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CURRENT INVENTORY IS SHOWN IN THE SMALL PICTURES JUST BELOW THIS TEXT!
(if a car is not pictured here, it has been sold)

AN5 501 is Finally on the Move! 

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In case you missed it, I bought the first production Bugeye Sprite back in December, and have been waiting patiently for supply chain issues to resolve so that 501 could get a ride out of Melbourne, Australia where the car was parked at a dealership, waiting in limbo. We are exceptionally excited to have acquired this amazing piece of Bugeye history. Now we just need to get her here!

Our boat date was finally confirmed as April 30, and much to my delight, the car has been packed in a 40 foot container and she’s ready to go. You could put a lot of Foster’s Lager in there with our little Bugeye, and I have to believe that something must have been packed in there with it. I’d imagine that we don’t just have a tiny 11 foot long Bugeye luxuriating in such a big box, but I will never get to see the container, as I will not be present when all the kangaroos jump out when our box arrives in New Jersey. 

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A Hole That Will Make You Weep

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This little hole could be the reason for your failed rear brakes!

We see dozens of soiled brake shoes from axle seal leaks. This weep hole is critical and they are often plugged. Make sure to check yours!

This set of shoes will need to replaced. Oil and grease are two of the biggest culprits for premature brake shoe failure.

Too often, we remove rear drums to find shoes that look like these above. Soiled. Why? Everything leaks in our world, and while the culprit is often a mix of axle grease and hydraulic fluid, sometimes the oil is blocked from exiting the back plate which compounds the problem. You can see the design of the back plate (two pictures down) allows the bearing carrier to sit in a nice little recess with a drain hole, and if that is blocked, the oil that leaks past the axle seal is going to ruin your brakes.

As you can see, over time this “weep hole” clogs with whatever mixture of foreign debris and fluids and reeks havoc on a braking system.

Axle seals can only do so much. When these weep holes are clogged (and they often are), the axle oil will run out of its recessed area and onto the drum, where it will be the same principles of spin-art; soil your brake shoes, coat your drum with oil, or both. Either way, you’re left with no rear brakes and a big mess to clean-up.

If you find yourself with a plugged weep hole, this is one method that can be used to clear it: a pick.

You can see the hole in all these pictures, on just the naked axle housing and also on the car with the backplate attached. Keep ’em clear!

And keep in mind that a failed axle gasket and o-ring will also cause the same effect, even if your weep hole is clear, as will a leaking rear wheel cylinder. You can find our wet brake shoe kit in our catalog, we have the parts to help!

Float Bowl Fiasco!

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This is John’s Bugeye, which came to us with an erratic misfire under high load. The symptoms were the same as we’ve seen when valve guides are too tight (we’ve written about this in the past). I thought you might like to read about our diagnostic process. We make mistakes too.

Sometimes the best way to solve a running issue is to re-create it! That’s what Tucker and David did in diagnosing this Bugeye.


Under extreme heat and load the engine would break up and misfire. Once we pulled off the road and the temperature dropped just enough, then the valve guides would relax and the engine would run beautifully once again. You could drive the car around town without this issue surfacing but once you were under the highest loads (on the highway, downshifting to climb a hill, for example), only then would this problem resurface. So we did what any good shop would do… rip off the head and send it to the machine shop for a proper milling of the guides to ensure adequate clearance for the valve stems no matter how hot they get. The machine shop verified that the guides were indeed too tight, and they honed them out to make sure the problem wouldn’t recur. 

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The Wheel Deal

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Thinking of converting your Bugeye to wire wheels? Please don’t buy a bolt-on conversion kit. Please! These things are still for sale by some vendors (not us!), and they are very dangerous.

If you take off your wire wheels and see this… Give us a call!


Witness the rear axle shown here from Ed’s car from Michigan. The idea is that the splined adaptor bolts onto your lug nuts over the drum. However, every one that has come to us has had loose bolts, and when they come off, the wheel comes off along with it! 

[Read more…] about The Wheel Deal

A Small Post About a Big Door

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Our trusty handymen had a nice surprise all wrapped up for our humble Quonset Hut!

After a lifetime with lightweight Bugeye doors, we decided to make a DOOR. Our Bugeye cave has to look good (after all, we spend more time here than we do at home) and so we spared no expense for our new partition for the front of our shop. The mission here was to make a sliding “barn door” divider to keep Rob and Samantha in their air conditioned front area this summer. AC is new for us this year, and we needed this partition to keep the conditioned air separate from the rest of the Quonset hut.
This building has been very good to us, and as we sneak up on our 350th Bugeye sold, it seems only appropriate to give our building a handsome new reward! 
(Thank you Mike for building us the door of our dreams! It slides effortlessly and is yet another awesome design element in our superb home!)

Our new door awaiting its new resting place!
Completely custom-built down to the last detail, this expertly-crafted partition will make sure the front of the building stays nice and cool during the summer months.
Bodhi Approves!
The new door looks amazing from all angles!

151 broken things and upgrades (video)

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Old cars are getting older, just like (most) of us folks who love them. As a result, that shiny classic you spy online may look great, but in reality there is always more to the story.

This car looked good enough for our client to “click the mouse” and buy it. He was also wise enough to have it make a pit stop at our building on the way home to Minnesota. We found about 151 issues to repair and improve.

Now, that we’re done, he’s got something!

Check out the tour of the improvements in the video below:

[Read more…] about 151 broken things and upgrades (video)
Contact us at customercare@bugeyeguys.com or call (203)-208-0980 Monday - Friday | 8 am - 5 p.m. EST