I attended the club dinner at Di Chan Thai restaurant the other night with my wife. The turnout was great and the food was good. We played a game where we tried to guess the designer and auto company related to a picture of a rare car which looked alot like a Pl800 (hint -it was an Italian designer and American company). Russ and Goran asked those present if somebody would like to write an article about the Christmas party and not everybody stood up at once- sooo - here goes:

I don't remember everybody who attended, but needless to say, the turnout was outstanding. Devon and Rob Amato provided their home in La Jolla. They set up a large tent over their deck with tables and chairs. Everybody brought a dish and Rob and Devon provided many things themselves. We had quiz questions on our name tags and paper and pencils to allow everybody to answer the questions. There were prizes for the runners up and for Goran, who was the big winner. Somebody brought a "History of Volvo" video tape and somebody else brought some great photos, including pictures of a fully restored 544 panel truck. Richard Pattee brought some memorabilia for people to look at and set them out on one of the tables. After eating some great food and visiting with all our friends, we got down to some serious business; the White Elephant gift exchange (watch out for those hubcaps next year!). Thanks again to Rob and Devon for sharing their home.

This past weekend I decided to have my hood (not bonnet -that's something you wear on your head) fixed. The metal was cracked on the underside next to one of the hinges. Obviously, the hinge was binding, resulting in the stress which caused the cracking. Gene Bellegarde offered to fix it for me. We removed the hood and took off the hinges. While Gene started to make the steel plates to reinforce where the hinges attach to the hood, I freed up the binding hinge with a torch, half a can of WD40 and about an hours worth of repetitions. After drilling holes to match the attaching bolts, Gene welded the plates onto the hood and we remounted it on the car. Mission accomplished! I thought I was going to have to replace the hood before I talked to Gene about it.

There are also a few other places on our cars which may need some welding. One is the battery box and another is the shock towers. I plan to have a plate welded to the base of my battery box. It's not bad, but corrosion has worn through into the cab a little bit. So far the shock towers are fine. I did own a 122S once that did have a problem with one of the shock towers.

Remember, if you have any tough questions or seemingly impossible problems, there are many resources within the club.