bugeyeguy – Page 7

Super five-speed wire-wheel ’59 Bugeye Sprite for sale! Video!

August 30, 2024 by bugeyeguy

NOW SOLD to Ken here in CT! Congrats on taking home car #422!

AN5L 15027 is a 1959 Bugeye we call “Skye.” This car was our 306th sold back in 2021 and we are excited to have it back and for sale for a new owner. When this car left our shop at that time, we performed many upgrades for that owner (listed below), and so the new owner this time around will enjoy a car that has already gone through our comprehensive process of ironing out many of the usual classic car wrinkles. (There are always more to iron, and we’re happy to help… but the list of needs is quite short now, eg, there is a small exhaust leak, the right side spline is clicking and the rear springs need lubrication…)

This is a very nice car. It came to us from Washington State and it’s a great restoration. The paint shines quite nicely.

She has the 948 engine original to the car mated to a Datsun five-speed transmission. This means that she has a fully synchronized gear box which is easy for anyone in the family to drive. The overdrive fifth gear makes faster speeds quieter and more fun.

Brakes are upgraded as well… front disk brakes from a later Sprite are fit as well as later dual piston rear wheel cylinders from a later Sprite too. The car stops well!

Come for a drive with me in the video below! In this particular video, shot in 2021 prior to Skye’s most recent sale, you’ll get a window into my process of evaluating the cars we buy. No matter how hard we try to collect information from sellers, every car we buy is full of surprises (sadly), and our job is to clean up the issues and properly inventory repair any issues and/or make a plan to address them with the new owner. Check out the narrated video below for that process on Skye!

New wood steering wheel is not shown in the video above.

The car is fit with an awesome Abarth twin-tipped muffler, a hot period commodity for 948 Sprites. You often see these for sale for $500 and up, as this is an attractive unit with a great note and it makes the car sound like a giant killer.

She also has a spin on oil filter conversion and flip forward nose for better engine access. This particular flip forward kit also integrates the front bumper which is nice, (most of those kits require removal of the front bumper). This flip-forward upgrade also includes rocker panel locating pins to help keep the nose in place and aligned, a nice feature! There is also a nifty prop rod fit on the bonnet to help hold the lid open.

In 2021, we put in a new master and slave cylinder, new radius arms, new rear shocks, new chrome wire wheels, new 165 tires, new Moto Lita steering wheel, new door gaskets, new battery, new calipers and brake hoses, new alternator, LED brake and park lights and tuned the carbs… she runs great! Left our shop in 2021 with 25,364 miles and now has 25,934 miles, a total of 570 in the past two years. So the tires are still like new, and the car looks better than ever!

The top is good and so are the side curtains. The tonneau is new from 2021 and wonderful.

Skye will take you there!

Click “read more” below for more photos and give us a call if Skye is right for you!

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Sweating the details

August 30, 2024 by bugeyeguy

When you turn a screw, where do you stop? Do you agonize about keeping all your slotted screws horizontal and your Phillips screws perpendicular? On the very first Bugeye Sprite, we sure do… and thus this post is all about the most insignificant of details… yet we still thought you might enjoy seeing our thought process.

I have said many times the dashboard is like your living room and it needs to be perfect. It has to feel right and calm your nervous system. But when something is out of alignment, or otherwise out of whack, we intervene.

So today we are obsessing about the turn signal bezel… what is correct orientation of the slots? We have 30 Bugeyes in our building, and all 30 are different. So we turned to our supply of early promo literature from Austin Healey and find that… it’s not so easy to tell.

(There may not be a right answer.)

Check out the pre-production promotional photo shown below, complete with prototype early steering wheel. It looks like the bezel has no slots!

All other literature is inconclusive. They’re all over the place with their bezels!

*In the original parts manual, the bezel has the slots horizontally oriented.*

*In a 1960 edition of the driver’s handbook, the bezel is oriented at an angle.*

The right picture (above) shows the bezel at 45 degrees, so one could conclude this is the correct angle. But this always looks wrong to me, so with “calm” firmly in mind (and with confidence that there is no conclusive “answer”), we went with horizontal. That feels right to us. And if anyone wants to know how it should be done in the future, now people can say, “well, on 501, that thing is horizontal!”

