Around the shop – Page 36

Valve guide tightness

April 29, 2021 by bugeyeguy

Goldie is our latest awesome build.

It was a great car when we started, after major modifications we made to the car about a year ago, and we have just brought it up a notch with an eight pound boost supercharger upgrade along with rear disk brakes. Goldie is now even more super.

Of course everything has to be right when you push the envelope, and more performance sometimes reveals vulnerabilities. And that’s exactly what happened here. Remember, performance mods won’t fix a weak or otherwise sick engine. This is a great engine, but the guides were a little too tight, and the #3 exhaust valve in particular was binding after we added more boost (which translates into more power and more heat).

Notice the half moon wear mark on the valve above

This mark is where the valve was hitting the top of the piston

In the video below, you can see the problem manifest as a sputter and misfire at peak load. While it was tempting to blame fuel or ignition for the misfire, we knew from experience that tight valve guides causes this problem, and we were able to correct the issue quickly by machining a bit more guide clearance. Now, Goldie will be ready for this next high-performance chapter.

Lots of people want more performance from their classic car, and there is a limit to what you can do. As you push the envelope, new weaknesses can manifest, and ruin your day. It can be a delicate balance, and all the more reason why we would like to pick up your car and bring it here to make your car exceptional.

We can also sell you the parts and provide the tech support so you can get it right. Most of our kits are similar to what you can buy elsewhere, but the key modifications for Bugeyes are what no one else can offer. So if you want more power, a better exhaust, or five speeds, we hope you will visit our catalog. We look forward to a chance to make your Sprite more super too.

Busy production week at Bugeyeguy

April 23, 2021 by bugeyeguy

Lots of cars come here for upgrades. It’s common for us to have 150 or 200 improvements on a Sprite that pays us a visit.

Kelly when arrived, full of boxes and potential!

Check out the aluminum dash (above) on Kelly’s before picture

Notice the replaced and correctly covered dash and new steering wheel in Kelly’s after photo (above) – Ready to go home!

This week, we have five cars departing at once and here’s a short video to give you a sense of what we’ve been building!

Send us your car if you want our passionate care and upgrades! We are booking for June appointments now!

What’s your exhaust flavor?

April 2, 2021 by bugeyeguy

Manifold unions are forever a problem on Spridgets.

Today, we had one break, so I felt inspired to make a post about the various configurations and related issues.

Cast iron 948 Manifold that broke when we loosened the clamp

Of the 307 Sprites we have sold, almost all of them have come to us with a leak at the manifold to downpipes union. It’s a bad design, and if your downpipes is at all deformed, it’s really hard to make it work without a leak.

The pipe and manifold have to mate nicely, the clamp simply closes the deal

The best solution to this problem is to do away with the union all together and replace the manifold and down pipe union with a header. We sell a nice one piece header that fits. The two piece headers are easier to install but generally do not fit the cars and hang too low. So this one piece header is what we recommend. (Which you can purchase by clicking here)

In the video below, I dig into the issues we regularly encounter at the manifold-to-down-pipe union.

If you’re interested in an old header, give us a call at 203-208-0980.

Correct Bugeye Sprite fuel and brake line clips for your restoration!

March 17, 2021 by bugeyeguy

Most Bugeyes do not have the correct fuel and brake line clips. There are two types, both of which are often long gone on the cars that we see in our shop.

The first is a “bobby pin” type and it fastens to the fuel and brake line courtesy of the reinforcing channel that runs longitudinally under your floor pans. You can see two of those in the photo above, looking up and aft at “Sunny.” That’s the rear axle and drive shaft in the background for reference. In this photo, you can see the fuel and brake line clipped to the rail as they make there way along the underside of the car.

Below, you can see the same type of clip used at the forward/leading edge of the floor pan, where the same two fuel and hydraulic lines leave the floor pan and head up to the frame rail under the engine. You can purchase these clips by clicking here. We recommend using four-six of these hairpin style clips to secure your lines to the rails.

Once the lines move up under the engine and transmission and on top of the frame flanges, you need these babies shown below. These slide over the edge of the frame members and the barbs bite into the frame. You then slide the pipe into the clip to hold it in place. You can see this one in use under the oil filter, securing the fuel line as it travels toward the fuel pump or carbs up front. The fuel line is just visible inside this clip… note the slave cylinder piping above, but only one pipe can be held by these clips at a time.

If you want them, we have these “S” shaped fuel line clip (which you can purchase by clicking here), and they make any car underside look a lot more tidy and accurate! We recommend using four of these “S” shaped clips.

