Bugeye Restoration

Bugeye body restoration

February 16, 2024 by bugeyeguy

If you’ve had a Bugeye in the family for years and it’s due for restoration, here’s how that process begins.

First, you drop off your baby at our headquarters.

We take out all the parts and pieces and media blast-off all the old scale, paint and prior repairs.

All the secrets begin to emerge.

We fix everything, paint it, build it back up to your specs, and viola! New Bugeye!!!

It sounds easy, but takes up to a year to do it right.

*And after… oh dear. Something’s not right here.*

In the case of Jim’s car shown here, we have just blasted the car. You can see what emerges from beneath. An old right rear quarter panel repair was not quite up to code, which made for a very crooked license plate area on this car. Filler hid this problem, now we get a chance to make it right. It would be a lot of work to restore the original opening properly, and we might just take a short cut and weld in patches to make a new USA spec license late depression, similar to what you see on “Shelby” (one of our past cases, shown below). That choice is left to the new owner.

We’ll comb over every inch of the car and weld fillet into each gap as needed so that uniformity, smooth lines and proper strong patches abound. This car also has brazed on front rocker panel patches, which are vulnerable for future blistering under the new paint that’s to come, so we will cut off the fronts of the rockers and weld in new steel patch panels to create the best foundation and repairs with the most longevity.

We sell rockers and other sheet metal pieces, which you can find here.

And we are happy to pick up and restore your Sprite next. Feel free to call!

How to care for the gears inside your Bugeye Sprite gearbox

January 30, 2024 by bugeyeguy

Here’s a video we first posted in 2014… it’s worth revisiting to help preserve Sprite gears worldwide!

Bugeye gear boxes last forever if well cared-for, but many people are heavy handed with their shift levers and grind going into first or gnash going into other gears. A slow hand helps! I like to think that every old gear box I meet draws my shifter into gear rather than me forcing the lever (and potentially creating wear). This is true when driving all old cars. Double clutching also helps on down shifts, and we have other videos that describe how to do this.

In the video above you can see the carnage from sloppy shifting. Fortunately, a rebuilt gearbox for a Sprite is far less expensive than one for a late model car, so even the most smashed gears can be replaced. But with good care, they are very stout and will last the life of the car and beyond!

Dashing

January 26, 2024 by bugeyeguy

There is no more impactful cockpit restoration opportunity than the Sprite dashboard. These come to us in an infinite variety of “flavors”. Most are hand crafted by our former selves, back when we were young and function was all that mattered. I know I made a lot of dumb decisions back in those days (and I suspect I am not alone). Thus, there is a wealth of padded and over-drilled dashboards out there, often full of improvised switches and work-arounds.

Before: though certainly not the worst we have seen, the dash in this Bugeye was padded at some point in its life (stock was un-padded) and had an extra hole added for a battery cut-off switch, which was no longer needed. The radio hole also needed to be welded as it lacked metal support for the vinyl covering that had previously been installed.

This particular dashboard was padded, with a large cut out switch on the dash, and with a couple of extra holes hidden under the padding.

In this series of photos you can see how we restored this client’s dashboard back to stock. It is beautiful. The dash bar above the dash is also properly covered now in black. The entire effect is stunning, and the transformation very successful. Now, this car looks right, and restored to its original glory.

Upon removal of the dash from the car, all of the gauges, cables, and switches were removed, and the weathered old vinyl and thick layer of padding glued to the face was stripped away. This revealed what we needed to fix. Namely, the radio hole needed to be filled (which has already been done in this photo), one hole needed to be filled-in adjacent to the steering wheel, and another needed to be welded and re-drilled for the washer pump.

The backside of the radio hole repair. After all of the holes were repaired on the dash, we sandblasted the entire dash, added a layer of body filler to smooth out any surface imperfections, painted the whole dash black, and carefully installed a brand new vinyl cover.

After restoration, the dashboard got new cables, switches, and knobs. A new washer pump, new heater and washer switches with knobs, and the original ignition switch are installed already; a new turn signal switch, new starter and choke cables, and a new original-face combination gauge and original speedometer, tachometer, and fuel gauge.

