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Another installment from the boulevard of broken things. (Video)

January 8, 2021 by bugeyeguy

Lousy left side (lower king pin bearing surface)

It would appear that the parts used on the front suspension of this particular Bugeye were once stored in a bucket of rainwater. I can think of no other explanation for the massive amount of pitting we found this week while repairing a set of worn kingpins. Many Spridgets have worn kingpins but we have never seen them as pitted as these.

Rusty right side (both pictures of the lower portion of the king pin)

This is a nice car, with lots of new parts present. The new owner chose to have us replace the king pins because of the play we detected in the front wheels. You can see the bushing wear evident in the video below… the wheel is not supposed to move in and out as shown. All this is due to wear of the lower king pin bushing (and is not reccomended if you want precise steering and handling).

Such wear is common, partly because of the design and partly because people do not heed the recommended 3000 mile interval for greasing these bushings. As our fleet ages, maintenance (and quality repair) is more important than ever. As shown below, you can see that liberal greasing has been recommended by the factory since day one.

Anyway, these pockmarked surfaces above have been abrading and grinding-off whatever is left of the brass swivel axle bushings with every turn. They had been well-greased recently, but it was far too late to matter in this case.

Moisture has once again played a starring role in our blog posts. In your fuel, your oil and now your swivel axles, moisture is still the enemy. Was this car stored in a really damp garage? More likely, back before it mattered, someone needed new king pins and found a pair at a junk yard in a bucket full of water, cleaned them up and hoped for the best, just like we all did before the invention of air bags and Twitter accounts. And now, umpteen years later, this is what has been driving around holding-up the front end of this Bugeye Sprite.

New king pins and swivel axles. Note the smooth king pin surface that rides in the bushing.

The good news is that we have all the parts to make this right, as long as you have a disk brake equipped car (and if have a drum brake car with worn king pins that you want to fix, these parts shown are integral to a disk brake conversion, which you can purchase by clicking here). We sell complete swivel axle assemblies with new bushings pressed-in and properly reamed to fit correctly. This makes it easy to swap the entire assembly. Above, you can see the new nice smooth bushings and new king pin, temporarily removed from a complete assembly like the one shown below.

Note the grease fittings shown on the new assembly above. The left fitting in the photo greases the lower bushings, and the right fitting lubricates the top one.

Above, you can see a new king pin. It has been lowered out of the swivel axle so you can see the nice new bearing surface for the lower bushing. So please heed the shop manual and head right out to your car and squirt some grease into your swivel axles for the new year.

Your bushings will thank you.

Must’ve been parked in a really deep puddle.

Buy new complete swivel axles by clicking here. If you are planning to use your old swivel axle, but would like to replace your bushings and king pins, click here for a major suspension rebuild kit. And feel free to call our parts department during business hours if you have questions about how to best restore your front end.

Worn SU carbs and the quest for a smooth running British classic car

January 8, 2021 by bugeyeguy

Scratchy throat?

Nearly every classic British sports car that shows up in our driveway has some form of run quality issue. As part of our never-ending quest to improve the fleet, a large part of our work is focused on worn SU carburetors.

A nice new butterfly is present on the HS2 carb below, but the clean edge of that disk cannot seal against the irregular surface of the throat of this badly pitted carburetor carburetor body. New carbs were needed to make this Bugeye run well.

Extreme throat pitting, from moisture and time.

This particular project started when I detected a somewhat subtle misfire on a very nicely prepared car we worked on this week. We had already tuned the car and it ran well, but I knew we could do better.

We re-checked all the basics and found nothing out of sorts, until Terry noticed the intake throat on one of the carbs was quite pitted. He removed it, closed the butterfly and the back light reveals how poorly this carb butterfly was seating in the body.

With the butterfly fully closed, the back light illustrates the extent of wear. No light (or air) should pass through with the linkage detached and the butterfly closed fully.

