Hello,
Well I finally took my bugeye project out for it's first test drive this
weekend. I've owned this car for seven years, but only started actually working
on it about 3.5 years ago. This has been a total ground up restoration which
included having the entire body stripped and dipped. I started out with only a
rolling tub that someone stuck a 1971 1275 and ribcase in. I had to acquire all
other parts (seats, dash gauges ancillaries etc.) over the years, so I almost
view this as a 'kit' car. The only work I didn't perform on this 'restoration'
was the body/paint, and dynamic balancing of the engine. Please bear in mind
that I have NEVER driven a spridget before so I was basically a LBC 'virgin'.
Here are my car's specs:
** '59 bugeye - Green (not leaf, not dark, just 'green')**
1275 with ribcase
3.9 pumpkin
Front disk brakes (cross drilled rotors)
Rear 3/4 dual acting piston rear brakes
Original 7/8" brake/clutch master
All 'new' springs (front/rear)
Poly bushings everywhere (except rear 1/4 spring eyelet)
tires - bridgestone re92's (165/65-13) on stock steel wheels.
dellorto 40 side-draft (36mm venturi's)
Maniflow LCB
RC 40 exhaust system (modified to fit sprite)
mildly ported 12g940 casting head
Kent md266 (fast road) cam
Ignitor ignition in stock distributor
Stock style interior(except for color) tan with leather seats with green piping
Stock gauges including tach drive
Moto-lita steering wheel
Polished aluminum trim
The car starts and runs pretty well, but does seem to hesitate slightly when
you
first hit the throttle. I still need to figure out how to set the idle and
timing properly.
Steering is 'very' responsive although I still haven't set the 'toe-in'
properly.
Clutch requires some muscle but I'll get used to it, and the brakes also
require
more effort than I'm used to, but seem to work fine.
There seemed to be plenty of power, and the engine wanted to rev. freely. I had
a hard time trying to keep myself from over revving, since the engine isn't
broken in yet.
I couldn't get my signal flasher to work when I tested it in the garage, but it
started working fine on the road (probably the vibration), which was cool. The
tach and speedo seemed to be working fine (no bounce), but my fuel gauge is
definitely dead (will post another email related to this).
Took the car for three more drives for a total of 30 miles.
On Sunday, drove it over to a friends' house (another Brian with a '59 green
bugeye project - no kidding) who helped me drill and mount the shoulder points
for my seat belts. Took him out for a drive back to my place, and let him drive
it back to his house (sprite virgin also). On the way back to his house, the
speedometer started howling, quickly pulled over, and unscrewed the cable off
the back and the noise went away (oh-well).
BTW - I weigh ~175, and the friend weighs ~200+ with both of us in the car I
didn't notice and significant reduction in performance, but the car did ride a
lot smoother;-)
Washed the car for the first time last night, and adjusted the headlights. The
only thing left to do is to recover the door pocket assemblies, and install the
door liners. I also plan to take it back into the shop that did the paint, to
'fix' all the chips and scratches I put in it during the assembly process :-(
I want to show it at the Palo-Alto car meet in Sept., hope to see some of you
there....
Oh yeah, the actual driving was... YAHOO!!!
Feels like a go-cart only looks a lot better. I don't know who had the bigger
smile, me or the car ;-)
Thanks everyone for all your advise.
Bryan Vandiver - 59 bugeye ( on the road finally!)
San Jose, CA
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