driveway mechanics gathering - saturday, sept 9, 2017€¦ · the topic up of our vacation for next...
TRANSCRIPT
“The Star Letter” of the Virginia Section, MBCA
Sep/Oct 2017
Event Reminder
Sep 9 … Driveway Gathering
Sep 23 ….… Wing & Wheels
Sep 24 ………. Adopt-A-Spot
Oct 21 ………..... Driver Days
In This Issue
Page 3 …….... Event Reports
Page 5 ….. Driveway Pictures
Page 7.....................Masthead New Members
Classifieds
Back Page ……… Calendar of Events
Club Web Sites
National...........www.mbca.org
Virginia Section ...................... http://mbca.org/virginia
Driveway Mechanics Gathering -Saturday, Sept 9, 2017 This will be our last Driveway Mechanic Gathering of the year and the opportunity to get out and join fellow club members for coffee, donuts and a little car work.
It is now time to begin thinking about your fall car projects that you can bring to the gathering and share with your fellow club members. There is always plenty time for looking into other problems or to just "kick-the-tires" . That is the way these sessions work, it is really an open fo-rum for what ever drives in.
Mechanic activities will start around 9:30 a.m. at Jim’s garage, 3133 Inlet Road, Virginia, Beach. We normally finish up by 1:00. For those needing advice on a problem, or needing a bit of encouragement to trou-bleshoot a problem, come to this event.
If you would like to put your project on the schedule or desire informa-tion contact Jim Villers at 757-481-6398 or at [email protected].
Wings, Wheels & Pizza - Saturday, Sep 23 Wing & Wheels is a large car show staged at the Military Aviation Mu-seum in Pungo on Saturday September 23. This is the local Antique Auto Club of America’s annual car show and is one of the better shows of the area with over vintage 250 cars. The show always attracts many pre-war, seldom seen and spectacular cars. Modified or hot rod vehicles have their dedicated show space for an additional 75-100 vehicles. The Military Aviation Museum has expanded over the past couple of years to include a World War I control tower, hanger and additional aircraft.The museum is included as part of the show.
We will meet at Pungo Pizza and Ice Cream at 11:00 AM, have lunch and then drive a short distance to the show. Please call Don LaBar 757 620-6772 to reserve your spot or email to [email protected].
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Adopt-a-Street - Sunday, Sep 24, 2017 This will be our third 2017 cleaning up of the portion of Virginia Beach Boulevard near the Mercedes-Benz dealership as part of the Adopt-A-Street Pro-gram sponsored by the City of Virginia Beach. Please contact Windsor L. Brabson at 408-3560 or [email protected] with questions.
Driver Days -Saturday, Oct 21, 2017We will participate in a parade along with school band and local fire trucks. After the parade, we will go back to Glebe Church and park for free. We will walk over to Driver for local food, singing and a car show with over two-hundred classic cars. You’ll pinch yourself to make sure that you are not in May-berry.
Meet at Glebe Episcopal Church, 4400 Nansemond Parkway, Suffolk, VA 23435 at 9:00 AM. Assemble on Kings Highway as a group for parade at 9:30 AM. Each participant must fill out a parade application.
RSVP to Tom Dawson, 757-434-1587 [email protected]
Driveway Report -July 15 What a fun gathering. We gathered in Jim Villers' garage on Saturday, July 15, for the second Drive-way Mechanics Session of the year. This was one of the hottest days of the year so attendance was a little sparse. Coffee was in great demand as were the donuts brought by Roy Wiley.
Jim Whitting brought his 1963 190SL for two pro-jects. He installed a Pertronix electronic ignition unit into his distributor. This unit replaced the original points and condenser. Jim Villers helped Jim repair his steering wheel horn button.
The attendees included Roy Wiley, Bobby Ross, Claud Bell, Dwight Fini, Don LaBar, Bobby Ross, Charles Winsted, David Ostrom, Tom Dawson, Steve Bilenky, John Sieck and Jim Villers
UNIMOG STORY by Peter R. Spring
Our adventure really began one rainy Sun-day afternoon in October. We had nowhere to go and there was nothing of interest on the television. To brighten the day, I decided to bring the topic up of our vacation for next year. That's al-ways guaranteed to put a smile on my Wife’s face. The previous two years we had been to the Carib-bean, so we were now looking for something differ-ent.
Unfortunately, both of us are old enough to remem-ber The Love Boat! With recent re-runs of the se-ries, the idea was born of taking a cruise to the origi-nal destinations, of the Pacific Princess.
