AACA’s Most Valuable Asset – Our Regions and Chapters

Let me begin by telling everyone what a tremendous honor and great pleasure it is to be serving as your National President this year.

Beginning this February, our car worn a path to the Philadelphia International Airport. As I travel around the country this year, it is clearly evident that the Regions and Chapters most certainly make up the backbone of our club, and in my view, have become stronger and more active than ever before in our history.

This year began officially with our annual AACA Annual Meeting held each year at the Sheraton City Center Hotel in Philadelphia. The annual meeting is open to ALL members and we especially enjoy hosting the Region President’s dinner on Friday evening. Ernie Gauld has been our chairman for eons and does a spectacular job as host to every Region president in attendance. Each Region president is our dinner guest that evening and after the banquet they have an opportunity to meet with other officers from around the country to compare notes and learn about how other regions are coping with the economy and the ever present need to expand membership and improve member activities. The Annual AACA Museum auction follows that dinner, where we have traditionally raised upwards of $10,000 from items generously donated by our Region and Chapter members to benefit the museum.

As always, the Regions and Chapters are present at the Trade Show manning booths to promote future national events and tours. With our talented and knowledgeable members, we have presenters and moderators presiding at the 40 or more seminars on subjects that range from newsletter publishing to wood-graining, from judging to just about any other subject important to our hobby and our goal of promoting and preserving automotive history.

After the Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, we were off to Florida where Paul Dimbath and the Sunshine Region held the Southeastern Winter Meet with more than 300 automobiles. This region did a fantastic job in their maiden effort to produce our first meet of the New Year. Just three weeks later we were off to the Western Divisional Tour in Sonora, California where Dan Bennett, Frank Kilpatrick and a most enthusiastic Mother Lode Region gave all in attendance an exciting and scenic insight to the Foothills of the Sierra Mountains. Then, in early April we were treated to a wonderful meet at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, where Sonny Sain, Bill Garrett, Bill Edmonds, and Mel Carson hosted the Hornets Nest Region’s Charlotte Auto Fair and the Southeastern Spring Meet. There were 360 vehicles registered and 250 judges were present to do what they do best. This is an event that you have to experience to believe. Hats off to the Hornets Nest Region members!

The hospitality continued in Birmingham, Alabama where Jan Hyche, Ernie & Jennie Gauld, Bill & Linda Garner, and the entire Dixie Region put on the Southeastern Divisional Tour that will not soon be forgotten. We found out the true definition of southern hospitality. Not be outdone, the West Texas Region, who have recently celebrated 50 years as an AACA Region, staged the 21st AACA Founders Tour in the Midland/Odessa Permian Basin. Sam & Vicki Austin, Lynn & Jack McLean, and their region members are not yet rested up from region members are not yet rested up from the unbelievable world-class entertainment programs they provided for all of the tourists who made the marathon trip to the Lone Star state. There were, by the way, six (6) couples honored at the closing banquet who have attended every Founders Tour since it was introduced back in 1988.

Do you see where all of this is going? We are booked out two years and further with the all of our national activities. Without the hard work and support of our members who volunteer hours upon hours to provide our AACA members with the finest national meets and tours, we would lose a very valuable part of why many of us belong to AACA.

I tip my hat and, along with the AACA Board of Directors, offer my sincerest appreciation to the many Regions and Chapter who accept the responsibility of hosting a national event. Please know that many of the regions and chapters doing our events are taking on these assignments for the very first time in their club’s history. National offers all the help you need – so don’t be afraid to step up to the plate! Contact our Vice President, National Activities, Hulon McCraw if you have even the slightest interest.

No where on the planet earth is there a club that offers as many national events as the Antique Automobile Club of America – The world’s premiere resource for the antique vehicle community!

In closing I would ask each Region and Chapter to consider supporting our Prowler raffle by selling 10 to 20 tickets which will equally benefit the AACA, the AACA Library and Research Center, and the AACA Museum. If each of our 400 Regions and Chapters agreed to sell just 10 raffle tickets, we would realize $80,000.00 by calling National Headquarters at 717-354-1910 or you can by tickets at www.aaca.org by using PayPal.

This question keeps coming up at our membership roundtable meetings at almost every event. Everyone recognizes the problem. Our club is aging the members are growing tired and lack the desire to be as active as they were years ago, sound familiar?

Bearing this in mind Region/Chapters have to relate to themselves as small businesses. As with any business customers come and go, it’s like a revolving door. There will always be some leaving for one reason or another. Therefore we have to offer good value to the customer to keep them coming in the door. With that in mind ask yourself what value is there to meeting once a month having dinner and going home.

Let me share with you some success stories of how Regions/Chapters have attracted new and younger members. Keep in mind there is no one formula fits all for this solution. You keep trying different techniques until you find the one that serves your Region/Chapter best. Remember the solution has to incorporate good value for the customer.

