Bugeye Restoration

Screaming, supercharged, 1275, five-speed Bugeye Sprite for sale! Driving video!

April 28, 2023 by bugeyeguy

Now SOLD to Rich in Pennsylvania! Bugeye #387 is on its way to the Keystone State, where it will live in the same neighborhood as Bic!

If this car looks familiar it’s for a good reason! We’ve owned “Shelby” (AN5L 33967) three times before, and the car has never been better. With this car, we have come to know three different great clients, all of whom have become friends of Bugeyeguys, and before her latest visit to Oklahoma for the past year, Shelby enjoyed another round of improvements, including a new Ford five-speed transmission and a new wiring harness.

You’ll see Shelby below on the cover of the September 2013 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotics magazine, right after we prepared the car for Scott, our first Shelby owner. Notice the white wheels… we have just mounted new black and stainless rims on the car, for a new look that we all like best.

“Shelby” featured in Sports & Exotic Cars in 2013. Since then the wheels have been changed multiple times to improve the look and several upgrades have been undertaken for performance.

Since that story was printed, Shelby has been upgraded with leather seats, and a supercharger. We’ve just trimmed the dash bar in matching blue, added new black wheels and 175 tires for a more aggressive look, and now Shelby is pretty much in what we believe is her final form.

If you’ve liked our high-end cars like Gumby and Gray, Shelby is an excellent alternative, with tons of premium features. The 1275 engine and Ford five speed transmission are a wonderful combination especially, when boosted with the Eaton supercharger and new single SU carburetor as shown. You’ll enjoy the driving tour video you see below, taken shortly before the car departed for its last home in the summer of 2022, as well as a sizzle reel of driving highlights above taken just this week!

Currently, Shelby is fit with front disk brakes, a new fuel tank fitted in 2021, and a strong twin-tipped exhaust with a sweet note (as heard in the driving videos).

There is no other Bugeye quite like it, with a custom license plate mount, fender-top seams removed, turn signal housings removed (they’re now integrated into the brake lights and in the grill) and custom chrome roll bar. Shelby is custom car show ready, and a creative interpretation of the original car. She’s cleaner and smoother in every way.

There is a strong market for custom Bugeyes (and stock ones, too). Mild and wild Bugeyes co-exist nicely, and the buyer for this car is someone who wants a performance Bugeye that is extreme eye-candy, with a hot-rodder vibe.

The car was completely restored and painted in Florida in about 2010. We then completed the car for our client Scott in April of 2013. It was an impressive build with new tires, new wheels, an entire new interior with new navy carpet, side panels, door pockets, custom blue leather (not vinyl) seats with white piping, new leather dashboard and my favorite, original Smiths gauges re-screen printed with white bezels to match the car. Scott could have gone with white VDO or other brand gauges, but he chose to keep things British to better complement the car.

Custom one-of-a-kind white gauges compliment the rest of the car very well!

We fully serviced the car at that time, and Scott put 364 miles on this beauty (he has a large collection, so none get driven too much). In November of 2015, we sold this car to Bill who stored the car in the Hamptons, and he too only put a few hundred miles on the car. We got the car back for a third time in 2021, and it was sold to another client, Vernon, in the summer of 2022. He opted to install the Ford five-speed for his needs, which we think was the final missing piece, along with the black wheels, to set this car apart!

If you like show-stopping custom classic cars, this is a great and rare find! Call or email if you’re interested in taking Shelby home!

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That was then, this is now

April 28, 2023 by bugeyeguy

Our latest Super Sprite is now in the garage of the guy below (“Cliff”). It’s a spectacular car and a great new home. But what struck me most about the journey of this car is the journey of the new owner.

When he came to pick up the car, he presented this photo below from the 60s:

We’ve seen this sort of photo before, since many of our customers grew up with “a Bugeye moment” at some point in their life. But for Cliff, what was immediately apparent because of the way he was beaming with this picture in hand (below), is that this photo represents a time when he had little, a moment of life “before.” Before family, before career, before the arc that would define him.

And for Cliff, (and for all of us vicariously), these little cars complete a powerful loop. That was then. I was starting out. Now, I have won some, lost some, and worked hard on the arc of my life.

No ordinary Bugeye Sprite would suffice to commemorate Cliff’s great ride! Thank you, Cliff, and congratulations!