1959 Bugeye Sprite for sale, new and improved! “Tate” is a great driver! NEW video!

August 30, 2024 by bugeyeguy

NOW SOLD! Congratulations to Alexander for taking home this awesome driver to CA! Car # 420!

NEW! This week, we’ve done some sympathetic cosmetic restoration on the engine compartment on Tate! Check out the video below to see the transformation. Here is the before and after photo…

Our challenge with this work was to upgrade the aesthetics without overdoing it. We wanted to make sure we improved the look without making our restored area over-powering and without altering the patina of the engine bay. And we are very happy with the result!

(We also installed a new battery.)

Tate is a solid early 1959 Bugeye with an all-stock configuration of a 948 engine, smooth case transmission, and drum brakes. This Bugeye is incredibly fun to drive! It sports brand new front shocks, a new master cylinder, and a new electric fuel pump, among many other improvements! You won’t find a better driving stock Sprite for the money! Check out the driving video and give us a call to make Tate your next Bugeye!

I’ve owned about 500 bugeyes in the last 15 years, so I am quite clear about my criteria for what’s necessary to have a nice driving car. This car, “Tate,” is just such a nice driving car.

AN5L 7879 is a solid car built in 1959 that appears to be a relatively low-mileage car (the odometer shows approximately 83,000 miles but actual mileage is unknown) with the stock configuration of 948 engine, four-speed transmission, and drum brakes all around.

Most sellers claim their cars to be sorted and delightful to drive but I am more and more skeptical, being a buyer myself (I’ve bought hundreds of Bugeyes for inventory). This one checks all the boxes. Tate is a nice driving, mostly stock Bugeye, and I wanted to try to convey that to you by taking a ride with my dog Bodhi, which you can check out below in the driving video!

What I like about this car is that it was a solid survivor that had been stored in a collection in Florida for a long time with sporadic use, enough to keep it fresh, but certainly no abuse. It was owned by an older collector and it was part of a collection of cars that mainly sat idle. We refreshed the car with a new master cylinder and new carpet kit and matching red door seals. We took out the engine and changed the throw-out bearing, and put in a new clutch, a new heater valve, a whole new fuel line with an upgraded electric fuel pump, and new front shocks. So as of this moment, the car is ready to go and a delight to drive. (NOTE: new fuel pump upgrade is not shown but we will post new underside pictures shortly, the solid state pump is mounted in front of the rear axle in our preferred location.)

If you are looking at other Sprites online (or other old British cars for that matter), many of the sellers may claim that their cars are nice to drive, but I am more and more skeptical, and as a buyer myself, the quality of the cars that I buy has continued to decline. The state of the used fleet makes our work harder and punch lists longer than ever, but once we get the cars sorted-out, while there is always more to do, a car from us is going to behave very differently than one that you find elsewhere online.

So I want to encourage you (if you’re shopping for an old English car) to consider that you’re really buying the seller not just the car. If you like our work and our mission, then you’ll really like this car. It’s a delightful, mostly original Bugeye that you can use and enjoy… and bomb around the neighborhood with confidence.

The paint is older and shows a little bit of wear, but still shines and presents very nicely. The top has some yellowing in the back window but fits very well, and the tonneau fits well, also. The floors are quite solid, so if you’re looking for a good driver Bugeye that will put a smile on everyone’s face, take a serious look!

This week, we also installed new door seals. The ones on the car were too thick, and the doors were a tad proud. The new correct seals look right, match the originals, and allow the doors to close flush with the rest of the car. This is another nice enhancement.

Click “read more” below for more pictures, give us a call if you would like Tate delivered to your door!

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A 1959 RHD Bugeye (that has been around the world), for sale!

August 27, 2024 by bugeyeguy

Check out our NEW walkaround video below!

This car has a particularly special story. Righty was well loved by one family for many years. They took the car with them from England to Dubai to Canada. All that ocean freight is an amazing testimonial of their passion for this car. Now we’ve properly commemorated that passion by mounting the original UK, Dubai, and Canada plates on the car.

Our first Bugeye restored in Dubai!

Purchased new in England, restored in Dubai, shipped from Dubai to Canada and now in Connecticut… this is perhaps our most well-traveled Bugeye ever!

*Now with newly-installed Dubai license plate on the front!*

Meet “Righty” (AN5 12808), a 1959 Austin Healey Sprite that has quite a story to tell. Righty is an original home market right-hand-drive Bugeye, a bit of a rarity here in North America. If you are familiar with Bugeyes, you know that most were built LHD for export. A relatively small portion of the 50k cars built were built with RHD for the domestic UK market.

