Apexcarver's Sprite Project

Blows dust off thread

Inching forward... I dont get to work on the car all the time and some of the reason for slow going is due to trying to address that. Well, in a roundabout way... Remember, this is housed at the mother-in-law's house and I live in an apartment an hour away. I have been slow getting parts due to savings goals for (hopefully) getting a house next year.

That being said, I managed to fire off a parts order last night that should include pretty much the bare bones to make this thing run. I am sure I forgot a thing or two, but we will cross those bridges when we get to them.

Where did I leave off?

Oh yeah, what can $20 buy you in spridget parts?
I dont have pictures of everything, but here is the list.
Rear axle
air cleaners
transmission tunnel
Heater pull cable with switch
Disc brake front spindles
fork for clutch master

Rear axle assembly is for a later spridget, I can't put this under the car as later cars use 1/2 elliptical springs, rather than the 1/4 ellipticals that mine uses. BUT, the center section is the same, or rather this has a 3.9 gear to my 4.20, which will give me more legs to go down the road. I wouldnt want to put it under the car anyways, as its kinda rusty. Some point soon I need to hammer out the axles and see what condition the center section is in. (hey, it was pretty much free and a new R&P for these are surprisingly expensive)

I painted the seat tracks, the seat base that was rusty, and the shifter cover.

I heard about this paint from another forum where it was suggested as great for painting rollcages as it is very durable. Only drawback is that it takes something like a week to really harden. Going to be trying this out for much of the interior.

Engine coming along slowly, not too much changing here. I got the coolant passages flushed some and it seems pretty all-right to go.

Between the two of these I will get a good tunnel in place. Removing that sound deadening is a PITA.

Disc brake hubs. Yeah, they are rough. Before use I will have to clean them and have them magnafluxed (mission critical parts!). Might try electrolysis on these. The disc brake swap will happen later. I need a lot more parts for this to happen and I am focusing what money I can put towards the project on making it run. (remember the drums on the car work, well, as well as drums can... lets just say that first autocross is gonna be a lot of fun?)

Test fit of the American Racing wheels, yeah, I only had the scissor jack with me. Its from a car that weighs almost 2x the bugeye and I wasnt getting under it (get off my lawn)

Does this count as hellaflush?

Carbs cleaned and ready for the rebuild kit.

I know that not everyone shares my sickness for buying a new tool given the opportunity, but the new trick for getting undercoat off is the multi-purpose vibratory tool.

What attachment on the tool for undercoat?

Dusterbd13 wrote: What attachment on the tool for undercoat?

I have not tried messing with the different coarseness so I cant tell you if the coarse teeth work better or worse. Mine are towards the finer spacing.

Great for removing glued in windshields also. Maybe not in one piece, but then nothing I have tried has worked for that.

Youtube on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR7vDMUWDt8

After I was done scraping undercoating off my project by hand, I was reminded of a sawzall attachment available at Lowes that basically looks like a spatula that might be helpful. Darn helpful bystanders.

I have one of those vibrational tools and didn't even think of using it to remove undercoating. That's brilliant. Ah well, scraping it off by hand didn't kill me, so I must be stronger.

10,000rpm 4 1/2" grinder with a knotted wire wheel, finish off with mineral spirits or thinner.

jgrewe wrote: 10,000rpm 4 1/2" grinder with a knotted wire wheel, finish off with mineral spirits or thinner.

That is the current process and is 80+ % complete at this point (in the car), I have yet to do the tunnel, and I may have to look into it. That being said, money saved on tools can be spent on making the car go, so I will probably just trudge forward.

So only a little update.

I ordered the parts and had the order laid out to be shipped to where the car is. The invoice I got indicated that all was in order to do as I wished.

The parts arrived at my moms, which was the billing address for this order. This is problematic as getting my parts is either going to entail driving 6 hours round trip, or having my mom ship them to me.

