Autobahnstormers News

06/05/08

2008 Events Diary Updated.

Author:

Webmaster

The 2008 Events Diary is now updated, not everything is there yet, but most of the important show dates are now there. If you spot any errors, please let me know.

 webmaster@autobahnstormers.org

06/05/08

New Image Gallery - Now Working again

Author:

Webmaster

All event reports will eventually point to it's corresponding section in the gallery so images from that particular show can be viewed in a much nicer way.

Also, all member's gallery images will eventually be stored in there in individual sections.

Please take some time to look at the new gallery format and please tell me if there are any problems or images in the wrong place etc etc by emailing webmaster@autobahnstormers.org - many thanks!

Click here to access the new gallery!

07/06/06

Donnington Park Track Day

Author:

Webmaster

I'll be attending a track day at Donnington park on the 25th June, Anyone who is interested is welcome to come along, all you need to do is book in with the organisers and give them 135 for you and your car & 20 for each additional driver/passenger.

The details of the day can be viewed here: www.donnington-park.co.uk

This isn't a sanctioned club event, it's simply an invitation for anyone who wishes to take part alongside me! ;) So if you're interested, email me!

Hope to see you there!

07/06/06

New Midlands Meeting

Author:

Webmaster

This meeting is going well and the second one is beginning to attract quite a few members!

Don't forget that this meeting is every 4 weeks from the date of the last one, so if you are unsure of when the next meeting is, please check the events diary.

Original news post

Club Member Daz Lovell has organised a midlands meeting for club members in the midlands and surrounding areas. The meeting will take place on various dates at Donnington Park services off the M1. The first meeting has gone well with a great turnout, and we hope to see more members turn up every month!

For meeting dates, please check the events diary for details.

12/05/06

Been a bit busy :(

Author:

Webmaster

Most of you who don't use the forum and read this news page will realise that the website has not been updated in just over a month... Personal circumstances and the car have unfortunately taken precedence over my life for the past month and so the website has taken a break for a bit...

But I'm back now and hopefully I'll be updating the website as and when I have the need to.

My apologies for those of you who have been waiting for their advert to go up - hopefully it is all done now.

>>PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATED NEWS POSTS!<<

12/05/06

New Northern Meeting

Author:

Webmaster

This meeting still goes ahead and is going strong. The next issue of SSN will hopefully have an advert bringing even more people to the meeting, for the members who do not have internet access.

However, the meeting place has changed as TGI Fridays was a tad crowded when we went there last. The new meeting place is the 3 Arrow pub on the M66/M67 junction. Please see the events diary for details of the next few meetings.

Original news post

A new meeting has been organised on the forum for the northern members of the 'stormers!

The meeting will be held every 1st Sunday of the month at TGI Fridays, J27, M62 from 1pm.

We hope to get as many people turn up to the meeting as possible, not only from the northern area but all Autobahnstormers members are very welcome indeed! There will be members from Scotland, Cheshire, Liverpool, Yorkshire, the Midlands, the North-East and of course, Manchester and surrounding areas at this meeting.

The meeting will carry on EVERY month, on the first Sunday of the month, regular as clockwork.

The next edition of SSNews will also include this news article to invite all of the Autobahnstormers members, including all of those who do not use the internet. If there are any members you know who would be willing to come along to the meeting who do not have access to the internet, please let them know that this meeting will be happening, and invite them along - the more the merrier!

Confirmed cars so far for the first meeting:

- At least 1 Lotus Carlton, maybe 2...

- A gaggle of Senators

- A rabble of Carlton GSIs

- Maybe a couple of Monzas?

As a northern member myself, I'll be there in my GSI and I'll see you all there!

12/02/06

C30SE / C36GET gaskets - Bumped to top & updated! (again!)

Author:

Webmaster

Update!

The throttlebody gaskets for the C36GET and C30SE have now been completed along with the oil pickup gaskets. I have another package to deliver to the next Mimms meeting for the club shop.

Updated news post:

I received a package today from John Cooper and I will be taking it to the Mimms Meeting on the 19th Feb, to deliver to Dave Kember for the club shop.

The "important" gasket sheets have now been finished and will soon be available through the club shop. They will be available for both the C30SE and the C36GET engines:

- Left and right hand timing cover gaskets

- Timing chain inspection cover gasket

Please check back soon for updates on how to obtain a set of gaskets through the club shop and also the p&p price of a set. Please also check back soon for updates on the other gaskets which are yet to be completed, including throttlebody and water pump gaskets etc.

Please note: These gaskets are made out of 0.8mm gasket material, and are "impregnated" with a certain oil-type-substance. Therefore they must be kept in a sealed plastic wallet if they are to be stored! (So I am told.....)

