BugEyeGuys – Page 159

Striking restored 1959 Austin Healey Sprite Mark 1 for sale!

March 13, 2018 by bugeyeguy

Now SOLD to William in Mississippi, congratulations!

We call this Sprite “Pedro,” and it’s a beautiful 1959 Bugeye, AN5L 15196. The car was restored by a very passionate and meticulous car guy, who spent countless hours detailing every inch of the car. The result is stunning! The burgundy base/clearcoat paint work is outstanding and this car is a knockout. The car is lowered for an attractive and aggressive stance. This is another car that has been fully sorted in our workshop. The last owners spent a ton of money, (and we put in a lot of time) to optimize this car and make it turnkey. All of our cars are not what you find for sale elsewhere. Sure there are lots of great builders out there. But our cars have the benefit of the more than 200 Bugeyes that have come before. We leverage that expertise to produce the finest product possible.

Take a drive below, and click “read more” below the video to see the photo album…

Don’t do this to your Bugeye Sprite

March 10, 2018 by bugeyeguy

Here’s one we had not seen before, but it is worth highlighting so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

Look closely at the brake adjuster at the bottom of the picture above (if you are unfamiliar, it’s the slotted screw in the u shaped bracket sitting on top of the wheel cylinder). This adjuster is meant to sit in a groove on the bottom of the brake shoe. Instead, this one was assembled with the flat side of the shoe on the adjuster, which allowed the adjuster to squirt outward into the drum. As a result, the adjuster happily cut a major groove in the drum as shown below. Not a nice soundtrack. New drum needed.

Don’t do this to your Bugeye Sprite.

Rear brakes on Sprites are super-simple, but they are almost never working properly. Yup, almost never. From experience with 200 plus Bugeyes, a shocking percentage has arrived in our building with wet or otherwise non- functioning rear brakes. That’s what gives drum brakes a bad name. People assume drums are the problem. But non-working drums is the real problem. Pull the handbrake on your Sprite while you are rolling to a stop (in a safe place, please). if not much happens, your rear shoes are not doing their job.

Rear axle seals leak and soil shoes (the dark patches are gear oil on the shoes shown at left, on the other side of the same car, new seal and shoes needed here). Axle flanges leak and soil shoes too. Wheel cylinders leak and soil shoes three. Modern shoes don’t start out life perfectly mated to your drums, and so the new shoes start-out with small contact patches until you them wear in. It takes a while for the shoes to properly mate to the shape of the drum. So all this elevates the possibly that rear drum brakes in particular will be less than effective. They have to be well maintained, properly adjusted and properly set-up. (And then they work quite well!)

You can buy our rear drum brake rehab kit by clicking here.

If you really want to fix the problem once and for all, you can buy our rear disk brake kit. This is an elegant solution and the direction I went with my Bugeye Gumby, so I would never have to deal with these maintenance issues again.
Here’s a photo of the rear disk kit installed on my personal car. You can see the components below. If you want to give your car a great gift, you can purchase a rear disk kit by clicking here.
But no matter what you do, make sure your rear brakes are working!

Don’t do this to your Bugeye Sprite, part 2

March 9, 2018 by bugeyeguy

I can’t understand why fuel tank sender manufacturers still sell their products with plastic floats… but until they stop, we will continue to see what is shown above. This is a fuel sender float half full of fuel, because ethanol attacks the plastic and fuel gets in, which makes the fuel gauge quite confused, as the sender makes a slow progression from float to sinker regardless of how much fuel is on board.

A sunk float saves no man.

This week two more Bugeyes came to us with gauges pegged on empty, and removal of the sender revealed this failed product. The remedy requires pumping out the fuel, lowering the tank, replacing the sender and pressure testing the system to make sure the gasket doesn’t leak. It would all be unnecessary if an ethanol-proof brass float was used when the senders were new, but until then, please don’t make the mistake of installing one with plastic.

Don’t do this to your Bugeye. Plastic floats last as little as a few days, and if you install one, you’ll be repeating the job all over again. Do it right the first time with a brass float, which you can buy here in our catalog. We sell it with ethanol-proof gaskets too. The cork ones that come with the sender will also let you down, and allow the top of your tank to fill with fuel when you fill the tank to the top. So make sure to use these gaskets too next time your sender is out of the tank. We sell the float and gaskets as a kit, linked here.

Our 217th Bugeye Sprite departs for a new home

March 2, 2018 by bugeyeguy

This is our 1960 Bugeye called “Susan” departing. She is the 217th Bugeye we have sold.

We owned this car about five years ago and sold it to a wonderful woman in New Brunswick, Canada (named Susan). Sadly, she passed away recently, and we bought the car and then sold it to Ralph in California, who had us customize the car to his specifications before we sent it on its way. Here’s a video about the modifications we did to this car.

