April 2015 newsletter(3 26 edit)

MONTHLY CRUISIN’ with the Mass Cruisers Auto Club

We’re on the Web www.masscruisers.com And Facebook

“CRUISIN’ AT THE SPEED OF FUN” April 2015

Volume 25 Issue 4

Lady Cruisers painted flowers until they dropped. Left. Cast of characters: (L to R, back) Dawn Titus, Marie Armando, Amy Nunes, Ann Hines, Cathy Andrew, Diane Thornton, Laurie Touhey. (Front) Lorna Rabbitt, Marcia Silvestri. Neringa Bryant taking the picture!

We crashed at Diane’s home (page 4). Weekly Cruisin page is back (page 5); the Lady Cruisers paint pretty pictures(page 8). Another session of Wrenchin ’n’ Coffee with Bob Hines was fun and informative (page 9) and Cruiser Roy Rossman demonstrates his technique for growing tin whiskers on a bracket (pages 10 &11). Care to predict when our Bass Pro Cruise Nights will actually begin? Memorial Day is a safe bet.

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Contact us by snail mail: P.O. Box 217, Wrentham, MA 02093 Or by email: HO350@comcast.net

We’re on the Web! www.masscruisers.com

Our clubhouse is located at 124 Main Street, Norfolk, behind the Dunkin Donuts shop and across the street from the police station. For more information please call: 781 551-0520. Visitors, guests and those interested in joining the

Mass Cruisers Auto Club are welcome to attend one of our monthly meetings held on the third Tuesday of each month in Norfolk.

Directory

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From the President’s Tail Pipe; any one want Marcia’s Audi?

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March 21st Monthly Social

by Diane Thornton

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Weekly Cruisin

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Club Officers President– John Buchanan Vice President—Diane Thornton Secretary—Patrick Touhey Treasurer—Wayne Lestan

Monthly Calendar

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Car Shows and Events

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Webmaster—Steve Vining

Lady Cruisers Pages

by Marcia Silvestri and Diane Thornton (cont.)

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Newsletter Editor—Paul Saulnier

Wrenchin ‘n’ Coffee

by John Buchanan

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Facebook Admin. – Patrick Touhey

An Environmental Concern 10 Gone Astray ------- -----------------11 An Environmental Concern Gone Astray (cont.)

Advertising Rates Business card space…….$25.00/yr

To advertise in the Monthly Cruiser, please send a business card and a check for $25.00 to

Mass Cruisers Newsletter P.O. Box 217, Wrentham, MA. 02093

New Member Liaison—Dole Cole Sgts. at Arms—Rick Lawlor & John Sturniolo Charity Coordination – Frank Bryant By-Laws – Roy Rossman MAAC Representative— John Buchanan

Special Events Cruise Night—Steve Huntington Car Show—Rich Armando Club Events Calendar – Marcia Silvestri

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From the President’s Tailpipes

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are coming down to the wire. Will the snow be totally gone from

Lots 14 & 16 for our April 16 opening cruise at Patriot Place; will the forsythia, tulips and PJM Rhododendrons be in full bloom? We are all suffering from this winter of 2015 that doesn’t want to quit. Is this what it was like leading up to the last ice age?

I am

trying to be as positive about feeling ready to get behind the wheel and doing

some serious early April CRUIZN to the first Wheels of Time Cruise in Raynham on the 9th and Herb Chambers Cars & Coffee on the 11th to get our cruise & car show flyers into the hands of our fellow hard core enthusiasts, but we keep getting only one or two days in March where the temperature is edging close to 50 degrees. On the bright side, Bob Hines has rescued our winter doldrums with his highly successful Saturday morning “Wrenchin’ n’ Coffee” sessions at his Robert’s Automotive shop http:// robertsautomotiveinc.net/ , the monthly socials are always a welcomed stress reliever to help get us through the winter, thank you 2014/2015 social hosts: Frank & Neringa Bryant, Mark Creighton; Sarojit & Kumkum Malik (during a snow storm no less) and Diane Thornton. And, the Lady Cruisers have also stepped up with their first event held at the Patriot Place Muse Paintbar http://musepaintbar.com/patriotplace/ by testing their inner artistic selves with renderings of promised spring flowers.

Inevitably

, spring follows winter, so we’ll be hitting the road in

our favorite rides despite the “Tax Man” who comes along mid-month trying to put a dent in our freedomof-the-road enthusiasm. We’ll get through it as we always have with this reminder from my friend and fellow car enthusiast, TY; “Life is too short to drive boring cars!”

