Coolant Recovery System
To help with water temperature cooling we decided to add a coolant recovery tank. Purchased a tank from Cape International. Installed it on the left front inner fender in the engine compartment. A new clear hose was used to connect the radiator to the coolant tank and the original drain hose was used to provide a line from the coolant tank. The drain line was run through the clips on the side of the radiator.
Coolant Tank
Coolant Tank Mount
Electric windscreen washer
My dad read a technical article by Stu Brennan, an owner of a Sunbeam Tiger, who had converted his hand activated pump windscreen washer to an electric washer. He liked the idea because he put the electric switch in the aluminum pump canister thereby eliminating the need to install an additional switch somewhere. Since the washer in the Tiger is the same as the one in both the Big Healey and the Bugeye he decided to give it a try.
Two items needed to be purchased for the conversion. An electric pump typically used on later Sprites was ordered from Moss Motors. A Home Depot switch was purchased, Gardner-Bender, Push Button, GSW-22, SPST always-off.
The old pump was easily disassembled by un-crimping the lip from around the plastic bottom. The metal is relatively soft, so it unfolds easily. The bottom and the old rubber bellows came right out, leaving only the plunger within the shell of the pump.
Washer Pump Open
Washer pump
To provide enough depth for the switch in the canister a slot was cut in the plastic face plate. The slot also provided space for the switch wires to exit the canister. To provide stability for the switch in the canister and to use as a spacer a circle washer was cut of 1/4” wide plywood that fit tightly in the canister and placed it on the switch secured with double nuts.
New Pump Switch
Washer Pump Modification
Power comes from a switched terminal on the ignition switch, and is connected to the new red wiring through an in-line fuse holder. From the other side of the switch, a new red wire carries power to the white wire on the pump. The “negative“ side – black wire – of the pump is grounded at the mounting bracket.
The pump was secured to the left side of the firewall and the appropriate hoses were connected to the water supply tank, the pump and the two jets.
Pump on Firewall
Now it is Electric!
We have never been very happy with the brakes on the Bugeye. We installed front disc brakes but the pedal travel was way too much and the master cylinder always seemed to leak slightly. We were going to replace the master cylinder with the correct one for the 1098 car, but others suggested that the original 948 MC would work fine if everything else was working properly. Having the rear brakes adjusted properly and using aeroquip stainless steel brake lines were the primary suggestions for brake improvement.
We installed the stainless brake lines, and fitted new green stuff disc brake pads in the front, with new shims also. Purchased and installed new copper alloy brake lines throughout the car. Paul Asgeirsson was a big help on the proper process for adjusting the rear brakes.
Put the springs on the brake shoes from the back plate side BEFORE putting in the adjuster. Lots easier.
To put in the adjusters with the springs in place, just pry down the bottom shoe away from the wheel cylinder with a screwdriver.
Disconnect the parking brake cable from the cylinder brake arm.
Put the drum on over the shoes and put on the 2 drum holding screws. These originally are pozi-drive screws and the phillips head screwdriver just chews them up. Get some new ones that are phillips head. They are 1/4 X 28 X 3/4″ flat head machine screws. Readily available.
Now adjust the brakes up as tight as you can. Press on the brake pedal pretty hard to seat the shoes. Check the shoe adjustment by rotating the drum if you can. If you can tighten up the adjuster nice and snug and back off one click. Do both sides this way. Should be able to rotate the drum OK, but typically not freely.
Hook up the parking brake clevis. If it’s too short, loosen the adjuster inside the car. 5/8″ deep socket and hold the cable with a 1/4″ wrench on the flat spot. Loosen until you can hook up the clevis. Do both sides this way.
Now you need to final adjust the parking brake. Take up the slack on both cables until they are just beginning to affect the rear brakes. Make both cables equal tension. Easy to check when you pull on the handle like you are parking the car.
Now the parking brake handle should only go up about 15 to 20 degrees. Now this is important. Never change the adjustment inside the car again until you reline the rear brakes again.
As the brakes wear, the handle will come up to maybe 45 degrees or so. That’s a signal to readjust the rear brakes. When you do that, the park brake handle will only pull up 15 or 20 degrees again.
Paul also provided some brake adjusters for the rear drums that were in good shape and we used those. New brake shoes were also installed. Speed bleeders were used on the front calipers and the rear wheel cylinders. While working on the rear axle it seemed that the time was right to add new seals and gaskets.
The old pedal box was a mess from leaky brake fluid so the box was pulled, cleaned up and powder coated for a more permanent finish. New gaskets were added to the master cylinder along with new push rods, clevis pins and etc. Also added new aluminum racing pedals to the brake and clutch pedals.
Finally, the system was bled and all the hard work was worthwhile!! Improved brake pedal and now we eagerly await actually putting the car on the road.
Powder Coated Drums
Ugly Pedal Box
Powder Coated Box
Pedal Box Restored
My Dad and I drove to the Virginia International Raceway for the Gold Cup Event. It was a nice day for racing. I was joined by Katherine Lee a friend from UVA.
Leaving The Rugby House
Katherine Lee & Me
Filling Up!
A Colorful Sight!
Planning on attending The British Car Fest in Buckeystown, MD on Sunday the 27th, so we needed to get a few maintenance items taken car of on the Bugeye. We had never reinstalled the wiper motor when we finished restoring the car so that was the first job. We pulled the dash off the car which may not have been required but it did make access much easier. After much trial and error with fitting it was figured out and the motor and wipers were installed and made functional. The sweep doesn’t seem to be sufficiently wide so a little more research is needed to determine how to adjust.
