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(if a car is not pictured here, it has been sold)

Keeping up with the Joneses

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The 948 Sprite engine is a delightful little powerplant, and it works just fine for noodling around country roads, or for running up to the grocery store, or for taking the long way home. But it was designed in an era where there was no such thing as a 500 horsepower new car that you could buy from the local car dealer. It was designed when the everyday bloke had some free time, and didn’t have to rush home to check his instagram account. It was designed during a moment in history when 46 horsepower worked just fine.

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Broken things scoreboard

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0 days since broken British car parts

With supply chain issues and pandemic closures, it sometimes feels like the world is broken right now. But we had a jump on everyone else… British classic car world was broken long before the pandemic arrived. Our day is spent with broken things, and our job is to figure out efficient ways to keep everything moving forward nonetheless.

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Bugeye Swan

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I call this display our Rusty Swan Manifesto. 

These are quarter elliptical springs from Greg’s Bugeye, which, as you might remember from last week’s post, were found to be sagging and rusty. Here’s how they look on the floor once Terry extracted them. One great way to make peace with messes like these is to call them art.

We cleaned out the spring pockets, rust-proofed them and loaded in new springs and shims. The photos below show the result. The available springs are all too tall but our wedges fix that issue, so Greg’s car now looks and rides right!

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Everything Sags.

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Notice the height difference in the wheel arches between the drivers side and the passengers side. Driver side is lower front and rear, mostly from the worn driver side leaf spring

Quarter elliptical leaf springs on Mark 1 and 2 Sprites are an integral part of any restoration, and a frequent part of the upgrade work that routinely goes on in our shop. Many of the original springs are fanned out or “exploded.” Road dirt seems to get jammed under each leaf, which contributes to this issue, and can lead to a need for leaf spring replacement.

Add to that the recurring load of (usually) a single driver and a lot of miles over 60 years and you might find a pair of springs like what you see here. In this case, the driver side spring is starting to invert, as you can see in the picture below. This causes the car to sag on the driver side. So the remedy is a new set of leaf springs, (which you can find by clicking here).

This is a worn spring, it is sagging to the right of the arrow, and starts upward at the arrow, with almost an “S” shape to the spring. This is the sagging side

We try to avoid removing the springs because we prefer the ride quality and ride height of the original. But If you want to level a car which is sagging as shown, you have to change the springs and then lower the rear end of the car with our shims (which are sold in our kit).

Bugeye Sprite Video Owner’s Manual… Part 2, weather gear

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Here’s another installment in our Sprite video owner’s manual. In this edition, the focus is weather equipment, which applies to all mark one and two Sprites.

Above is my white Bugeye “Cole” rigged with our red soft top and side curtains, as shown in the video below. This Sprite is my “winter workhorse” (at least when the roads are dry). Meanwhile, my wife has her blue Bugeye “Iris” set-up with an original blue hardtop, so we can use both cars through the winter. Both cars have good working heaters and blowers, which makes a difference too.

We don’t take them out if the roads are salty, but in our region, we enjoy many perfectly good driving days with temperatures in the 30s and even 40s, with dry roads. We used both Bugeyes extensively through this November, for example, and even if a big storm means a break from driving, we’ll often get a rain storm to wash the roads clean once again, for another few mid-winter weeks of salt-free driving. Thus we never have to put the cars “away for the winter” and can keep them exercised periodically all winter long.

Your climate may not be as favorable to such “shoulder seasons,” but if you live in a place that has mild winters, the weather gear shown here can make a big difference and extend your driving season dramatically.

We sell new tops, new side curtains, new top bows, top bags and window bags, all at your site. We also sell fitting templates and fittings in our parts catalog, so you can be sure to get all the fasteners in the right location on your car. There’s no better way to run holiday errands than in your Sprite!

Contact us at customercare@bugeyeguys.com or call (203)-208-0980 Monday - Friday | 8 am - 5 p.m. EST