I just sent an email to the Moss reseller I am using (reseller saved a bunch over straight ordering from Moss) basically pointing out his error and requesting that he refund me the amount to have it shipped to the correct address. Arrg. Hate this stuff.

Wow, I have been neglecting this thread...

No, actually, I have been neglecting this build a little bit.

You will remember that the project is housed in my Mother In Law's shed, so I was lucky to be able to get up there once or twice a month to mess with it. Then my mother in law's van started acting up, so I was tinkering with that instead of the Bugeye when I was up there. Then it got really cold. Then my wife and I decided to buy a house...

The dash has been pulled out of the car and I welded a patch into the radio hole of the spare dash. The dash that was in the car had a wood veneer applied and some of the holes were hogged out for non-stock switches. The spare only had a few small additional holes in addition to the radio hole, so it was the better candidate.

Hopefully in the next few weeks I will have a finished and assembled dash ready for the car. I think I am holding on further progress until I can move the whole project to the house I am closing on in late April. Then I might be able to make progress in more than fits and starts.

Right now I am gearing up for moving and its going to be complicated... I have to pack up and move our apartment, which isnt too headachy, I obviously need to move the bugeye as well as some of my wife's furniture from the MIL's, and then I have to move stuff from my mom's two houses (which are 4-5 hours from the new house).

One of my moms houses has the shop , which is half of the basement. It was my grandfathers shop, my uncle did things there, and my moms boyfriend did things there. Thats in addition to housing a LOT of my wrenching for the last 12 years. And its all gotta be gone through as my mom is looking to move in the next year or so. So it will take a lot of my time.

Also at the shop is the Mustang. (yup the one you see to your left. A 1997 Cobra with only 57k miles on it that I have owned since 2002. Most of the later mileage was purely autocrossing) I parked it right about when I graduated college about 4 years ago as I struggled to get a career going, then as I had no secure place to park it. Cleaned it up, dumped some stabilizer in it, and left it to slumber. I started it occasionally for the first year or so, but then the battery lost a cell and could no longer fire it.

Last weekend I went up to wake the beast from its slumber. I changed the oil, put in a fresh battery, and checked all the other fluids. I triggered the impact switch to deny fuel, then cranked it to build oil pressure. Then I reinitialized the fuel system and went for it.

SUCCESS!

Frankly, I am amazed that it could still run on that gas, but run it did. Being that there was snow on the ground, it only moved a car length under its own power outside of just running the engine. I still need tags and insurance anyways. I intend to change the fuel filter and dump 5 gallons of fresh gas in it before driving it anywhere, but it stands ready.

Photo of when the mustang was last out in September of 2011.

The Bugeye project will hit its stride again when it gets rehomed to the new house. I have a heated and airconditioned garage with a 4 post lift coming in a short month and a half.

It would be really dumb to try to get an unproven british car running to drive 100 miles through/around DC after all. (Why does this appeal to me after reading the Sanford thread?) I do have AAA after all...

Great things are going to start happening to me (you) now! Looking forward.

The dash.

Here is a photo from some time back which shows the dash that was in the car when I got it.

It has a wood veneer and what was formerly the ignition combo switch hole was hogged out to accept an extra gauge. I rather want to go back to stock bugeye despite the missus liking the wood veneer.

Well, the car came with a spare dash panel, but it had a radio at some point and 5-6 extra holes for switches that needed to be filled.

I welded a patch in for the radio hole and elected to attach patches to the back of the dash to fill the switch holes instead of welding them, then use filler to bring the surface flush.

The surface of the dash will be under upholstery vinyl, so none of this has to be perfect.

I need to take more pictures, but I added the filler last night and will be sanding it down tonight and maybe getting the spray glue to attach the vinyl.

Hopefully should look more like these examples soon.

Your friends for this job:

And you want to find the good contact cement, the stuff with toluene or whatever it is that kills you to death, cause the new contact cements don't stick worth E36 M3.