There are generally two parts to booking a cruise.Part one: deciding the actual date of departure and return. Part two: booking the excursions for one’s ports of call. It was at this point that the cruise got a lot more exciting – well, for one of us anyway!
After departing Los Angeles, the ship was calling at Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta and then onto the very tip of the Baja Peninsula, at Cabo San Lucas. It was here that I found an excursion to the other side of the Peninsula, for a camel ride along the beach. Now; this may not sound very interesting, but in order to get there, the brochure depicted a small fleet of yel-low Mercedes-Benz Unimogs! From that point on, my Wife informed friends and family that we were travelling 4,000+ miles just to see an old German truck…. (A percentage of that statement could al-most be true!)
We were not disappointed. Cabo Adventures had procured at least six ex-military Unimog 404s.
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Adopt-a-Street - Sunday, Sep 24, 2017 This will be our third 2017 cleaning up of the portion of Virginia Beach Boulevard near the Mercedes-Benz dealership as part of the Adopt-A-Street Pro-gram sponsored by the City of Virginia Beach. Please contact Windsor L. Brabson at 408-3560 or [email protected] with questions.
Driver Days -Saturday, Oct 21, 2017We will participate in a parade along with school band and local fire trucks. After the parade, we will go back to Glebe Church and park for free. We will walk over to Driver for local food, singing and a car show with over two-hundred classic cars. You’ll pinch yourself to make sure that you are not in May-berry.
Meet at Glebe Episcopal Church, 4400 Nansemond Parkway, Suffolk, VA 23435 at 9:00 AM. Assemble on Kings Highway as a group for parade at 9:30 AM. Each participant must fill out a parade application.
RSVP to Tom Dawson, 757-434-1587 [email protected]
Driveway Report -July 15 What a fun gathering. We gathered in Jim Villers' garage on Saturday, July 15, for the second Drive-way Mechanics Session of the year. This was one of the hottest days of the year so attendance was a little sparse. Coffee was in great demand as were the donuts brought by Roy Wiley.
Jim Whitting brought his 1963 190SL for two pro-jects. He installed a Pertronix electronic ignition unit into his distributor. This unit replaced the original points and condenser. Jim Villers helped Jim repair his steering wheel horn button.
The attendees included Roy Wiley, Bobby Ross, Claud Bell, Dwight Fini, Don LaBar, Bobby Ross, Charles Winsted, David Ostrom, Tom Dawson, Steve Bilenky, John Sieck and Jim Villers
UNIMOG STORY by Peter R. Spring
Our adventure really began one rainy Sun-day afternoon in October. We had nowhere to go and there was nothing of interest on the television. To brighten the day, I decided to bring the topic up of our vacation for next year. That's al-ways guaranteed to put a smile on my Wife’s face. The previous two years we had been to the Carib-bean, so we were now looking for something differ-ent.
Unfortunately, both of us are old enough to remem-ber The Love Boat! With recent re-runs of the se-ries, the idea was born of taking a cruise to the origi-nal destinations, of the Pacific Princess.
There are generally two parts to booking a cruise.Part one: deciding the actual date of departure and return. Part two: booking the excursions for one’s ports of call. It was at this point that the cruise got a lot more exciting – well, for one of us anyway!
After departing Los Angeles, the ship was calling at Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta and then onto the very tip of the Baja Peninsula, at Cabo San Lucas. It was here that I found an excursion to the other side of the Peninsula, for a camel ride along the beach. Now; this may not sound very interesting, but in order to get there, the brochure depicted a small fleet of yel-low Mercedes-Benz Unimogs! From that point on, my Wife informed friends and family that we were travelling 4,000+ miles just to see an old German truck…. (A percentage of that statement could al-most be true!)
We were not disappointed. Cabo Adventures had procured at least six ex-military Unimog 404s.
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“UNIMOG” is an acronym for the German "UNIversal-MOtor-Gerät", Gerät being the German word for device (also in the sense of machine, in-strument, gear, apparatus). Daimler-Benz’s first Unimog was produced in 1951. The six Unimogs, in Cabo, were all of 1964 vintage. The interesting facts about these six vehicles are, that according to their regular mechanic, all six are 1.5 liter, straight six engines, developing just 75 hp. Don’t forget, this is three years before the birth of AMG! I can-not find any record of exactly this specification of engine, but being military, Daimler-Benz could have produced special engines for a specific mili-tary order. Most Unimogs, of this era, were four-cylinder Diesels (OM312) producing 65 hp.