As far as the car is concerned, this is also a special story. We have upgraded this wonderful car even further per Cliff’s request… we’ve added rear disk brakes, red calipers, blacked-out tonneau fittings, a USB charger and a flip-up fuel cap, all to customize Cliff’s Bugeye just a bit more, and to build-out this particular celebration.

Celebrate with us!

Check out the many subtle details that went into “Gray” in the slideshow and walk-around video below, so you can see its final configuration.

We have more cars coming soon that are not yet spoken for; feel free to give us a call if you want us to build your own custom Bugeye, to your unique specs, to complete your story arc or to satisfy your bucket list!

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Feeling bushed

April 21, 2023 by bugeyeguy

I bet your king pins are wiped-out. The Sprite Haynes manual encourages you to squirt-in some grease every 3000 miles, but the original Sprite “glovebox” handbook suggests a 1000 mile interval, and I encourage you to follow that guildline. From what we see in the field, it seems like few people do.

Check out the swivel axle in the video below… this car came for a disk brake conversion and upon disassembly, we were surprised to see a nearly seized bushing on this swivel axle, which required major effort just to swivel.

On the back of each front swivel axle are two grease zerk fittings. These two zerks are used to provide lubricating grease to the king pin bushings, two brass bushings that are pressed into the steering knuckle on which the king pin rides. After long periods of driving without replenishing the grease, the bushings can begin to seize to the king pins, creating galling and pitting on the king pins and shortening their service life.

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Nick’s Tech Tips: Spring has sprung!

April 21, 2023 by bugeyeguy

Below is a video of the rear suspension in an Bugeye that came to us for its Spring tune-up, with the owner complaining of bottoming out in the rear end. It didn’t take long to figure out why.

In the video above, you can see the quarter-elliptical springs clicking together and making noise. You can also see that the spring is quite weak, and can be easily pushed upward, with minimal resistance. This leaf spring has outlived it useful life.

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Nick’s Tech Tips: Probe Problems

April 14, 2023 by bugeyeguy

With warmer temperatures upon us a little early this year, it is paramount this time of year to ensure your cooling system is up to snuff. There are many ways to do this (installing our aluminum radiator and six-blade fan is our favorite upgrade), but it’s also important that you have a decent indicator of how well your cooling system is functioning at any given time.

We’re getting a little warm here… 200 is OK, 185 is preferable, but gauges are often inaccurate

All British sports cars tend to run hot, so a good temperature gauge is important. They’re not always perfectly accurate (you can check accuracy with an IR temp gun), but they at least indicate temperature trends.

Originally on Bugeyes, the probe for the mechanical water temperature gauge, which is a long brass tube filled with ether (of all things), was installed in the side of the radiator. While this is an acceptable location for getting a baseline temperature reading, it doesn’t tell the full story of how hot the engine is getting, which typically runs hotter than the radiator under normal operating load. It would also render the temperature gauge useless if the thermostat were to stick closed, cooking the engine while the radiator (and temperature probe mounted inside it) were slow to report a problem.

The factory location for the temperature port, as equipped on 501.

A relocated temperature port, as found on Grey.

As a result, when possible, the temperature probe should be relocated to a port on the engine, to more accurately relay the temperature of the coolant inside the engine, allowing for better overheating management.

How do you do that? On original Bugeyes with 948 engines, you cannot, as such a port does not exist in the head. However, if your engine has been switched to a 1098 or 1275 from a later Spridget (or if your 948 has had a 1098 head fitted), there is a handy-dandy port drilled right in front of the foremost spark plug towards the thermostat housing!

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Getting your hydraulics lined up

April 7, 2023 by bugeyeguy

We love just about every British sportscar that was built from 1955-1967 (and we’re easily seduced by earlier and later cars too). But given that we are so stuck in the past, we see more systems aging out with each passing year. None of our bits are getting any younger.

This week, brake lines were in focus while working on a car that had been sitting for the past 20 or so years (like a lot of our favorite sportscars). And when the steel brake lines in this particular car fractured the minute we removed them from the vehicle, we had a chance to reflect anew on the (often) fragile fluid link between master cylinder and wheel.

These original steel lines were so fragile, one turn of the wrench fractured them.

The lines above broke at the nipples without persuasion. These are the original lines, and you can see deep pits and thin walls at the location of the fracture. We have talked previously about moisture in the master cylinder… it not only attacks the cylinder bores, but can damage the steel brake lines as well.

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