Here, air flows right around the closed butterfly and feeds the engine air when it is unwanted. The carb bodies shown here are shot. We removed and replaced these carbs. Now, the misfire is gone. The idle is smoother, the engine is more responsive. Problem solved. You can tune almost any worn set of SU carbs and compensate for their worn components, but new carbs make life so much better.

We are often working with unevenly worn carb pairs, which makes engines run unevenly. Most of the world’s SU carbs are worn, and so there is a limit to what you can do with your old British sports car, until you sort out the carbs.

One of the most common causes is throttle shaft wear. The bushing on which the throttle shaft rides wears over time, and unmetered air leaks around the bushing. Thus when the butterfly is closed, air is still running through the shaft bushings. This makes idle adjustment and synchronization very difficult. Idle issues will often manifest as run quality issues at higher RPMs because tuning done at idle is based on flawed measurements and worn parts. Look at the throttle shaft wear in the video above, and you can see how air would leak past the shaft without any difficulty.

The solution is to rebush your throttle shaft bushings. They need to be properly reamed so that they fit just right. This can be done if you have the correct reamer, but more and more, we are replacing the entire carb set with a new pair, (since everything else is also worn). This option immediately gets rid of the multitude of other worn parts that we often find on these old carbs.

Click here to see a new set of HS2 carbs and to learn more about the new carb set we use on many of our restorations. This HS2 set is also a great replacement for any engines still running the older and smaller H1 carbs. Feel free to call our parts department at 203 208 0980 if you have questions about how to best address any SU carburetor woes.

Big wheel.

January 8, 2021 by bugeyeguy

Which water pump do you have?

The larger paddle wheel moves more water and will fit in all “A” series engines, whether 948, 1098 or 1275. Many of our classic cars suffer overheat challenges (that’s why our aluminum Spridget radiator has been such a big success, click to learn more). But you need a good water pump, and the larger impeller can make a big difference as far as the volume of water that moves through your cooling system.

We changed a leaking water pump gasket this week on a 1275 engine equipped Bugeye and found a short impeller 948 pump present (and put in a new deep one).

We have put a lot of deep pumps into 948 engines. Occasionally, the deeper impeller will just kiss the block internally. In these installations, a slight amount of material may need to be removed from the block, so if you put a deep pump in your 948, make sure to check the fit before you bolt it all together. To buy a deep impeller pump, click here to learn more.

Stay cool!

2020 in Bugeye Pictures

January 1, 2021 by bugeyeguy

*The cars just keep getting better. This is “Harvey,” sold this year to Bill in Seattle, and mechanically and cosmetically modified extensively before it departed. A favorite!*

It was another year of double digit growth for us, in spite of difficult global challenges. We have now put 298 Bugeyes in driveways around the world, a remakable feat considering that our primary product was only made for three years (and last sold in 1960). 300 Bugeyes sold is a major and exciting milestone for us, and in our immediate future.

Here’s a photo celebration from this (now past) year of Bugeyes (and other classic cars). Thank you for your enthusiastic support of our work! We couldn’t have done it without you!

We wish everyone a healthy 2021!

*Another favorite, “Zippy,” bound this month for Bruce and family in Houston, now with five speed, rear disk brakes and new powder coated Minilights wheels.*

“Mr Krabs” and “Sparky,” two top-shelf builds. Krabs has a 1275, five speed and supercharger while Sparky is electric-powered. Jump on the highway and do 0-80 in either of them, with ease. Krabs heads home to Houston shortly, with new five speed installed. Sparky is our electric demonstrator (although could also be for sale).

