If you’re not careful installing your fuel tank, you can easily crush the sender wire between the body and the tank… and that’s exactly what happened in the video below.
When this happens, your fuel gauge is shorted to ground and you don’t get any fuel reading, which is also what happened here. So the moral of the story is to tape the wire into the recess so that when you offer up the tank to the body, it can’t get pinched!
It’s time for another reminder about the age of your tires! Seven to ten years is pretty much the norm for maximum tire lifespan. How old are yours?
Most of us don’t use our car is enough to wear out the tires, so they age-out. The cracks prove it… fine cracks are visible on this tire tread and you have to ask yourself if you want that vulnerability driving down the road in these little classic cars. Fortunately, 13 inch tires that we stock are pretty reasonably priced so it’s not too painful to change them! These tires are from 2011. Make sure you check your classic car tires accordingly!
Click the photos below to purchase new tires for your car!
Sure, HS2 carbs perform better, but another nice thing about them is that they tend to leak less than their older, smaller counterparts. The original H1 carburetors employed on Bugeyes have a few more rubber parts and junctions than the later HS2s have, and can leak fuel when those rubber parts perish. Ethanol doesn’t help, and might actually accelerate leak frequency. The rubber parts we sell for these carbs are made of ethanol resistant Viton. So if you have never changed your top hat gaskets, now might be the time. These gaskets are positioned where the float bowl is connected to the carburetor, shown in the video below.
The carbs in the video shown here were hemorrhaging fuel through not only the top hat, but also through the main jet, meaning this set will need jet gaskets and washers, as well. Our H1 rebuild kit has everything you need to ensure your carburetors are potty trained! Click the photo below to order!
Old English car issues are sometimes very easy to diagnose. When stuff leaks, there is a problem, except, of course, when it’s leaking oil, which is inevitable, and which is only really a problem when it floods your driveway or stains the tops of your shoes.
[Read more…] about Masterful diagnosticsKing pins and swivel axles are a constant focus here, because we want tightness, and this is a common source of loose. We talk a lot about bad bushings, and front end play, and lubing the bushings, but the up/ down adjustment is commonly neglected, and when that happens, you get the play you can see in the video below
We’ve seen a lot of cars in need of A pillar patches lately, and it’s pretty interesting, particularly since this is a common area of concern on all Sprites and many other classic British cars, as well. All too often, these cars are beautiful, but you’ll find some blisters in the A pillar area, which can ruin an otherwise show-quality car.
Water enters the A pillar cavity (that’s the rectangular pillar directly in front of the door hinges) through the windshield post mounting holes. You can see in our photos below that the front windshield mounting threaded hole is a direct link to the cavity where we often see rust blisters on Sprites. Once the water runs down that hole it gets trapped with no drainage and can sometimes rust the top of the rocker panel as well.
In general, this is nothing more than a nuisance and not a particularly structurally consequential issue, because the rust is usually contained to the small A pillar lower portion. The first patch that you see below is a simple repair of a very small rectangular area where we cut out the rusted area, treated the metal to prevent further rust, and then welded in a small patch. It’s one of the easiest rust repairs you can ever take-on… it’s very satisfying and manageable, and blisters such as these are not usually indicative of larger rust problems throughout the car– it’s usually a localized problem.
[Read more…] about More than you need to know about A pillar blisters
