield, Maine
When:
Sunday, 7 October 2012
Arrive:
Cruise starts at Governor’s Restaurant in Waterville. Plan to get there at 8:45am
Note: Join us for breakfast at 9am or anywhere
along the way. An itinerary is shown
below. Paul Johnson’s cell phone is
603-969-1156 if you need to hook up with us along the way.
Itinerary:
9am Breakfast at Governor’s. Don’t be late.
10am Leave Governor’s by going North on Route 104 to Fairfield Center.
Turn left on Route 23S to West Sidney.
Turn right on Route 27N to New Sharon.
Follow Route 27N through Farmington Falls, Farmington,
New Vineyard and
New Portland.
11am Meet up with the Penquis Cruizers at the Stanley Museum located on School Street.
Museum tour. Should take approx. 1 ½ hrs.
12:30pm Eat lunch in Kingfield
2pm Head to Sugarloaf Mountain for some spectacular views.
4pm Head for
home. North bounders might want to take
Route 16E back to North Anson, to Route 8 to Norridgewock, to Route 139 to
Fairfield. South Bounders might just
follow Route 27 all the way back to Augusta.
OVERNIGHT OPTION: You may consider spending the night and having a two day foliage tour. Leaving Kingfield via Route 16W and then right on Route 17 through Rangeley is even more beautiful than Route 27. You’ll want to stop at Swift River Falls just North of Mexico/Rumford. Lodging is $79.00 (plus tax) at the Herbert Grand Hotel. This is a very old and very cool hotel in downtown Kingfield.
Our Most Recent Event
THE VISIT TO
MIKE’S GARAGE
(in a round about fashion)
by Fred Worcester
Where in heck has the summer gone? I hope you have had your GTO's out
there. We have – just as often as we could. We were up in the county to the
annual 3 day indoor Car Show at the Forum. This lady came over to talk and I
remembered talking to her up at the car show in Limestone some years ago. Nice
lady to talk to and she has a real Judge - no, no, no,
not from the court house – a real GTO
Judge. We sent her an application to join GTOAM.
Sunday when the show finished up and we headed home the sun was shining
brightly. When I got on interstate 95 I thought, hmmm, Speed Limit is 75 up
that way. So I figured the ride to Medway would blow the carbon out of the GTO.
(The wife says, "What Carbon?") Well, I kept it about 4200-4400 RPMs;
speedometer was reading about 80+; all the Gauges looked good. I stopped in
Medway to use their facilities plus the old Goat was thirsty and so was I. A
Diet Coke and a full tank of gas and off I go with my Coke and….no cup holder? When I got home and
unpacked I checked the oil and it was down about a pint. I thought maybe I
drove it a little too hard. Hard is OK, crazy isn't. I put it on the lift and
put the lift up to give room for another car. A couple days later I was working
there and noticed the header looked black. Checking it out I found where my oil
went. The oil was baked on the header. The oil filter housing had loosened
up some and so I tightened it up, used my big electric wire brush, and
cleaned the header up and painted it and it was good to go.
Sunday (I'm finally getting to the get together at Mike’s) I dropped her
down and packed up, asked the wife if she wanted the top up. She said no so off
we went. About 2 miles from the house I noticed it didn't shift into 3rd gear.
I stopped and shifted it manually and something wasn't right. So we turned
around and back we go and back up on the lift. Ah, the vacuum line had popped
off. So I cut the end off and reconnected it. Back down and off we go again.
This time I shifted it manually and when I shifted up we got a big chirp and we
were on to the GTOAM get together. We had good directions and had no problem
finding the place. Mike’s ‘64 GTO was parked out by the road along with his red
‘06 and Jim Turner’s 70 GTO Judge.
And there it was!!! The Big
Garage!!! What a sight! Mike and Vicky were there to meet us and to make
sure we took our shoes off before going in (only joking!). I couldn't believe
Mike had lied to us. It wasn't good like he said. It was great! Awesome!!
Wow!!! Like something out of a magazine. Mike and Vicky, what
a nice building you have there. You deserve to be proud of it.
Soon after we arrived our Prez
with his wife Julie arrived. Paul said his car didn't seem to be running right.
After we had eaten, I screamed, we screamed, and we all screamed for
"ICE-CREAM". So off we went to see Fast Eddie’s for some Ice Cream.
As we arrived and were parking in the grass Paul's GTO had a fit. It kept
stalling and kicking out black smoke. Wow, we weren't in the right place to
take anything apart. So he figured if he kept it up to speed it should get them
home. (We called after we got home and they were home but it wasn't a great
trip. I'm sure Paul will have it purring again soon.) It was great day visiting
with everyone. Thank you, Mike and Vicky, for having us and for the ice cream. We loved your garage and all the memorabilia
things. It was nice to see everyone there. We have some great friends in GTOAM
even though we don’t get to see you often. And that’s my story and I’m sticking
to it! Have a great rest of the 2012 cruising season. Maybe we’ll see you at the
Fall Cruise!
PS…Here are the minutes of the official meeting held during the ice cream session:
We decided that GTOAM would join the Penquis Cruizers for a fall cruise. That really means that the GTO folks will meet the Cruizers at a location to be identified in another article in this newsletter and enjoy the sights and lunch together. And the Worcesters agreed to do the next newsletter. And the meeting was adjourned.