For Sale (cheap): 2006 AUDI A6 Convertible, 1.8 automatic, 70,000 miles, $7500 or best offer. Call Marcia 508 384 7883

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March 21st Monthly Social Hostess Diane Thornton

How

many Mass Cruisers can you fit in the Red Wing Diner and in March Madness monthly

social hostess Diane Thornton’s Dining Room? At least 25 with some additional standing room to spare for the 32 clubmembers that attended the March 21 monthly Social. The question, as we pulled into the already packed Red Wing Diner parking lot, was how this monthly social was going to work out on a Saturday night after driving through the heavy U.S. Route 1 traffic coming from the New England Revolution’s home game at Gillette Stadium and the New England Home Show at the Dana Farber Field House which was in the middle of its weekend run at Patriot Place. On top of that, inside the Red Wing Diner it was standing room only for waiting diners. Additionally, a big family birthday party snuck into two of the long tables earlier at 5 pm that the diner staff were planning to use for us and their meals hadn’t been served when we started arriving at 6 pm.

On the chance we could not wait to all be seated together at the same time, the first dozen members arriving at the Red Wing were seated while the others queued up in the old 1940 era diner area for some before dinner quaffing while waiting for the earlier birthday party goers to clear out. The food and service, excellent as always, was worth the wait. Our server, on her second 12 hour shift due to the unusually heavy weekend crowd, was dog tired but she handled it like a pro. And then, we all exited when done eating to drive the 3.5 miles over to Diane’s newly refurbished home in Walpole for after-dinner dessert & coffee.

The worry about space at Diane’s home did not seem to be a problem either as everyone kind of settled in from the living room into the dining room, kitchen and the attached garage where she had chairs set up for the guys to hang out. The pot luck dessert offerings were enough to feed hundreds as usual with a sampling of offerings such as the stop-light decorated cupcakes that Michael Roy’s two daughters made especially for the social to Mark Creighton’s home-made friendship bread which I tried for the first time and wound up sneaking out the remaining loaf home under my coat when no one was looking. Mark says he makes these delicious loafs, 15 at a time, and stockpiles them in his freezer for special occasions like this.

Thanks Diane for pulling off an impossible recovery with the Red Wing Diner being able to accommodate 32 raucous car nuts while handling an unusually heavy Saturday night diner dinner crowd.

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12th, Ty-Rods Spring Auto Swap Meet, Stafford Speedway

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14th, Business Meeting @ Clubhouse

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18th, Wrenchin’n’coffee, Robert’s Automotive, Attleboro, Mass. 8AM—Noon

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21st, Members Meeting @ Clubhouse

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16th & 30th, Bass Pro Cruise Season begins

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26, Early ford VB Club Swap Meet, Fitchburg Airport

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9th, spectator Drag Series, Seekonk speedway; cars & coffee, Burlington

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14th & 28th, Bass Pro Cruise Season begins

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Lady Cruisers Pages

by Marcia Silvestri & Diane Thornton

Rumor has it: Sue Chadsey is now free to do all the things she couldn’t get to while working for a living.

Jean Waite’s high school basketball-playing grandson has been named MVP by the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald.

Marcia Silvestri’s new baby grandson will most likely have arrived by the time you read this.

Rose Sawayer says she never wants to see another snowflake, and would be happy if she could live somewhere warm for the rest of her life. She gets a statewide “Amen, sister!” on that.

Did you see? The facebook posting of the big green “Welcome to Massachusetts” sign, with a smaller “Closed Mondays” sign tacked on below? Or the usual white “Entering” town sign that read, “Alaskachusetts” and had a picture of a yeti for the town seal?

Tip ‘o’ the Month: If you have a car accident, never admit you are at fault at the scene, but always make sure you ask if everyone involved is alright. Many times, people think an accident is their fault, but there are circumstances that could reduce their responsibility. Wait until much later, until you’re calm, and have time to reflect on what happened. Unless you were texting, in which case, put on your handcuffs and report to jail.

Above. L to R: Laurie Touhey, Diane Thornton, Marie Armando, Amy Nunes, Dawn Titus and Lorna Rabbit.

Above. We take the same class together and get such different results! Such fun! Marcia's painting on the left.

Neringa's on the right.

Above. Up front: Lorna, Dawn, Amy Facing the camera, one row back: Laurie, Marie. Next table, back to camera: Cathy Andrew. Ann Hines seated on the right.