This is one of those cars.

It is hard to find an original RHD Sprite here in the USA. Note the Euro-spec amber rear turn signal lenses and windshield wipers that park on the opposite side of the windscreen from the USA market Bugeyes we usually feature.

If you’ve never driven RHD cars in America, you’ll find it a hoot. You’ll get used to it in minutes. And you’ll find that RHD Bugeyes attract even more attention than LHD Sprites, which amps up the fun factor!

Righty has a great story to tell. The previous owner bought the car at age 19 in 1975 in England and enjoyed it immensely, taking up to FOUR passengers with him to the local pub! (One sat on the transmission tunnel, two sat in the passenger seat (with one on the other’s lap), and one would ride in the boot! (I’m told this was a rotating arrangement so one passenger was not always stuck in the boot.)

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Keeping ahead

August 23, 2024 by bugeyeguy

We’ve had too many head gaskets fail. Most of them have torn between cylinders two and three, like the one you see below, which was removed this week from a 1275-powered car after about 8700 miles of use.

We are determined to prevent this from happening to clients in the future. So we now offer a three-layered metal racing head gasket as a superior solution, our strongest head gasket yet. This upgrade is particularly smart if you are supercharging or otherwise boosting the compression on your Spridget.

*Our multi-layer steel (MLS) head gaskets are three separate layers riveted together. Once the head is installed and torqued down, the three layers become one gasket!*

We also recommend new ARP studs if you are having gasket issues, to best secure your head to your block. The engine we are working on here has had them installed to best secure the head.

Why does this happen? There are lots of opinions about this.

Heat is the biggest culprit. If you overheat your engine, head gasket failure is a serious risk. Our aluminum radiators and six bladed fans are your best weapon against heat.

Timing is another suspect… you have to have it right. Pre-ignition can lead to head gasket failure. If you’d like a trick way to dial-in the advance curve (using bluetooth from your phone!) to custom tune your car’s ignition, check out our programmable electronic distributor in our parts catalog by clicking below…

*Programmable electronic Bugeye distributor*

Octane also needs to be strong. High octane fuel (such as pump premium) seems less likely to cause pre-ignition. I use premium (USA) pump gas in all my Bugeyes to ensure I have a high enough octane number. Remember, octane degrades over time, so you stabilizer if you think your car will sit for more than 60 days, to keep the fuel as fresh as possible.

For all of our performance builds from this point onward, we will be using the three layer gasket you see here. We used one in the car that had the torn head gasket above, and we expect that to be the last head gasket that car will ever need. They are more expensive than the composite gaskets we used to use, we’re excited to only have to do this job once, and thus it is cheap insurance!

Click the photo below to order this uprated gasket and learn more!

*HD Multi-Layered Head Gasket (1275 Engines)*

1275 power, front disk brakes and a stunning new interior make for a striking 1959 Bugeye for sale!

August 16, 2024 by bugeyeguy

NOW SOLD to Bill in Maryland! Congratulations on taking home car # 419!

Meet “Ziggy” (AN5L 45051). This one is stunning, in the right color combination. This one is visually quite pleasing (everyone loves dark green and tan). And green seat piping and a stunning wooden steering wheel completes the look! This one is a “looker”!

Ziggy is a 1275 powered car with a rib case four speed transmission and nice minilights style upgraded wheels. This is a great driver.

We’ve just completely rebuilt the interior and dashboard. We also changed the rear wheel cylinders, battery and added three point retractable and matching seat belts. They look and work great. This week, we’ll add new front shocks too.

Under the hood, we have K and N lifetime air filters, electronic ignition and a six-blade upgraded engine cooling fan. The upgraded twin master cylinders is a nice feature for reliability and ease of service. They are in the way of the wiper motor, so the prior owner moved the windshield wiper motor under the dash, which was nicely executed and works great.

This car was restored by a very passionate collector around 2010. The car was the love of his life. He passed away in 2019 and we were lucky to acquire the car from his family to pass it on to a new steward. We’ve made the car better than ever, he would be proud to see the new interior, and if you would like to own this striking Bugeye, please give us a call!

Click “read more” below for the full suite of photos and give us a call if Ziggy is right for you!

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