Original news post:

Club member John Cooper is in the latter stages of reproducing gasket sets for the 24v Carlton/Senator and the Lotus Carlton engines. There are a few gaskets that are now NLS from Vauxhall and cornflake packets are now becoming rare! ;)

The gasket sets include:

- Left and right hand timing cover gaskets (slight difference on the Lotus engine gasket)

- Timing chain inspection cover gasket

- Lotus throttlebody gaskets

- C30SE throttlebody gasket

- Oil pickup gasket

- Water pump gasket

As you will know, these gaskets are essential for any engine rebuild or when the timing chains are being replaced.

The gasket sets will come on a sheet of gasket paper 95% cut out so it will still be intact on the sheet - it's easier to post that way. All you will need to do is cut the 5% out to release the gaskets from the sheet. There will be 2 separate sheets available, one for the C30SE engine and one for the C36GET engine.

There was a slight imperfection on one of the timing cover gaskets for both engines where one of the bolt holes was slightly off-centre. This will be corrected on the reproduced gaskets.

The gaskets are not yet available as it is still in the latter stages of reproduction but watch this space for availability dates.

As there will be little or no profit on the gaskets this will be a "members only" service.

12/05/06

Nurburgring trip - Updated

Author:

Webmaster

More information is available about this trip, which takes place towards the end of this month. Please email Stuart Granger for details.

Original news post:

Club Member Stuart Granger is organising a 3 day trip to the world famous Nurburgring circuit. He doesn't have any idea about dates or prices as yet but here is a basic plan so far:

I'm prepared to make the arrangements for a trip, which will be something on the lines of :-

day one.
mid afternoon - rendezvous at Dover.
Block ferry booking ( booked in advance )
Fairly leisurely run down to Guesthouse near the circuit ( again booked in advance )

day two
one whole day at circuit, then back to Guesthouse. evening meal

day three
second half-day at circuit, followed by lunch and a leisurely run back to Calais ( plus time for supermarket stop )
Ferry crossing early evening and back home by the end of day three.

I will also make the arrangements at the circuit with tickets, etc. based on the number of laps that everyone says they'll do.

As a back-up, I will also arrange some insurance cover for us whilst on the track and possibly a europe breakdown cover for the event, according to cost.

Obviously, its up to individuals to ensure that their cars are able not only to get there and back in one piece, but to be able to sustain their laps of the track. Some co-ordination will see us being able to take a couple of sets of brake pads, oil, tools, etc. ( although i think a Lotus Carlton clutch pivot pin might be just a little ambitious )

The calendar for 2006 Nurburgring bookings has not yet been published, but once it has I can start looking at dates. There are a number of options here...

In summer weekends, the track can get a bit crowded with the likes of motorbikes, tourists and even tour buses, so going at a quieter time would be preferable. This is where having the calendar would really help, but how do people feel about the merits of going during the week, rather than over a weekend ? ( could even have day one as a sunday )

The costs will be one fee to cover ferry/guest house/insurance and an arbitary block of laps. Then there will be an extra fee for any passengers.

My brother, who is a Nurburgring regular, will be assisting with the organisation.

I will put forward some awards and souvenirs for a 'prizegiving' on the ferry on the way back.

If there are more than, say, 10 cars, we could consider taking a back-up vehicle with tyres, etc in it.

p.s. regarding the days at the track, it may be possible that we can arrange to go on a 'manufacturer's test day', rather than with joe public, i'm still working on that one. ( the benefit being that there will be 20 other cars around, rather than 200 )

So far the response has been good. We have several club members interested in the trip and the idea of going midweek is looking popular, to get the best use of the track.

If there are any club members interested who don't use the forum, please watch this space for updates on the event. This post will be updated and bumped to the top as soon as more information is available.

18/02/06

Rolls-Royce (Hucknall) Open day invitation

Author:

Keith Forrest

MN:1586

If any club members are interested in showing their (club eligible) car at this event, there are 2 spaces still available. Please contact Dave Waddington if you wish to display your car. Normal show regulations apply.

Pulled from forum:

On the 17th June 2006, Rolls-Royce (Hucknall) is having a full factory open day.

This includes -

Flying displays.
Factory tour
Heritage Centre
Classic/Vintage Cars

The company Spitfire will be there


The factory tour will include the new multi million pound new facility which was completed mid last year.

Plus more......

I've been asked if I would like to get some cars to show on the day. obviously I jumped at the invitation.

This is an invitation for ALL AutobahnStormers Eligible cars.

Multimap link to postcode NG15 6EU

So is anyone interested in attending/showing. It'll be free entry, but as it's going to be quite a busy day, they've had to put in some rules for car owners.