The story of this shipment is the culmination of extensive Bugeye sorting and improving. We took a great Bugeye and made it even greater, and we’re proud of the fact that this car is now simply a delight to drive and enjoy. I continue to be amazed that we have sold now 218 Bugeyes, more than any single workshop has ever touched and handled (either when they were new or any time since).

I am even more amazed how much we have learned along the way. The cars just keep getting better. The improvements we make are at times subtle, and sometimes dramatic. But when I drove this car onto the trailer for it’s cross country trip, I was fist-pumping and smiling because the car is completely dialed-in. When everything comes together, these short and at times twitchy little cars become sublime. I am forever excited that we know how to make that happen. A Bugeye is a very simple car, and very forgiving in many ways. But to drive one that is really set-up right is nothing like one that is just “OK.” We spend our days in that zone, the space of constantly improving an old car to make it the best it can be, and this turns us on, particularly when it all comes together and becomes a great product such as the car you see here.

There were a bunch of noteworthy improvements on this one. (the referenced products are all “hot” and linked to our parts catalog, if you would like these same products for your car). First, this car showcases our hard tonneau without stripes, and I fell in love with the monochromatic vibe. While I am not usually in passionate about red cars, the addition of the big red panel in the cockpit made the car into something I have not seen before, and I was surprised that this one became one of my new favorites. The new splash of color on top made this Bugeye seemed to supercharge its appearance.

By the way, I notice writing this post how easily I still get excited about each of these cars. Perhaps it says something about me, but I believe what’s much more relevant and interesting is how many people, like me, also have Bugeye imprinted on their DNA. The manifestation of this phenomenon is the multiple Bugeye owner… there are many out there who have had and who still have multiple Bugeyes in their garage (or in the yard, in their barn, on their trailer, in the weeds behind their house, etc) The cars are infectious, and I am proud to report I am still very much infected.

To that end, this car also has contrasting red fat thread stitching on the tonneau, another new innovation that allows us to amp-up small details to personalize and upgrade these simple cars. The “mini” tonneau is itself a cool innovation, that is very helpful if a hard tonneau car is left out in the rain, and we have upgraded that product with contrasting stitching. We can offer the same on any conventional tonneau we build for you through our catalog, you can find the link here. We work hard to make upgrades like these that quietly add elegance to these cars.

Too often, upgrades on old cars can be overdone. We strive to make accessories that look like they belong. It’s subjective, but the fat thread on the tonneaus is meant to evoke the feel of an old football you’d see on “The Little Rascals,” and thus we feel we have license to try to make anything that looks like it could have existed in 1960 when we make add-ons for these cars. Plastic for example, is used only when absolutely necessary. For example, the center console and arm rest is a great product we offer in our catalog, because there is no glove box to hold your change and fuses. So the center console is a wonderful product for functionality. Unfortunately at present, it is only available with an ABS plastic base.

There have been numerous mechanical upgrades and improvements too on this car, which came together in harmony. Any five-speed transmission in a Bugeye is a dream-come-true. We sell the Ford five-speed conversion kit, which rarely rattles in the shifter, but Datsuns often clatter when not properly set-up. We made bushings for this shift lever assembly to stop it from rattling, which also tightened up the linkage, to make one more delightful tight interface between man and machine, something I appreciate with every shift. The engine ran well when we got the car, but it ran a lot better through the entire rev range once we fit the HS2 carbs with #3 needles, which seem to have the right profile for ethanol based modern fuel. K and N lifetime air filters also help this car to breathe freely.

The car had a recent SU fuel pump installed when we got it. This is a very nostalgic pump, and makes the right clicks as it pressurizes the system. Remember, all Bugeyes came with a mechanical pump, so no electric pump is original to the car. The mechanical pump is a bad idea, for it risks flooding the crankcase with fuel, or flooding the ground and hot down pipe with fuel, and is slow to prime, so we are huge electric upgrade advocates. This pump looked fine on our preliminary inspection, but the power lead vibrated off on one of my test drives, which stranded me on the side of the road util I figured it out. So with reliability in mind, we removed said SU vintage British pump and replaced it with a new solid state cube pump. Most people would not have done this. But we are proud of the fact that we did. While it cost the customer a few bucks, I will sleep better knowing that we put in the most reliable pump we have, given great field experience that verifies they do not fail. The points don’t get dirty (there are none), the leads don’t fall off (they are hard wired) the banjo fittings don’t leak (there are none), the diaphragm doesn’t leak (it’s sealed). So while Ralph didn’t “need” a new electric pump, he got a better pump with fewer vulnerabilities, and the peace of mind that comes with it.

Stock bulbs left, LEDS on two cars to right.

The LED lights we added are another modern-world necessity, to help other drivers wake-up. The three-point retractible seat belts are essential in my mind, mainly because it helps me to feel I am wearing the car. I like “being one” with these machines. The aluminum radiator we fit is essential for the Southern california heat that this car will now face. And there were more improvements, but you get the idea.

