SoFASST Mod Day – 05/20/06

Our Mod Day was held in Lake Worth at a building provided by member Brett Smith. On the agenda were many different upgrades, fixes and mods. Here are the Mods as I was able to record them:

Results are in.......Mod Day was a success, we had some good times, and no one got hurt. I want to thank Brett Smith and his step-dad for providing this excellent venue for our Mod Day. It was clean, well organized, well lighted, airy, and plenty of space. I think at one time we had 13 Impala/B-Bodies INSIDE!!

I also want to thank those who stepped up and helped out. Without your involvement and can-do attitude, many things would be not done. Rusty installed many body mounts and helped with other issues. Brett helped Alec Hicks for a long time with a difficult problem. Tim Shepard stepped up to fix an electrical problem. Tim Balmer, and others, provided assistance is finding the source of a noise in Sam's car. The list goes on and on.....so my thanks to all who helped out.

Finally thanks to all of you who attended. It was good to see everyone and glad that we could help you get more enjoyment from your car. Remember our motto: For the enjoyment and preservation of the 94-96 Impala SS. We will plan another Mod Day so collect those parts you need and prepare for another great day!!

Here is the list of things we accomplished....I hope I got them all noted:

Tim Shepard had his brake fluid flushed. This should be done every two years and even though he had the new ATE Blue Racing Fluid, he still wanted to get fresh fluid in there. Particularly because he will be competing in Indianapolis in July.

Figure 1. Tim and Steve's cars waiting for attention

Rusty Hidalgo installed body mounts on his car and on others'.

Steve Storke had body mounts installed, got an AC charge from Al Hurley and got his taillight and CHMSL fixed. He also replaced 3 of the door switch covers.

Joe and Diane Sabatino brought both their cars.....Diane was all in a tizzy about two of her windows that would not work. We quickly put her at ease and got the windows fixed. Tim Shepard installed the door light kits in both of their cars. Payment should be made to Randy Bouffler for the light kits. Joe also had the body mounts installed.

Alec Hicks first replaced his windshield washer motor. Then he tackled the mod called Flash-to-Pass. This is the mod where you can pull the turn signal lever and the headlights will flash even though they are not on. Brett helped Alec extensively after the directions for the mod were found to be not quite complete. Now that Alec and Brett are the

"experts", maybe we could have a flash-to-pass mod day!!

Figure 2. Gary and Alex getting their cars fixed.

Alec also has a Pass Key Fault light on but the car starts ok and there were no error codes noted. We don't yet know what to do about this issue but will continue to try to resolve it.

Al Hurley installed the door light kit in his car By the way, Al has the wheels off Ryan Ulums old car and I think they look really good on the Impala. Al also has taken off the hood scoop and done some other cleanup. Good job Al.

Figure 3. Al Hurley's car. Note no hood scoop and new wheels.

Figure 4. Al Hurley's wheels from Ryan.

Oscar Herrera bought 4 of the door light switch covers. These things get brittle and break apart.

Sam Palermo got an AC charge from Al Hurley. We also noticed some sort of loud noise under or in the car. Rusty and Tim Balmer hunted down the noise and I think they found that the plate connecting the torque converter to the transmission was cracked. This will require that the tranny be pulled. Sam keep us up to date on this issue. Thanks for bringing your Dad and son.....it was good to see them.

Gary Weiss had a blower motor that would not run. I suspected the resistor pack was bad, although the symptoms were not consistent with my previous experiences on this issue. Normally, when the resistor pack fails, you will end up with only one fan speed....Gary had nothing. So after replacing the resistor pack, we still had the failure. I got pulled away for something else so I asked Tim Shepard to see if he could find this problem.

Figure 5. More cars waiting for work to be done.

Tim determined the motor had power and the switch was working correctly so using a skill learned from ....well shall I say experience.....he gave the motor a whack.....yes he struck, hit, pounded on the motor and it started!!! So for now, Gary has a running blower and thus has AC again. He will plan to replace the motor and at that time will install the new resistor pack for good measure. Thanks Tim for tackling that.

New member Gary Gregson, needed a window fix. He lives just around the corner from where we were and saw the notice on our web page and stopped by. Welcome Gary.....hope you enjoy the Club.

Rommel Bonilla flushed his cooling system and had the body mounts installed.

New member Yosdel Gonzalez needed a window fixed on his Roadmaster. The inner door panel is considerably different that on the Impala so I had some difficulty getting into the door. We finally got it fixed.

I'm sure there were other things that got done.....if you know of any and would like to be on the list, let me know.

Thanks again to all who participated, showed up, helped out, contributed, or just watched. We enjoyed the day and will do it again.

Mike Lukens