Here's where I am at.

Welded for the radio blanking, backed up the switch holes with metal discs and smoothed it all with filler.

As for the car itself, its been like this for a few weeks

I'd recommend some 1/16 closed cell foam prior to vynil. It will hide the imperfections and give a nicer appearance. Also, landau top adhesive is the best adhesive for this. Local vynil top shop or upholstery shop will have all you need.

I tried the thin foam route on mine and it was just a little too much. I think it kept some of the switches from seating in their holes or something like that. Then I tried the stock way and I was surprised how much imperfections showed through(same radio hole repair issue). What I ended up with was a layer of vinyl trimmed to just cover the flat surface of the body of the dash and not onto the bends or edges.

If you aren't matching an interior kit color look for motorcycle seat vinyl. It stretches in all directions and makes the ends of the dash way easier to get smooth. You'll understand when you get to that part of the project I battled for an hour before I looked to see that even stock ones weren't perfect.

I already have some vinyl, my plan is to get it good and hot before gluing to make it more workable. The bondo has been all about making it good to install without padding and I think its solid for that. Any better and I could just paint it and not to vinyl at all.

I do need to get the adhesive yet, and intend to get the nastiest stuff I can, aparrently the really good DAP stuff is illegal in my state though.

I found that some really thin foam hobby board works great to smooth out imperfections on a dash when recovering. I got it a hobby store. It's kinda like construction paper but thicker. Used it under the new vinyl to smooth out the cracks in the dash on my Opel GT.

Back from the dead.

Not much happened on this for about a year. New home distractions and I still havent gotten the car to my new house.

BUT, some progress was recently made.

FINALLY back from the body guy. He had it before I bought the car, I never thought it would take this long.

Need to chat with my friends with trucks and trailers and see when someone is free. I am raring to get working.

Car is going to look somewhat like this.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pw4oroieuhU

But with white rondels on the color I am affectionatly calling "Blarple". (with white roof)

and thrown in just for inspiration...

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8wmhv7Tb59c

Good to see this back on the front burner. Looking forward to seeing progress.

So when are we putting this in?

Sky, not happening on this one.

Bugeyes have too much value for me to want to chop one up. Also, this one is about being a period piece. Any and all new tech must be hidden! Likely running a generator on it and (eventually) a mechanical cable driven tachometer. No Radio...

Thinking about putting pertronix ignition in it for less trouble than points, but that would be hidden.

I want someone to look at the car and not be able to find anything they couldnt have found in pre-1970. (granted, I think my engine is from 1973, btu thats hard to tell)

I would love to get a dirt cheap spridget (non-bugeye! the later cars are less than half the $ than a bugeye), take the motor/trans out, convert to RHD, and drop a sportbike motor in. Then proceed to take as much weight out of it as humanly possible. I think it MAY be possible to get down near 1000lbs, certainly less than 1200lbs if well thought out.

Its a pipe dream though. I want to build a competitive autocross machine before I do that.

If you wanna build one, would be more than happy to help! I think you could do one on a challenge budget. (and it wouldnt take up much garage space! you could do 2 in the footprint of your Mustang!)

This also may be a good place to add, the friend I bought my car from has another bugeye he would be willing to sell if anyone is interested (not in as nice of shape as mine, but not a rustbucket) This one used to be a racecar and has a rollbar.

Just ordered tires. Found Federal sS595 in 185/60/13, set of 4 for $252 shipped.

It was that or $160 per tire before shipping for R888's, which would be fairly pointless on a stock suspension bugeye.

bought from simple tire

When I called this morning to verify their stock, they had 62 tires. I ordered 4, so did a friend... Most places are out of stock.

Damn 13's are hard to find...

Loving the progress on this one.

I went to visit the Bugeye that I restored. I had given it back to the original owner after I finished it. She had a couple of good years of being ferried around before she passed. Sadly it has now sat outside under a tarp for the last two years.