Two years ago a Central Division Region choose to host a National Meet. Their Region was small and they determined they would need additional help from the community to accomplish the task. They took out an advertisement in the local newspaper asking for volunteers to help them host the National AACA Meet. The first meeting produced 10-12 volunteers. As time went on there were more volunteers than Region members. By the end of the National Meet their membership had doubled. The volunteers made friendships and memories for a lifetime. They saw the value in becoming a member.

Last year an Eastern Division Region shared this story. They arranged with the local Middle School to bring some old cars out each month to share with the students. Turns out the students went home telling their parents about the old cars. Thus sparking there interest and resulted in some new and younger members including the student member.
Antique cars attract attention. While traveling across country last year with a 1965 Barracuda in tow to a meet in Hastings, NE and the following week a Tour in Minot, ND we met several folks admiring the car. Some of them had antique vehicles but hadn’t heard of AACA. Needless to say they didn’t leave with our brochure and application in hand.

While on the Western Divisional Tour this year the following story was told about their small Region. Four years ago the Region had dwindled to ten or twelve members. None were active due to their age and lack of interest. A gentleman who is now their Activity Chairman retired to area. He found the Region stagnant and inactive. He began driving one of his antique vehicles each day and because of it the membership began to grow. Later another member began driving his antique vehicle each day and four years later the club is 70 members strong. Three days touring produced four new members for the Region.

The value offered has to be appealing to our customers. Younger members are seeking fun family things to do. Jump in the old car tour to a popular location where there is something of interest for all ages. While others may be content on making an ice cream run or doing a junk yard tour. The master key to the solution is activity. Activities with antique vehicles involved will draw attention and a crowd. Among them you will find the new and younger members needed for a successful Region/Chapter.

Now’s the time to get active, dust off the winter and spring into action. You will be amazed by the results.

I found something the other day that had been long forgotten and over­looked. It was a stash of Antique Automobile magazines; the official publication of the national AACA club. They were in a closet at my mother’s house. I had known about them for a while, but the ones on top were only a few years old, and duplicated my own cache of magazines. But I didn’t expect what was on the bottom, at least a dozen from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, back when my father was still living. He had apparently put a few magazines aside on a shelf. Later, my mother had simply added the newer ones on top.

After pulling out a particularly yellowed edition, the oldest, and looking it over, I couldn’t stop finding the other early ones. It was like a treasure hunt. And what fun they were. They took me back a quarter-century to a time when the cars on tour were the ones that we now only see in museums. And the car ads were sensational; not just for the pocket-change prices by today’s standards, but for the pure availability of cars you can only find now at high stakes auctions.

There were also technical articles of great interest. My fa­vorites were one on tightening up loose wood-spoke wheels, and another on the old varnish based paints used on cars during the teens. For those who don’t know, these paints were thin as water, and were applied by splash or even a water hose-type nozzle. The excess paint would run down the metalwork, drip onto a flattened funnel type table and drain back into five gallon buckets for reuse the next day. After many coats and hand-rubbing, the cars left the factory looking like glass. But that paint oxidized and turned dull in a matter of months. The advent of lacquer paint in the 1920s revolution­ized the process, and led to an explosion of colors that had never been available before. See what you can learn from old magazines?

My brother Wayne has gathered his own magazine stack dating from the ‘60s. After I bought the 1919 Locomobile, he searched them and found several pictures of sister cars, plus a photo of my car’s previous owner. And then he scored the biggest find; a photo of my car on the cover of Old Cars Weekly back in the early ‘70s after it had won an award. The Veteran Car Club had honored it as the best restored Locomobile on the Glidden Tour. Today, it’s probably been 10 years since one of these cars was on this tour. Most of them are sitting in museums and private collec­tions, or they’re considered too valuable to drive, or there’s a more basic problem. None of the old-time mechanics are still around to keep them running.

Through the years, my own magazine collection had multiplied like roaches. I discretely hid several hundred in stacks that would reach about two feet high before they fell over. Occasionally I’d reorganize and sort them by title, and everything would stay neat until I would inevitably be tempted to pull a half-dozen or so from the bottom. After a few of these instances, the stacks would be back to chaos. Inevitably, one day I realized that I was running out of room. And unlike books, magazines don’t look good stacked in shelves. So I boxed them up in four or five heavy boxes and tried to give them away.

No takers, until I finally found a fellow enthusiast that I knew would read them – Robby Markman. After the magazines departed, for a while I felt almost like I’d pushed my children out the door. But I still had the hundred or so from my mother’s house to go through. And I also noticed that, as a half-dozen or more new magazines kept arriving each month, that these things really are like roaches. You really can’t kill them. They just keep multiplying.

TECHNICAL CORNER

By Vic Donnell

WHAT YOUR MOTHER NEVER TOLD YOU ABOUT COOLING SYSTEMS

By Chuck Crane

Although I’m not a rocket scientist like Vic, I did spend about a year at Ford Motor designing cooling systems for diesel trucks. As you well know, internal combustion engines generate a great deal of heat which must be quickly removed. The radiator, fan, fan shroud, thermostat, and water pump must work in age, water no longer circulates as well through the block and heads since rust and scale inhibit the transfer of heat, placing a heavier load on the rest of the cooling system.