As is customary with all Unimogs, these have very high ground clearances made possible by portal gears that allow the axles and transmission to be
higher than the tires' centers. Unimogs also feature a flexible frame that allows the tires a wide range of vertical movement to allow the truck to comforta-bly drive over extremely uneven terrain, even boul-ders of one meter in height.
The ride quality of these Unimog 404s, was a little harsh, but in fairness, exactly what was expected.They drove through the Mexican desert with a sure-footedness that I doubt any other vehicle could pos-sess. Looking at the vehicle numbers painted on the cab sides, I imagine Cabo Adventures, have or does, own more than the six examples I saw in March of this year. The one thing I can say is that despite their previous hard military life, these bright yellow, 53 year old, Unimogs gave one the feeling that they would continue for many, many years to come.
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Above: The Adopt-a-Spot team with the MBCA recogni-tion sign in front of Mercedes-Benz of Virginia Beach
Top Right: The July Driveway Gathering Gang
Bottom Right: Jim Whitting installing an electronic igni-tion module in his 1963 Mercedes-Benz 190SL.
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Virginia Section MBCA Officers
PRESIDENT Don LaBar
1274 Christian Court Virginia Beach 23464
757 620-6772 [email protected]
VICE-PRESIDENTJerry Schonfeld
5000 Portsmouth Blvd Portsmouth, VA 23701
757 488-7786 [email protected]
SECRETARY Tom Dawson 125 Brittany Ln
Suffolk, VA 23435 757-434-1587
TREASURERDwight Finnie
301 Hope Ct Newport News, VA 23602
757-303-0950 [email protected]
DIRECTORS
Bobby Ross 757 291-8550Don LaBar 757-620-6772 Jim Villers 757 481-6398 Pat Evans 757 238-2824
COMMITTEESMembership Windsor Brabsom757-408-3560 [email protected]
Marketing Peter Spring757-274-7423 [email protected]
NEWSLETTER EDITORJim Villers
3133 Inlet Road Virginia Beach 23454
757 481-6398 [email protected]
Eastern Regional DirectorJames Roberts 205-529-0071
Gregory Foster ………………. ……………....…Virginia BeachMichael Goods .. Williamsburg
Welcome! It is always our pleasure to meet new members. We encourage you to attend one of our Virginia Section events.
Section Discounts:Mercedes-Benz of Virginia Beach,10%Discount on parts and labor charges. See our ad in this issue.757 499-3771
Tysinger Mercedes-Benz – Hampton, Virginia10% Discount on all parts and labor. See our ad in this issue.757 865-8000
Ten Percent on Labor OnlyAuto Haus – Yorktown, Virginia See our ad in this issue 757 898-7121
Trading Post 1986 190E 2.3 Sedan, one owner since 1987, 130K miles, regularly maintained, rebuilt transmission, rebuilt head and new timing chain, new exhaust, new radiator, new alternator, updated air conditioner, almost new Michelin MXV4 tires. Uses Regular Gas - $3,900David Ostrom - 757-874-8962
Multiple Section Membership AvailableThe MBCA National Business Office is setup so that it is possible for members to have membership in an additional section or sections. The membership cost is $15 per additional section. Members will receive newsletters from additional sections and membership in the additional section(s) must run concurrent with the member’s existing membership expiration date. To take advantage of this new benefit contact the National Business Office at the address and phone number to the right.
Das Stern Blatt is the official newsletter of the Virginia Section of the Mercedes-Benz Club America, Inc. Publication is bi-monthly. Copyright © 2016 by the Virginia Section, MBCA. Articles may be reprinted in newsletters for members of MBCA, giving credit. Other use without written permission is prohibited.
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VIRGINIA SECTION, MERCEDES-BENZ CLUB AMERICACALENDAR OF EVENTS - 2017
Virginia Section Events Sep 9 - Driveway Mechanics Gathering Contact: Jim Villers
Sep 23 - Wing-Wheels & Pizza Contact: Don LaBar
Sep 24 - Adopt-A-Spot Contact: Windsor Brabson
Oct 21 - Driver Days Contact: Tom Dawson
Dec 3 - WinterfFest Contact: Don LaBar
MBCA National - Regional Events Sep 24 - Great Marques - Long Island
Old Westbury, NY