Bugeye Restoration

Bugeye Sprite dashboard choices

December 25, 2020 by bugeyeguy

Your dashboard is the most important piece of art on your classic car. It’s always staring you in the face, so it has to look good. We restore a lot of dashboards, and I have compiled a photo essay below for your enjoyment.

This one came to us with a brush-on dashboard coating.

It’s helpful to have some empathy for Bugeye dashboards. They spent their first forty of so years as strictly utilitarian switch and gauge holders. Many of us are guilty of sinking extra holes for switches or extra gauges over the years. But now that our little cars have become much more precious (and valuable), the original dashboard with everything in the correct original location has become the gold standard on a nicely restored car.

Painted dash with lots of extra switches and a radio blanking plate

There is still room for well-placed accessories with period-correct products and style. But most of the restored dashboards we now make involve welding-up all errant holes and starting with the original configuration and components.

That same dash from the red car above, now removed for weld-up and recovering in the correct vinyl.

Burled walnut. Not original, but elegant. Note Hardura mat set with contrasting white stitching, aluminum dashboard trim (over dashboard) properly covered in new black vinyl, wood steering wheel, cigarette lighter in washer pump hole, new electronic tach and speedo (all upgrades we sell in our catalog, and installed here)

Non-stock gray, but looks great. Missing windshield washer pump (to the right of the heat control), and featuring under dash horn button and choke, but otherwise the correct layout

Navy blue interior with a black dash above, and polished dash trim bar. Below, the same dashboard after recover in navy to match the seats and panels. Dash bar covered correctly, washer pump moved to correct location, extra holes and radio hole welded shut, proper choke and starter cables added, grab handle added. See our catalog if you need any of these pieces.

Above is an original green dashboard and trim bar, sun-faded and missing the grab handle. Below, the same dash and trim bar recovered with the correct green (unfaded) material. Period Smiths ammeter remains between tach and speedo. Aluminum threshold covers added to protect carpet. New leather steering wheel, shift tower covered during service/restoration, to prevent any possibility of scratches.

Here’s the welded and recovered restored green dashboard before it went into the green car above. Below you can see it prepared for installation.

Finally, Gumby’s new custom leather dashboard, with custom accent stitching, door pockets and custom leather seats, June, 2017, after restoration. Hardura mat set with driver-side custom wool heel pad sewn to footwell mat.

How to put your Classic car away for the winter.

December 25, 2020 by bugeyeguy

Don’t do what I did in 2015 (above)… that winter, I drove my Bugeye “Gumby” all winter long (and if you do, make sure to dry off the car before you park it). Of course, I was about to restore the car, so I didn’t care if it was exposed to the elements.

But the first rule is not to put it away. Keep it accessible if you can, so you can take advantage of the occasional warm and dry days that sometimes pop-up. A drive midwinter is the best thing to do to keep your car exercised and the best way to make sure your car is ready for action in the Spring, (as long as the roads are dry and salt free).

Gumby, pre-restoration, February, 2015. Note primer on repaired rockers, A pillar and nose in anticipation of the pending restoration.

Let’s assume that you live in a particularly cold climate where road salt is on the road all winter long and you can’t use the car at all in the winter, even when the sun comes out. In this case, your number one priority is fuel management.

Put the car in storage with a full fuel tank to reduce the size of the air cavity in the tank, where moisture can condense into the fuel. Moisture is a huge issue, and your fuel will attract less moisture if there is no air in the tank (because it is full of fuel).

Ethanol in fuel makes matters worse since it attracts moisture right through your vented Sprite fuel cap. It’s smart to pour in a bottle of alcohol dry gas every spring to get rid of any moisture in the tank. This will reduce the rust that usually form in our fuel tanks and sometimes rusts them through, resulting in a leak. We sell a premium alcohol based dry gas product which you can purchase by clicking here.

Random road test after engine install, 2016

After you fill-up for storage, treat the fuel with Stabilizer (which you can find in our catalog by clicking here). This is essential, because fuel goes bad over time and messes up everything. Stabilizer will keep it fresh through the winter. Always try to burn all the fuel in your tank before you refill, if possible. We have seen quite a few cars that have water at the bottom of their tank with (lighter) fuel on top of the water. So it’s best to burn the old fuel and then refill the tank with fresh fuel. This is hard to do without running out of gas since fuel gauges are so unreliable. But if you only add 1/4 tank every time you fill up, you will never get rid of the old fuel and water that tends to delaminate and lay at the bottom of your tank.