Every one of the cars we ship will receive 25-100 hours of our time as we attempt to move them closer to that blissful fist-pumping state. Sure, we all hope we find used classic cars from sellers who naturally do all this stuff for us, but the reality is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and if you haven’t driven more than 200 of the car you are selling, perhaps you are less familiar with what it means to build something that is fully sorted. We are not perfect. We can’t always fix everything. And we don’t (usually) take apart things we didn’t build that are working well when we review them. But what we do offer, and what we are proud to offer, is the experience to know what works and what doesn’t… and what is likely to keep working in the field and what won’t. And we know what accessories can help you personalize and improve your ultimate sports car.

I didn’t yet mention that Ralph, the new owner of this shiny red Bugeye, traded his project Bugeye and cash for this improved version. I love these stories, because it means a Bugeye that could never quite get finished gets transformed overnight into a glorious specimen, as if by aliens. I imagine that Ralph’s neighbors will smile as he drives by, and wonder how they can get the new vitamins he must be taking, because how else could he have gotten so much done on his little car, in so little time.

When I got into Ralph’s old car (shown here) to drive it off the trailer when it arrived from California, it came to life quickly… albeit on two cylinders.

And so the next renovation begins.

If you are building your own blissful Bugeye, here are a few more links to products we built into this car, all detailed in our catalog:

Bugeye Sprite Cockpit Trim Restoration and re-coating

Front Flip nose hold downs (pair)

Windshield Post Raydyot Racing Mirror – Bugeye thru 1962

Oversized Bugeye and Spridget rearview dashboard mirror

Sprite/Midget Alternator Conversion Kit, with Pulley Installed (Bugeye thru 1971)

Dual Master Cylinder 7/8" (thru '62)

Sway Bar Kit (All Spridgets)

Why you need this Bugeye Sprite accessory

March 2, 2018 by bugeyeguy

Here’s a brand new add-on accessory is a must for every Spridget with a bottom hinging gas pedal. Here’s why…

Original Bugeye accelerator pedals are a terrible design. They plug into a pivoting metal rod and can easily become un-plugged while driving, which is an obvious safety hazard. Once the pedal disconnects, It’s not difficult to lodge the rubber pedal on the accelerator rod, thus sticking the throttle OPEN!

The other challenge with this original design is the hinge mount requires two holes in your nice floor pan. Since it is naturally rusting and making holes on its own, it’s never fun to punch more holes if you don’t have to. Those accelerator holes can become yet another source of corrosion.

Since about 1979 I have been driving my Bugeye ‘Gumby” with just metal bar under my foot and no pedal. And on the cars the we ship to customers, we remove the pedal for safety. Even though it doesn’t look pretty, the bar has been our best solution, until now.

We are exited to offer a nice cast aluminum pad you can easily bolt into place, along with a rubber pedal pad to cover it. This is an elegant solution to an old problem. It’s easy to install and makes heel/toe shifting easy. This is an upgrade that is a winner for every early Sprite!

You get the aluminum bolt on pad, hardware to mount it and a rubber pedal pad, which you will need to install on the aluminum pad before installation.

Order one by clicking here…

One wicked tube full of Bugeye Sprites

March 2, 2018 by bugeyeguy

Rear addition, February 2018

We have been working very hard, not just on the cars, but also on our building. We are expanding, and we are not doing so in the conventional way. Why? Because this is supposed to be fun. It’s about passion. And if our home is a dump, well, there wouldn’t be much passion or fun present. Sure we could have torn-down our Quonset hut and built something square, but if you love the two frog eyes on the hood of your car as much as I, you too would dream in curves, and thus our hut is well, Buggy. Curved. Bugeye-like.

Here’s the front facade when we moved-in in 2015.

Front facade, July 2017

As if a formerly run-down Quonset hut restoration wasn’t enough, we added a funky expansion structure with a similar curve, so the two round structures would play nicely. It has skylights, radiant heating in the floor and is at ground level, which allows a pleasant work space and faster departures and arrivals than our current structure which is four feet above grade. We’ll use the current building for more of a display space, and the new building will provide more storage and better work space than what we have now. This expansion will allow us to do more… and to do it even better.

One of the challenges of a bolt-together building is water leaks, and while we have minimized the issue, we still have a few, and thus we needed an internal skin that would allow any leaks to penetrate, with minimal damage. We’ll keep sealing the roof and striving for water-tight, but like the oil sump of a Bugeye, in spite of the best intentions, they are seldom leak-free.

And so we designed a slat ceiling, that would look great and breathe well, that would drain if needed, and would have components we could replace if they got water-stained. It was a smart solution, until we set out to mill the first 360 Eastern pine boards, and stain them, and poly them… well, this is taking longer than we had hoped.

BUT

Look at the awesome results…. one of the greatest gifts of employing great fabricators is that they love to make things, and while our crew is mostly hard at work on vehicle restorations, there is also time each week to make our expanded home spectacular. With the help of Mike (our now full time carpenter), and a host of other sub contractors and suppliers, our ceiling continues to line-up just right.

Now for the next 500 boards!

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