The radiator gets rid of heat by conducting it through the tubes and fins to the point where air rushing past the fin can remove the heat by simple convection. But, if those fins are clogged with bugs, too much paint, bent/smashed, or if the fins are no longer bonded to the tubes, that transfer to the air doesn’t work. If the liquid in your radiator can’t flow through the tubes, that part doesn’t work. Your radiator needs to cool between 10 and 15 degrees from top to bottom to do it’s job. Short squatty radiators on some cars (like 1928-29 Fords) do not perform as well as taller units (like 1930-31 Fords), even though they have the same capacity. Honeycomb radiators are even worse by their overall design. Increasing the thickness of the core is one way to increase capacity, eg. 1965-66 Mustangs came from the factory with 2 rows of tubes; reproductions can be ordered with 3 or even 4 rows of tubes which helps cooling a bunch. Cleanliness of the radiator is a must and it needs to stay that way-especially if you drive an inherently hot engine like a Ford Flathead V8.

How about the rest of the system? Even though Model T’s got by with a thermosyphon system and no water pump (hot water rises to the top of the engine and drops through the radiator as it cools down), most cars are designed with a water pump. Some cars came with outstanding water pumps. My 1933 Ford V8 has twin pumps that handle about 40 gpm each. With no restrictions in the system, it circulated the water so fast it did not have time to cool down through the radiator and boiled over. I restricted the system from 1¾ inch down to a ½ inch hole before it would cool down properly. Then I found the correct thermostats to do the job. So the thermostat has a dual function-it allows the engine to run a proper temperatures plus it slows the fluid down so it can cool. Many people feel just removing the thermostat from an overheating car (unless it’s stuck closed), is the answer-it’s not.

What about the fan and shroud? The fan’s function is to pull air through the radiator when you’re not going fast enough to get the airflow for free. They cost horsepower which is why new cars have either thermostatically controlled electric fans or fan clutches to shut them down when you’re driving forward fast enough. For best performance, the fan should be about ½” from the radiator and it’s tip should be about halfway in/out of the shroud with about ¾ inch of clearance so the engine can move when you hit bumps. I actually played with a temporary fan shroud on my 33 Ford (they did not come with a shroud) and it did help cooling at idle but it was both ugly and made maintenance a nightmare so I took it out.

So what’s a person to do? Get every part of the system in top shape, use a 50/50 mix of antifreeze and water (straight antifreeze doesn’t cool as well), and it you’re still marginal, add a water wetter agent from your auto parts store to lower the surface tension of the coolant so it will work more efficiently. If you’re still overheating, it’s time to look for a head gasket leak allowing combustion gases into the coolant-no cooling system can handle that load. And if none of these work, call Mom!

A Visual Understanding of the NAAP Scoring System

At the 2009 annual Meeting in Philadelphia, June Peterson-Crane made a great presentation on the Newsletter Achievement Award Program (NAAP) scoring system. Her slides for the program gave a great graphic display of the scoring system with examples on a hypothetical newsletter. Figure 1, shows the front page of her slide presentation. The full electronic presentation will be available on the AACA web site in the future.

Click on the picture to see larger image!

Figure 1.  Cover Page from the NAAP Scoring Presentation
 

Just for the Editors ...

By Bruce Wheeler

Greetings to my fellow AACA newsletter editors!

I hope that everyone has had a good Spring and is spending time with your antique vehicles in between publishing issues of your Region/Chapter newsletter and other commitments you may have.

Typically, the Rummage Box has always consisted primarily of articles prepared by the AACA President and the National Directors. The Rummage box always try, though not always successful to come out every quarter. Sometimes however, because of their busy schedule, especially this time of year with National Meets, Tours, and Board Meetings to attend across the country, they don’t always have the time for the additional job of writing articles for us. One of the reasons this issue is about a month late was the time it took to get articles for this time around.

But there is a way you to Region/Chapter editors can help. I have mentioned it here before, but I want to remind you that articles of interest can be provided, not only by the National Directors, but by editors and other AACA members like yourself. Not only will this lessen the burden on the Directors some, but it will also add a little variety to the mix, and help the publication continue to provide informative information for the newsletter editors. A few examples of articles by members of the AACA membership are contained in this issue. Bring out those literary gems contained within your Region/Chapter newsletter and share them with the rest of the 60,000+ AACA members.

A few important things you might want to promote in your newsletters this time of year are the Prowler Raffle and the 75th anniversary celebration next year. The Prowler raffle hasn't been going quite as well as raffles in past years, probably due in part by the sluggish economy. However, the raffle will be a big benefit to the AACA, AACA Library & Research Center, and the AACA Museum. Plus, where else can someone get a unique future collectable car with under 100 original miles for less than it would cost to take your loved one to a nice dinner.

The 75th Anniversary is going to be an all out, fun and memorable occasion. There is a tremendous amount of planning and preparation going into this special event to celebrate our club’s historic birthday. But the Region and Chapter members need to know about it before it is too late to plan their participation.

Take care and enjoy the coming summer.

And as always…..
Happy Antique Motoring!
Bruce