These clips will make the underside of your car very tidy, and correct!

A Man’s tonneau

February 26, 2021 by bugeyeguy

This week, we have seen one of the finest corruptions of proper British toppings yet and present to you the “Shlong,” tonneau, the world’s first combination short and long tonneau (see photo above). I never knew such a possibility existed. I suppose we could call it a “universal” tonneau, but that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.

Long tonneau on red Zippy, short tonneau on Goldie.

That this work of art came with a extremely high level car we just bought (you haven’t seen the car yet) makes this all the more amusing. I don’t know how someone could follow all the details of restoring a sprite so nicely and miss this one detail so catastrophically. All Sprites that came with tonneaus came with EITHER a short or long tonneau, not both.

Most of the aftermarket tonneaus sold are long tonneaus. These are intended to utilize the top fittings on the back deck – four tenax, two twist fittings (if you’re missing these fittings, you can purchase them by clicking here). It’s efficient, one merely utilizes the existing top fittings on the car (of course you also need a row of dash fittings, included in the kit linked above).

Short tonneau on Patrick’s Ashley Bugeye

But what to do if your car has a row of lift dot fittings on the back deck just aft of the trim strip? (see Ducky below or the red car above) These are short tonneau fittings. With this admittedly busier set up, you have more fittings and these are solely for the short tonneau, they do not share. I am guessing that only short tonneaus were actually fit at the factory when a tonneau was ordered by a customer, because proper short tonneau fittings are always exactly uniform and consistent, as though factory installed.

If short tonneaus and fittings were dealer installed I think we would see some more variety and inconsistencies with how they are placed. I’m guessing that a dealer fit tonneau would’ve been the long type so if you ordered one while your car was in the show room I suspect your dealer would install the longer version because it’s easier to fit to the car. So until someone out there can show me evidence to the contrary, I’m going to go with the theory that all short tonneau cars were ordered with tonneaus from the factory and all long tonneau cars were either fit by the dealer or fit by a restorer or upholsterer sometime after the car was on the road.

Factory short tonneau fittings on “Ducky”

Now that we’ve handled about 400 Bugeyes over the past 15 years, I would guess about 300 of them have had no rear deck short tonneau fittings and the other 100 have had the row of seven short tonneau fittings we are showcasing above.

So you are either short or long. If you need rear deck templates that replicate the proper location of fittings, you can purchase them by clicking here.

Zero punch-list Bugeye Sprite w/Ashley nose… sorted!

February 18, 2021 by bugeyeguy

This week we offer big thanks to Patrick of Kansas City, who gave us a chance to make another good Sprite into a wonderful and fully-sorted classic car. This one is now done, and in an enclosed trailer heading west across America back to Patrick’s garage!

We picked up this Bugeye (with an Ashley nose) at Patrick’s house a few months ago and have just completed an extensive mechanical restoration and sorting of many broken and worn things. The spreadsheet for this job lists about 150 repairs… this is the way of our hobby now, most of the Sprites we encounter have many broken and worn components. The fleet is aging, and the cars usually need a number of components refreshed when we see them for the first time.

People have been living with their issues, nursing their cars through their jaunts and tolerating the maladies. We are fighting back by tirelessly pushing each car toward perfection. This car was lucky to go on vacation at our shop and will return home unrecognizable to the loving owner.

It is so rare to have a zero punch-list classic British car. Patrick says he was never quite comfortable taking this car very far from home, for fear that he wouldn’t make it home. Now, she drives better than new, without any needs. Now, Patrick can enjoy his classic car without worry, and the fun begins (I would drive this one from our shop to Kansas City, if weather allowed).

The video below will give you a sense of what we have done. All the parts used to make this one special are available in our catalog at the links below, so you too can make your Sprite spectacular!

Want to sort out your car and make it as reliable as possible? Here’s a partial list of the parts we used to make this car spectacular, all available in our parts catalog:

Aluminum radiator, battery hold down, alternator kit, high output starter, ring gear, pertronix distributor, GPS Speedo, Heater valve kit, tachometer, LED light kit, license plate mount, electric fuel pump, battery cut off switch, ignition switch guillotine, locking choke assembly, laminated wood wheel with billet horn push, washer pump, ammeter

If you would like to inquire about other upgrades made to this Ashley nosed Bugeye (or would want to ship your car to us to have some – or all – of these upgrades installed) feel free to shoot us an email at david@bugeyeguy.com.

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