Maiden voyage! One of our “new” Bugeyes on the highway enroute from Connecticut to Atlanta, in a snowstorm, circa 2017.

Next is hydraulic fluid. This is also absorbing water through the vented cap, and will turn black over time due to moisture. Contaminated fluid then pits your master and slave cylinder bores and ruins the seals. I suggest you change your hydraulic fluid every two years to keep the water out. We use Castrol fluid, which you can buy by clicking here. Don’t try to top up your way to cleanliness… you have to get rid of all the old black fluid and replace it with new.

Change your oil at least once a year, no matter how many miles you drive each year (most people don’t do 3000 miles per year in their classic car, which is a smart oil change interval). Water accumulates in your oil too, and can corrode your engine bearings. An oil change will get the water out.

Make sure your car is running 50/50 antifreeze. You can check it with an inexpensive tester available at any auto parts store. A 50/50 blend will keep down corrosion in your cooling system, and also protect your engine from freezing down to about -35 degrees F.

Fill the tires to 30 PSI. They’ll lose pressure every month, and as temperatures drop.

And keep your battery on a trickle charger. We recommend this model from our catalog, which you can find by clicking here. Keep the battery fully charged during storage, to protect the longevity of your battery.

And make sure there are no mice in your garage. Some people love dryer sheets as a repellent. Find a repellent that works for you, or surround your car with traps.

BYON! (bring your own nuts). Assertive mice nest in and around the driver’s seat.

Some people love mothballs, but I can’t stand the smell, so I wouldn’t recommend them. The smell makes driving your car unpleasant in the Spring. But keep in mind that mice love to live in Sprite seats and folded tonneaus, and can do terrible damage so do everything you can to keep them out.

Tonneau for dinner again? (Trashed by mice)

Keep your car warm if possible and certainly dry, on a hard (not dirt) floor. Don’t cover the car if you are keeping it in a wet place, as the cover will keep the water on the paint such that it can’t dry.

A damp, flooding or humid garage is almost as bad as parking outside. Run a dehumidifier if you have to, or your car will grow mildew underneath and inside the closed interior.

Take good care of your car over the winter and it will reward you with readiness in the Spring!

How low can you go?

December 4, 2020 by bugeyeguy

Height matters.

Bugeyes look funny when they have too much ground clearance. Immediately, the tires look odd when they don’t fill the wheel wells with a nice uniform arc.

We set up “Creamsicle” this week for her new home in Georgia, with stock wheels and new tires for the new owner. You should be able to see the roughly three inch gap between the top of the tire and the fender, front and rear. Ground clearance is nice, but this Bugeye looks too proud.

Leaf springs change with time, and coil springs are replaced, upgraded and otherwise altered. It’s hard to know why this particular car came out high at all four corners, but we are happy we have the weapons to change it.

Above you can see the car after our lowering wedges were added below the rear leaf springs. (click here if you need to order rear lowering wedges for your car). Now the rear tires are filling the wheel arches nicely.

Next we lower the front end, which you can see below. We have two lowering kits available, (low, for about one inch lower front end and lower, for about 1.5 inches), so you can choose the final height of your liking. You can order those kits by clicking here. This car required the “lower” kit but the “low” kit is usually sufficient.

Below, the car is ready to depart, and the height looks great, front and rear.

Below, you can see “Doobie”, which we are preparing for departure for a new home in Kentucky. This car is the right height in back but needed to be lowered in the front. Below you can see Doobie as we received it, with the nose too high.

The next photo shows Doobie with the “lower” front lowering kit installed (it needed the most lowering possible) and now the car looks just right. Getting the ride height right can make your car look a lot more like the sports car it was designed to be!

More fun with sheet metal

December 4, 2020 by bugeyeguy

We are making more progress on “Billy” the Bugeye from Kansas City, here for a complete restoration, and we are almost done rebuilding the foundation of the car. Above, you can see the car when it arrived, and it looks pretty good! But once you media-blast these cars, get ready for some serious holes, which you can see in the pictures that follow:

Above you can see a common problem area, where the battery rests up against the firewall. Electrons are flowing, acid is flowing (in 1958 there was no such thing as a maintenance-free battery) and there is pressure and chafing here from the battery hold down pressing the battery against the firewall. Thus, many Bugeyes rust- through in this area.