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Wrenchin’ n’ Coffee Sessions

by John Buchanan The March 14 monthly “Wrenchin’ n’ Coffee” Saturday session at Bob Hines Robert’s Automotive in Attleboro started out great with the DD coffee & St. Patrick’s Day decorated donuts and a box of complimentary Snap-On Tool catalogs & price lists. Projects for the day were: John Guravage’s 1967 Chevelle was back in the shop to install a complete Pypes Performance stainless steel exhaust system. Mike Rabbit also had his 2005 Dodge Stratus up on the lift to track down an error code that he could not clear from the downstream sensor of one bank of the

V-6. Frank Bryant brought in a Vintage Air heat control switch from his 1940 Ford along with a voltmeter looking for trouble-shooting assistance to see if the switch was working O.K. and it was.

Bob Wood was also back at it with the TIG welder setup for members to again practice there welding skills.

All in all another good “Wrenchin’ n’ Coffee” session. Let Bob know what jobs or project work you want to bring in for the next session on April 18 this time, not on the 2nd Saturday.

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An Environmental Concern Gone Astray

by Roy Rossman with John Buchanan reporting Our March 17 monthly meeting guest speaker was none other than 15 year club member Roy Rossman. Roy who has been a past club Vice President and President as well as, more recently, keeper of the club’s OFFICIAL BY-LAWS and organizer of our club’s successful annual engine grill drawings these past few cruise seasons, shared some of his past work history by stating he is an Electrical Engineer who was a six-year Navy veteran, three of which, were with our country’s nuclear submarine service and, not too long ago, an engineer at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth for nine years and, previously, the Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Rowe, MA. His interest in the subject he titled, “An Environmental Concern Gone Astray” has to do with a little publicized phenomena called “Tin Whiskers” that resulted from an investigation of a nuRoy Rossman displaying clear reactor trip failure at the Conphoto of Zinc Whiskers necticut Millstone #3 reactor in 2005, one of our country’s many nuclear power station reactors built more than 25 years ago. The failure was caused by a common MIL spec. CR47 Zener Diode and was due to a short to ground caused by a “tin whisker” resulting in the universal logic board used in the solid state protection system to trip.

The “tin whisker” growth phenomena for lead-tin soldered components results when the lead alloy typically used in soldering components fails to inhibit the growth of the tin over time or pure tin coated component leads. The whiskers are 1/10 – 1/100 smaller than a human hair and are very difficult to spot, particularly in the early years of a circuit board or component’s life. Of course, the drive for reducing a lead free environment in recent years could possibly have unintended consequences as a result of efforts to find lead alternative solutions in electronics, hence Roy’s titled presentation “An Environmental Concern Gone Astray” Although tin, zinc and cadmium are especially capable of producing whiskers, whiskers can also grow from other base metals that are used for protective coatings and joining including silver, gold and lead. The photo that Roy used as a presentation teaser shows an ordinary zinc coated steel ceiling cable clamp that was in storage for a number of years. The clamp is hard to distinguish with all the “zinc whiskers” growing on it.

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Monthly Cruisin

An Environmental Concern Gone Astray (cont.) by John Buchanan

Zinc Whiskers

The “whisker” growth problem, according to Roy, was first discovered in our NASA space programs. So why should a bunch of car enthusiasts be concerned about whiskers? How about a 1960 vintage dash harness with relays, switches and a number of other components that have tin coated electrical leads where shorts to ground are possible. NASA has documented whisker failures going back to a 1946 Military failure of cadmium whiskers in capacitor plates. Cadmium is another one of those environmental and health concerns that was replaced by zinc in most applications where it was previously used.

NASA also documented a 2003 Toyota Camry Dual Potentiometer Accelerator Pedal Position (APP) Sensor that failed in 2009. Examination of the failed APP indicated an intermittent resistive short. Further investigation at Goddard using Scanning Electron Microscopy showed evidence of tin whiskers shorting between the two affected circuit pins. Toyota APP Sensor Failure (Good read) Unfortunately the “tin whisker” problem can only be detected less than 10% of the time using an ohm meter and another phenomena that Roy showed a video of was “whisker motion” in the presence of an electromagnetic field which could result in an intermittent failure mode which is even more difficult to diagnose or detect.

Roy didn’t identify any easy solutions to recommend if you suspect a “tin Whisker” problem could be causing electrical failures. He did note he has a headlight switch that exhibited funky intermittent behavior to the point that he wants to take it apart when he has the time to see if it was in need of a shave. This sounds like a golden, nay, a tin opportunity for the NHSTA to start using those advertising signs of old: Beware of “tin whiskers” ; Shorts may COME; Shorts may GO; But, if your car SHORTS; Try BURMA SHAVE!

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April 2015

Last Page

Member meetings are held the 3rd Tuesday of each month at the Norfolk MA clubhouse.

86 Washington Street, Holliston, MA. 01746 (508) 429-4241 www.vintagemotorsportsgarage.com

Cruise Night plaque sponsor for 2015

P.O. Box 217 Wrentham, MA 02093