And here are a few pictures of Mike and Vicky’s new Castle:
Visitors to the new King Castle! Yep…even the John Deere drove in to check it out! Paul calls this: “Traffic Jam in Farmingdale”
Here we are at Fast Eddie’s….before the ice cream!
(We apologize that we didn’t get pictures of the “office chair race” before lunch but the racers were off and running and the event was over before anyone could get to a camera! Congrats to Jim Turner who emerged…..the winner!)
AND….here’s Paul’s account of the trip home from the Castle Tour:
Julie and I made it home OK.
It was a tiny bit interesting though. I either needed a hand-operated
emergency brake (European/Japanese cars) or a third leg. Because I needed
one foot on the gas at all times to keep it from stalling; One foot to step on
the brake; and One foot to push in the clutch. But we got it done
with minor issues.
Plenty of things were/are wrong:
1. Float
sticking ( really bad! fuel
was spilling over into the secondaries. I
probably was getting 3 miles per gallon on the ride home)
2. Vacuum hose had a crack
3. PVC valve stuck shut
(I bet I've checked this 100 times and it was always fine)
4. I just discovered today that my electronic
ignition is only half installed. I don't know how the car was even
running.
Details: I have the Pertronix electronic
ignition. If you don't know anything about this setup,
the beauty of Pertronix is that you use your
existing distributor cap and rotor, so everything appears to be
stock. What you do is remove the points and condenser. You install
the Pertronix module where the points were
installed. You then install a ring containing eight magnets under
the rotor so that the ring rotates above the module and provides the timing signal.
Well, I pulled the distributor and rotor off today and there's no ring there.
I installed this many years ago so I was second guessing myself and I wasn't
quite sure that it was missing.....maybe it was installed somewhere else and I
just don't remember.
NO. It is missing! I can't believe that
the car runs. It must be guessing at the timing, Wow!
I think I remember that my mechanic replaced the rotor a couple of years
back and must of been confused what this ring is
for. He must have thought: "Just put the rotor back together and
heck it runs....I guess you don't need that ring". Come to think of
it, performance has been suffering for quite some time (Imagine that).
I did have a spare. I put it in and
the car purrs just like the old days.
Life is good again!
(We are guessing by this time the car is up and running and Paul has road
tested it and assured Julie that the NEXT trip will be far less eventful!)
FIREBALL RUN COMES TO MAINE!
On September 29th the 2012 FIREBALL RUN will end their adventure in Bangor. They begin their trip in Independence, Ohio. The only other stop in Maine is in Ogunquit. The entire event will be streamed “live” on the internet. Just go to www.fireballrun.com/2012/northern-exposure. Here’s a little more information about the annual event from the website:
Taking place Friday, September 21 through Saturday, September 29, 2012, the
Fireball Run Adventurally Series is an action packed,
one week, 2,500 mile challenge to support the search for missing children.
Coming to a close in Bangor, the mission and destination-based rally is filmed
for broadcast and annually released on home video.
The entire series benefits the Race to Recover
America's Missing Children -- the country's largest and longest "active
recovery effort" for missing and abducted children. Each participating
team represents a missing child from their home region with a mission to
distribute over 1,000 posters during the 15-city, 2,500-mile adventure.
FINDING MEMBERS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES…
You just never know where you are going to encounter GTOAM members! The Worcesters were attending an 80th birthday
celebration for a former basketball and baseball coach of Penquis
Valley High School and the now defunct Brownville Junction High School when a
name tag rang a bell with Susan. After the program was over, Fred’s GTO T-shirt
drew the attention of club member Andy Yeager (it was his wife, Carol, with
whom Susan chatted earlier). The Yeager’s live in Aroostook County so don’t get
to participate in club events. Also, they had been teachers in the Penquis system back in the 70s – when the honored coach was
working there and Susan was a relatively new teacher to the district. Nice to
have a chance to chat with Andy and Carol! It doesn’t matter WHERE you drive
those old Goats just as long as you have ‘em on the
road!
NEW MEMBERS
Rilda & Louis Burgoine – Woodland – 69 Judge Convertible
Clyde & Twyla Watson – 67 GTO
Are you up-to-date?
Please, if you haven’t
paid your 2012 dues yet send your check of $10.00 (or $20.00) for two years. If
you are unsure if your membership is current, just check the GTOAM roster at
the end of this newsletter to see if you have “2012” under “Status”. Remember this is our only source of income
other than the sale of tee shirts and hats. In saying that
lets try to gain new members.
Remember we accept any and all Pontiacs not only GTOs. And we welcome any and all new members that
have an interest in Pontiacs. You don’t
even have to own a car to join.
Shirts are $25
Hats are $15
Add $3 per order for shipping.
Lots of colors in stock
Rose is the contact for these. 563-5824
Rose Huntington
78 Lynch Rd
Newcastle, ME 04553
7 October: Our Foliage tour
FIEROs: 1985, 1986
& 1988
GRAND PRIXs: 1998,
2001 & 2004
BONNEVILLE: 1997
FIREBIRD: 2002
For complete info and pictures go to
The not road ready ones are not on the web site. Call Mike
King at 207 724 3574