You must be there (parked up) for 10am. If you want to show together, you need to turn up together. So it maybe worth meeting before hand and convoying to Hucknall. You wont be able to leave before 3.30pm (unless arranged BEFORE hand)

We've had Open days like this before and the array of cars in attendance was eye opening.

18/02/06

Another one bites the dust... :( - Bumped to top & updated!

Author:

Webmaster

This car has now been sold "as is" to a club member.

Original news post:

We have received an email from a Lotus Omega owner from the Netherlands who was in this country when his LO caught fire on the motorway.

There is not much left of the car as you can tell by the pictures:

It would seem that the car will never see the road in one piece. There is a club member interested in buying the car for the spares (albeit not many spares).

The Lotus Omega/Carlton was obviously a limited production car and several have been stolen/written off/stripped for spares. There can't be that many left on our roads anymore.

09/02/06

Rolling road session confirmed

Author:

Webmaster

A deposit of 25 in the form of a cheque (payable to Autobahnstormers) sent to James Waddington will secure a place in the session.

James's address can be obtained by sending an email with your name and membership number to the webmaster.

Can anyone beat 436bhp set by Andy Ward last year, with his Nos powered LO? If anyone is wondering, the supercharged HSV that is at the top of the table in the RR league is AFAIK no longer in the club and has been sold on, so a top position is looking up for grabs this year!

10/01/06

Vehicle Write-ups

Author:

Webmaster

There is a proposed new section of the website to be made soon - a club write-up of each club-eligible car.

There are sections of the forum where members can place good and bad comments about a certain car and it will all go towards one big write-up for each car the club covers. This will help prospective buyers of the cars to know what to look for when buying one and also should help the club to raise its membership.

06/01/06

Ooooops!

Author:

Webmaster

It would seem that the website has had quite a lot of dead pages over the last month or so, and I was not aware... 554 dead pages out of 900 to be exact. I don't know how long they have been dead, but I do know why. There was a line of code in every page that JW had put in from the beginning, that for some reason does not work when I use it, and consequently each and every page that included this line of code sprung a "HTTP 500 Internal Server Error". Hopefully this problem has now been resolved and every page should now work. Yes, it took me a while to go through 554 pages and remove the line out code from each page.

All I can say is I'm sorry for such a huge problem and I'm shocked I have only just noticed it after it being that way for a month! If there are any pages that do not work still, please do not hesitate to contact me ASAP via email. Thanks.

05/01/06

New year's resolution

Author:

Webmaster

You may have guessed that there hasn't been a lot of updates recently. I'm not making excuses, but the Christmas and new year period are the busiest for me as I am a full time DJ. But hey, it is of course the beginning of a new year and when I took over the role of webmaster, I set out to update the website as much as I could, and upgrade where necessary. So my new years resolution is to improve the site as well as maintain it, as I have only really been maintaining it so far. I have removed the initial page (because it's pointless) and made the home page the page that loads up every time you put the address in. I have also of course added this news page (see below).

05/01/06

News page added

Author:

Webmaster

I decided that the website needed a news page to update people who are interested in what's going on within the club. The previous news reports to this one have been added at the same time as this one, but it is of course old news. The previous reports are there in case anybody missed them.

01/11/05

Author:

Webmaster

The previous member's gallery was exactly what it said on the tin - a gallery of a member's car and that was it. I wanted to make it more of an interesting read to visitors and members to know more about a member's car, rather than just to look at a couple of pictures and say "ooh."

If any members would like to show their cars in the new format, please follow these steps:

1. Please take a look at this page, select and copy the fields, then paste them into an empty email, addressed to webmaster@autobahnstormers.org

2. Please attach a maximum of 3 pictures to the email. The resolution needs to be a minimum of 800x600 - this will be the size the pictures will be in the end, if they are larger they can be resized. Preferably one profile shot, one of the engine bay, and any other interesting points of your car. If you want more than 3 pictures, please ask me.

3. Please state who you are and quote your membership number. A member's gallery is of course, members only.

4. Send the email!

Eventually, all of the cars in the member's gallery should look something like this.

Please remember, it doesn't matter if your car is not in showroom condition - it can be a work in progress, lets just get some pages updated!

24/10/05

Author:

Webmaster

Well a huge thank you to James Waddington for I believe 8 years work on the club's website. James stepped down at the 2005 AGM and handed the role over to me, Matt Allcock.

I hope I can do you all proud, this is the first time I have taken on a webmaster role in my life and it's just all one big learning curve for me. It's not like I don't know the first thing about it, I did work for 3 years as a Network Administrator, I've just never done websites before...!

I will of course be the new recipient of mail directed to webmaster@autobahnstormers.org and not James, so if you do wish to speak to James and not me, then please e-mail him direct.

If there is anything that you wish to change/improve/add to the website, please forward your suggestions to me at the email address above - all suggestions welcome!