Dash Wiring!
Wiper Box Left
Wiper Box Right
Refurbished Wiper Motor
The brake lights were not working. I connected the two brake switch terminals with a wire and the rear lights functioned, so I determined that the switch was faulty. I put a little brake fluid in the new switch, quickly removed the old one and reinserted the new one. Voila! Brake lights returned.
Dad and I attended Rick Mose’s fourth five year anniversary event for the Sprite. He says that the 2008 event, the Sprite’s 50th anniversary, will be his last. The Spree was held at the Holiday Inn in Grantville, right off I-81. The Spree was attended by John Sprinzel, famous Sprite rallyist and racer, Daniel Stapleton, noted author of the book about modifying Sprites and Midgets for performance, and several Aussies who flew over including Mike Gigante.
Roses at Funkhana
Roses at Rally Start
Our first events on Tuesday afternoon were the Rally School followed by a three hour rally through the Pennsylvania countryside in the rain. With no working wipers!! Great fun- we found almost everything that we were supposed to find.
Wednesday was the Autocross school followed by the autocross at the Penn National Horse Race facility parking lot. It proved to be a great venue. On the first run through, I had the second best time, behind only Frank Clarici in his Speedwell Sprite by one second. Everyone got three runs. My best time was 1:13 – fourth best, but I clipped one cone for a two second penalty. The error knocked me from fourth to seventh. Still a great effort for only my first autocross! I was up against some highly modified racing sprites.
Autocross Lineup
Frank Clarici’s Speedwell
The Competition?
I am Ready
Waiting, Waiting!
Rick Moses
Starting Line
Through the Cones
I am Helmeted & Ready to Go!
On Thursday, I participated in the Funkhana and placed second overall for a ribbon and basket of Hershey candy! Then return to the Penn national for the panoramic group photo of approximately 40 sprites, a midget or two, one big Healey owned by Gary and Edie Anderson, and Clarici’s A40. Following the group photo it was back to the Hotel parking lot for the Popular Show.
The Thursday night closing banquet at the Holiday Inn was wonderful fun. Frank Clarici’s Bugeye nose for a lecturn and three Sprites in the dining room certainly set the ambiance. Following special recognitions and dinner a fun Chinese Auction was held to raise money for the Sprite Cause. Rick Moses and his family did an unbelievable job in organizing everything, to the benefit of all attendees. Best of all Dad and I had a super three days together!
Moses & Sprite Lecturn
Banquet Cars
Stapleton & Rose
John Sprinzel & Me
My Dad and I drove to the Virginia International Raceway for the Gold Cup Event. It was a nice day for racing. I got to see a very nice 100S and also got to drive on the track.
The Price of Admission
Me and My Dreams
At Speed on the VIR Track
I was driving in the countryside near Dayton. Coming back into town I shifted to first gear to accelerate from a stop light only to find that while the motor was running like a sewing machine, the car would not move. The car was towed home. After initially expecting to find a problem with the clutch linkage or the transmission, we discovered the problem was a sheared axle on the driver’s side. Everyone tells you how easy this is to fix, but no one describes that it can be very difficult to get the inch long broken piece of half shaft out of the differential! We got a little help from Jack at Coachworks to remove the broken piece.
Axle in Differential
Sheared Half-shaft
While under the car we also discovered that the rebound straps were about to go, so we replaced them at the same time.
Hardened steel competition axles were ordered from The Winner’s Circle. Expensive – $249 a piece! They should never break again. We decided to use Bill Perry’s (Rivergate) suggestion and applied Form-A-Gasket to the differential and to the axle hub faces rather than using paper. We will need to evaluate how the approach works. We also replaced the brake shoes because when the half shaft broke we discovered oil leaking from hub on the driver’s side.
Waynesboro, VA is only about 30 minutes from my home in Harrisonburg. Dad was involved with events at JMU so I drove down to the Festival and spent the day looking at cars and displaying the Bugeye.
Fall British Car Festival
Anti-sway Bar
After waiting for quite a while for delivery of an anti-sway bar, we installed it with minimal effort. We were somewhat disappointed that the links to the wishbone touched the inner side of wheel when turned to full lock. Called Tom Colby at Speedwell Racing that manufactured the bar to see if we had made an installation mistake. He said, “No, just don’t turn the wheels to full lock position!” Couldn’t believe it because Speedwell Engineering is a very reputable race car prep shop.
Installation instructions were provided by Speedwell. With everything clean, we did a careful visual inspection of the frame rails, anti roll bar mounting pads, and the lower control arms. It is a very good idea to weld the frame rail seams and also weld completely the mounting pads, which are only partially welded by the factory. It is very common to have the lower frame rails tear themselves apart from the heavy cornering forces. With this done, we ran a 5/16 X 24 tap through the mounting pads to insure good clean threads to attach the anti roll bar to the frame. We then installed the bar to the frame.
The bar may be mounted to the frame with the car raised in the air but the rest of the installation must be done within car at its ride height. We slid the Delrin bushes onto the anti roll bar and then mounted the bar using the pillow blocks supplied. We center the anti roll bar and locked down the shaft collars after it was centered. The anti-roll bar should move somewhat freely in order for it to function properly. We then installed a rod-end into one end of the anti-roll bar and attached a corresponding bracket. Then, we swung the bracket up to the lower control arm and positioned it so that the link was vertical. This is where the 3/8 inch bolt holes should be drilled and bolted to the A-arm. Now we did the same to the other side. With the driver in the car the links should be adjusted so that there is no pre-load on them. Finally, we tightened everything and we were ready to go.