Below, you can see the firewall patch, and in the next picture, the weld and burnt primer ground-down and filled with self-etching primer, ready for a little filler, primer and then paint.

Below is the right front frame area just under where the oil filter lives. As mentioned in our prior post about this car, dirt can collect in this frame area and can trap water, which, in this case, rusted out the inner skin as shown. Below, you can see the progression of the repair. Motor mount is to the left:

Below, you can see the progression of the repair of the right front footwell/floorpan. Note the rust in the vertical sill to the right and in the kick panel in front, in the first picture, which is repaired in the subsequent pictures.

The front of the rockers is often a trouble spot, that often requires a lot of work. This car is no exception…

Exterior of inner rocker, footwell is behind this sheet metal box

Next, the outer rocker front portion is welded in place. We chose to save a lot of the original rocker and to join old and new at the “A” pilar.

Here’s the quite nasty lower hinge mount in the “A” pilar, hitch is sequentially repaired below. Note the seam for the front rocker panel repair (from the photos above), just below the “A” pilar.

Moving further aft, below you can see the outer floor pan area and spring mount on the passenger side. Sill runs along the bottom of the photo and the “top hat” stringer runs near the top of the photo, fore and aft.

Here’s another view of the same area, this time, looking outboard from the tunnel

Now the patches have been welded in place.

Underside view of the same area, where the rear floor patch is grafted to the original pan

Amazing that a car that looks so good (below) requires this much work! But restoration often of old cars often uncovers past sins. And this car is lucky to have found its way here! Soon the body filling, priming and painting will begin!

National Bugeye Improvement Center,VIDEO!

November 27, 2020 by bugeyeguy

Above is Patrick’s Ashley nose-clad ’59 Bugeye, that we picked up 1300 miles away in Kansas City for a host of improvements. Why would anyone ship their car 1300 miles to have it serviced? Watch the video below to see!

Most of the aging British sports cars we all know and love drive OK. And we put-up with a lot, ranging from non-working fuel gauges to clunks and rattles that could be eradicated if one had the time and/or expertise.

We’re here to change all that… more and more, we are picking up these cars from clients all over the country, and bringing them here for a thorough sort. As I describe in the video, this is a perfectly fine car, but it will be transformed into an exceptional car before it leaves.

Want to transform your car? Call or email to get on our winter schedule. From basic repairs to radical upgrades, we enjoy making every classic sports car sure-footed and spectacular!

The life saver

November 27, 2020 by bugeyeguy

Silver hex nut is brake light switch, on right side of Bugeye engine bay. Life saver is in place in this photo, gripping the brake union so that the switch can be removed…

We had a brake light switch fail on a Bugeye in our shop this week. That’s not a big deal… these switches fail and periodically need replacement (when was the last time you checked yours? If not, this switch is often the culprit). And by the way, there are limited suppliers who make this inexpensive switch, so we may be changing even more of them in the future.

Anyway, back to our car with no brake lights… this repair should be relatively simple, just undo the (switch shown above with two green wires attached) from the union and replace. But in this case, no amount of persuasion would break it free for replacement.

Backside view: Here’s a brass brake union removed from a car to show how the tool grabs the union so you can apply torque to the brake light switch nut

This steel brake light switch had spent the last unknown number of years in its brass union, and the dissimilar metals had fused. Couple that with the single mounting bolt that holds this union to the body of the Frogeye (and many British classic cars) and you have no way to anchor the brass fitting sufficiently to loosen the brake switch. If you apply torque to loosen the brake switch, it winds-up the brake line union, thus bending and stressing all the brake lines. If you do this, you risk bending and/or breaking the brake lines which could result in brake failure.

Enter “The Lifesaver!” This is a simple tool we made that allows you to trap the brass brake union in its jaws (without damaging any of the components) so you can apply the torque where it is needed and liberate the brake light switch. This makes a five minute job a five minute job once again!

We made this tool to get out of a bind in our shop without damaging paint or equipment. You will appreciate it for the same reason, when and if your brake lights fail and you are unable to remove the broken switch to make the repair!

This valuable addition to your tool box is useful for any classic sports car with a single bolt mounting for the brake union. Pictured is our prototype. Our production tools will be laser cut and cleaner, painted black.

To order this new lifesaving tool, click here.

If you need a new brake light switch, click here.

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