*We got this racer going this year, so that Bill could run at Limerock*

*Projects finished and projects started…*

*We did lots of restoration work this year!*

*A few hundred more corroded hydraulic cylinders discarded…*

*And five stunning Speedster replicas under one roof!*

Samantha joined our team in 2020. If you have ordered parts lately, you have met her, and she knows her stuff, fresh from four years at McPherson College where she studied Auto Restoration administration. We are lucky to have her here, even if her cool car is much bigger than what we are used to…

And Sam’s husband Austin is also new to our family in 2020. He too studied at McPherson, and is a huge asset as we grow. Here’s Austin testing and building-up Bugeye ignition switches with guillotines. You would like to think that all new parts work just fine out of the box, but more and more often, we have to test and reject a surprising number of new parts before we can put them in the cars we build or send them off to you through our parts catalog. If you buy parts from us, we’re filtering them for you, so you get the same quality that goes into the great cars we build.

Our 10,000 sq ft Quonset hut continues to serve our mission quite well! Trucks full of parts back-up to our loading dock each day with deliveries, and those parts later come down the driveway attached to cars, or leave each night in boxes bound for our catalog customers.

*Sam got a new 10ft long desk this past month, from which she can better field your calls. It’s English elm with a natural edge!*

*Always a sea of vintage colors*… *like candy!*

*And the best Bugeye dog in the business. Bodhi’s here to remind us to have a wonderful 2021!*

Merry Christmas to all!

December 25, 2020 by bugeyeguy

It has been an awesome year for us.

We have put about 35 Bugeyes into the hands of new owners around the country this year, and we had our biggest year ever. Every category of our business grew in 2020… parts, service, restoration and sales. And we have great new people on staff to help us continue to grow.

He’s 6’5 with size 13.5 feet, and fits quite well! This is Bud in Lake Tahoe, in “Denim,” his new Bugeye that we delivered to him in California on September 28, 2020, mid-pandemic and wildfires. Bud is still smiling, after about 1000 miles in this Bugeye since…

I feel quite cautious doing a victory lap, because there are so many people who have had their worst year ever. The desire to have 2020 end as quickly as possible seems unanimous. But I keep coming back to the joy that we brought this year to those 35 new Bugeye owners we served (and the 297 new owners we have served since we opened our doors in 2007!).

Spridget ownership changes your life forever. You can see it on Bud’s face above. And you would see similar happy faces on all the people he passed on the street, and the motorists who drove by (who are often doing double-takes), and the children with noses pressed against the glass, and others hanging out of windows shooting video on their cell phones. And you can see it on Cici’s face in the photo below. She bought her Iris blue Bugeye from us in May of 2015 and has enjoyed it ever since.

Cici @ 5’3″ and Bud @6’5″… a Bugeye for every-body! Both live in the Lake Tahoe area, and are seen here (with an unrelated, but like-minded MGTD owner) at a local cruise night.

There is something very special about these little cars. Bugeyes give people hope that fun and (some degree of) normalcy will be back.

It is an honor to be of service to these wonderful little cars, and to the community of people who love them.

Thank you to all of you who participated in our world this year. Thank you to you loyal readers who look forward our Bugeye Bugle each week. Thank you for sharing these cars with others, so that they too may be enlightened. And a special thank you Bud, for all these great pictures and for playing a lead role in this post!

From all of us at Bugeyeguy, we wish you a healthy and delightful holiday season.

Bugeye Sprite dashboard choices

December 25, 2020 by bugeyeguy

Your dashboard is the most important piece of art on your classic car. It’s always staring you in the face, so it has to look good. We restore a lot of dashboards, and I have compiled a photo essay below for your enjoyment.

This one came to us with a brush-on dashboard coating.

It’s helpful to have some empathy for Bugeye dashboards. They spent their first forty of so years as strictly utilitarian switch and gauge holders. Many of us are guilty of sinking extra holes for switches or extra gauges over the years. But now that our little cars have become much more precious (and valuable), the original dashboard with everything in the correct original location has become the gold standard on a nicely restored car.

Painted dash with lots of extra switches and a radio blanking plate

There is still room for well-placed accessories with period-correct products and style. But most of the restored dashboards we now make involve welding-up all errant holes and starting with the original configuration and components.