The finished product! A combination of new parts, really nice original ones, and a lot of skill and tender loving care have taken this dashboard to the next level! Let us do this to your dashboard. Call us for details or click here!

If you would like your car restored to this level, please give us a call. We’ll be happy to pick it up and bring it to our shop and transform your Bugeye into the car of your dreams, just as we are in the process of accomplishing with this client’s car. Alternatively, if you would like us to restore your dashboard back to its original perfection, please give us a call for more information or click here to view in our catalog!

We also offer similar services for cockpit trim and windshield frames. Click on the photos below to check out each of these services and to get the wheels in motion on your restoration!

Windshield frame and shanchion refinishing service

Flip Flopping Fiberglass

January 26, 2024 by bugeyeguy

We spend a remarkable amount of time working on Bugeye noses. One cannot handle more than 500 Frogeyes without becoming a nose master… none of them fit. All of them need help. All of them have had some form of trauma. We are forever adjusting and refitting them.

The flip forward option is a delightful innovation, especially for our aging lower backs that enjoy the relative ease with which flip-forward noses flip. It’s a lot less work to flip a nose than hoisting one with conventional hinges. And with flip nose conversions come a set of new challenges… frame horns have to be parallel and we are frequently re-aligning those too.

In the pictures here or you see another unique nose challenge. This is a fiberglass nose (on the teal car “Priscilla“) with minimal structure, which made for a very floppy taco shell. We are gifted to have Ken on staff who is a master fabricator, and he constructed a gorgeous inner superstructure to give this droopy nose much more rigidity. In these photos, you can see the initial templates he made for the panels he cut to make a new radiator shroud, thereby adding structural integrity to a nose that was pretty much just flapping in the breeze.

I am beaming to see this innovative repair… we faced a complex challenge to add more rigidity to a wiggly piece of fiberglass in order to better control the nose fit. And now, with Ken’s help, we forged a solution and thus now have the means to fine tune this nose and control its movement. Now, this nose has a fan shroud structure to add much-needed rigidity.

Another Bugeye has now been transformed!

Superb Super Sprite Bugeye build with wire wheel conversion

January 19, 2024 by bugeyeguy

We are building a very special stock-looking Bugeye that is superbly modified, and I wanted to take this opportunity to give you a video tour of some of the nifty upgrades.

This is “Jesse,” a car that was already a top-shelf car, that we are upgrading to the highest level. In particular, we are converting the car from minilight wheels to chrome wire wheels. We now offer a kit to accomplish this properly. We are not fond of the bolt-on kit that we encounter on cars that come through our building, but this new kit is just like the original, with the proper press-on splines. Watch the video below to learn more!

Stay tuned for more Jesse updates, this car is also getting front tube shocks, new Connolly hides and a very fancy sound system!

Looking to convert your bolt-on wheels to wire wheels? Check out our ALL-NEW wire wheel conversion kit by clicking here!

We can transform your Bugeye! Give us a call or shoot us an email to inquire about sending your car to our shop for all the upgrades your heart desires!

How to diagnose bad ignition module on a classic car with upgraded electronic ignition

January 5, 2024 by bugeyeguy

Ignition points can break. They also wear… and as the gap changes, so does the run quality of your precious classic. As a result of these vulnerabilities, we are keen on electronic ignition. We use Pertronix modules to eliminate ignition points altogether, which we have found to be a great drivability and reliability upgrade. In fact, we never even bother with worn bushing distributor bodies on the now 60-something year old distributors and we simply install an entire new distributor, with the electronic module pre-loaded at the factory. You can find that product in our catalog by clicking here. After 404 Bugeye sold as of this writing, that’s been the most effective way for us to guarantee a consistent, recurring, and reliable ignition for these classics.

The pertronix distributor (left) has no wearable parts other than the main shaft of the distributor, other than the traditional points distributor (right), which has points and a condensor that are both consumable parts.

That said, we recently had a call from a client who had no spark and he was wondering if maybe the electronic module was bad in his electronic ignition. Of course, we have limited information about his issue, and there could be any number of problems leading to his car not starting in this particular case, but nonetheless, let’s start with a video that will demonstrate how to properly test your electronic module to determine if that’s the route of your non-running problem.

This information applies to every car, not just Spridgets!

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