Alpoc Meet 2, Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Both the first and second meets were held at Barry's house in Tuscaloosa.

At the first meet only Matt and Barry were there. They held a conference call with the ailing Felipe while, they sat in front of the computer, for over an hour. Winter colds are fun. All three of them had one at one time or another during those same weeks. Matt and Barry worked on the club flyer for a little while and then in the early afternoon Matt and Barry decided to put the Borla exhaust Barry had bought nearly a year ago into the '93 GT. Most of the removal of the stock exhaust was pretty easy. A little WD-40 on the rubber isolators works wonders. There were a couple of bolts that were too rusted for their tools to remove. With the aid of a dremel tool and a hacksaw the original finally came off. Putting the Borla on was simple, but Barry had to go buy a gasket for the rear flange of the cat at closing time for all the local businesses. Imagine the fun.  

It was a nice early January day for the second meet. You can tell from the snow patches still trying to melt. At the second meet it was Matt's turn for a special project. Felipe and Matt put new springs under Matt's GT for a nice lower ride height and better handling. You can see the difference in unloaded spring height in the second picture. Barry fooled around, took a couple of pictures, and put a new headliner in the '90 GL (not pictured) he sold to Aubrey when he bought the GT. 

When it got too dark to do anything anymore and they had eaten a little dinner Matt, Felipe, and Barry got to work a little on our web site. Matt kept Barry from getting too crazy with his ideas and Felipe gave us his tacit approval while dreaming up stuff on the couch. Barry has been slowly working on these pages ever since. 

Alpoc Meet 3, Homewood, Alabama

At our third meet, at Matt's house in Birmingham, we didn't tackle any mechanical projects. They sat around and talked people and Probes and then took their cars to the car wash to clean up for the pictures you see above. These pictures were taken by Matt. Pretty nice wouldn't you say? The double decker bus is in the parking lot of the library down the street from Matt's house. All these pictures were taken there. Matt's is the Laser Red GT  and James' is the Black SE in these pictures. We spent part of the time in the parking lot driving each other's cars. I think both James and Matt will soon get a short shifter (STS-99 in Barry's from PRD) after driving Barry's car around. It really is fun to waste tires you know you're about to replace doing burnouts on semi-wet pavement! Afterwards we had some nice chili Matt's mother made. Thanks mom! Later, James was kind enough to help diagnose Matt's problem with his sub and Barry's problem with his sub's speaker. After that it was time to head back home.  

Alpoc Meet 4, Montgomery, Alabama

The first thing to come off Barry's car was the air pipe from the front edge of the hood to the filter box. When that came off everyone saw the "napkin mod" the previous owner had installed. The smart ALPOC members knew a snake oil mod when they saw it so that was trashed. So was the air filter, being broken nearly in two pieces. Then off came the rest of the necessary parts. The valve cover was cleaned up, the gasket was put in place and the cover and the head were smeared with a little sealant. Then it was time to put the rest back together. That's when Barry learned a lesson in humility. Always read the correct section of the shop manual when looking for torque specifications. He popped the head off one of the valve cover bolts. Thankfully James had a bolt with the right length and thread size in his tool box. So then another set of gaskets had to be found on a Sunday night. One of the local shops had a set so just before they closed we grabbed it and headed back to Dan's. When it was all back together it fired right up. During the surgery one or two spark plugs were taken out. Since not all of the oil that had leaked out into the spark plug well had been removed before the plug was taken out some of it dripped into a couple of cylinders. You can see in the seventh and eighth pictures what that does. It didn't hurt anything but made a great picture.

That is Felipe in the fourth picture, Matt in the fifth picture, and Dan in the sixth picture (making lunch). The last picture was taken by Kat of the Montgomery group. Left to right it's James, Matt, Barry, Dan, and Felipe. At this time the whole group still hasn't gotten together with Don, Joe, Brian, Kelly, Brent, Marv, or Greg. Someday this logistical miracle will happen. Keep your fingers crossed.