Camaro Superfest 2010

The Camaro Superfest 2010 was held July 2, 3 and 4 at Riverside Park in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and (on Friday afternoon) at Michigan International Speedway. Lisa and I, along with friend Kristie, her 3 kids and her parents went to take a look at the cars on Saturday.

A panorama made by joining 15 photos together

Not far in from the entrance - a line up of red Camaros - 2010 models in front, and a couple of the earlier ones up to 2002 bhind.

White 69ish Camaro and Black 2010 Camaro in the shade.

This 1970s Camaro was an amazing orange colour.

A photogallery with a lot more photos follows: Read the rest of this entry »

Out with the Olde…

How to remove the spark plug boots from a 2002 GM Chevrolet Camaro V6 engine without losing all your knuckle skin.

Our 2002 Camaro has now done 99,000 miles, so with a trip “out East” coming up I figured it was time to change the spark plugs since they’re supposed to be changed at 100,000 miles.

Of course nothing is as easy as it used to be, and the spark plugs are buried “way down there” on the sides of the V6 engine, half back under the windscreen on the car, with the spark plug boots sticking out through the exhaust manifold enough to see them, but barely enough to grip them. I did manage to pull one off “by hand” with the loss of only a small amount of skin, but couldn’t even move the other 5.

So off to AutoZone (I had to buy the new plugs anyhow) to ask if they had a tool to pull these things off with. The only tool they had would have require removing the engine to be able to use it, at which time it wouldn’t be needed anyhow.

So, with some Kiwi Ingenuity™ I devised the Kiwi Spark Plug Boot Puller, which worked amazingly well, and allowed me to pull the remaining 5 spark plug boots off in about 5 minutes.

A shoe lace wrapped around the metal shield that is over the rubber spark plug boot, ready to pull it off.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggedy Jig…

So we’re home after the trip out east to Newark, Delaware and Bar Harbor, Maine…

Travel Days were:

• 24 May pm – Caledonia to New Stanton, Pennsylvania – abt 440 miles;
• 25 May am – New Stanton, PA to Newark, Delaware – abt 245 miles;
• 27 May all day – Newark, DE to Bar Harbor, Maine – abt 625 miles in 12 1/2 hours;
• 2 June am –  Bar Harbor, ME  to the Mount Washington Cog Railway 255 miles in abt 5 1/2 hours, then to the summit of Mt Washington and back by Cog Railway;
• 2 June pm Mt Washington Cog Railway to Latham, New York (very near to Albany, New York) 216 miles in about 5 1/2 hours – a very long day!!!!!!;
• 3 June all day – Latham, NY to Bowling Green, Ohio – abt 620 miles in 10 1/2 hours;
• 4 June pm – after 7 1/2 hours in the Jerome Library on genealogy research – abt 200 miles back to Caledonia in abt 3 /12 hours.

Total travelling about 2,650 miles.

We spent 26 May in Newark, and then 28 May to 1 May in Bar Harbor where we did some local travelling around to Deer Island, Schoodic Head, and Cadillac Mountain and Acadia National Park which added another 270 or so miles.

Total mileage run 2,916, which used 105 gallons of fuel, which ranged in price/gallon from $2.22 in New Jersey to $2.96 back home in Caledonia.

So the number Don is waiting for is 27.76 mpg. Best run was 445 miles from somewhere in New York state back to Caledonia – 30.1 mpg. Worst run was all the mileage run around Bar Harbor, Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park – 24.3 mpg.

A day trip to Deer Island, Maine

Our first day in Bar Harbor started gray and drizzly – at least it wasn’t as rainy as when we’d arrived the night before. Late morning Don suggested we go explore Deer Island, which is west of Mount Desert Island where Bar Harbor is, but requires quite a long circuitous route to get to.

So Don and Mindy, Lisa and Roger set off in the red Camaro for the day’s trip.

Looking South - the Wider View

The image above is a panorama looking south from mainland Maine (Maineland I guess??) towards Deer Island. Read the rest of this entry »

Photogallery of the Deer Island Trip

The following is a photo gallery of the trip to Deer Island. Read the rest of this entry »

The Bryants departure

Yesterday Don and family stopped by to drop off a couple of items of luggage for us to take to Bar Harbor for them – I’d taken pity on the thought of 4 adults in a Camaro for 1200 miles, and so offered that we could take some of their luggage for them to make it slightly less crowded. Don wanted to check his tyre pressures too – trying for less rolling resistance to see if he could beat our overall mileage from last year- we’ll see. Last year over 2,530 miles we got 27.5 mpg, while Don was oh so close at 27.43 mpg.

Checking the tyre pressures

Dinner Club in Swissconsin

On 5 May we set out in convoy with Don and Mindy to drive to Wisconsin – a little west of Milwaukee – for the second Dinner Club Reunion. This was hosted by Tom and Ruth who had left Grand Rapids and moved to Wisconsin, which created the opportunity for us to join Dinner Club. Rob and Geneann followed a little later in the day, while Steve and Jane flew in from Bar Harbor, Maine, and we all arrived at Tom and Ruth’s place.

Dinner Friday night was at Seigo’s Steakhouse, then we spent Saturday at the Milwaukee Zoo, followed by Dinner Club Saturday night at Barstool Central with the Wisconsin Dinner Club, hosted by Tom and Ruth. Sunday was the long drive home again.

A set of pages with pictures of our trip can be found here.