Hi All
Since I am in the process of building a Spridget (in this case a 59 Bugeye)
pretty much from scratch, I have been asked by some members of the list to
chronicle this saga. I'm sure that I will encounter a lot of the problems that
are encountered on a day to day basis by the members of the "spridget" list or
at least problems that have been encountered and conquered in the past. I
will be relying on the "spridget" list for a lot of insight and guidance in
this process. Hopefully this will also provide insights for others that are
contemplating doing similar things to their Spridgets. If you don't learn
"How To" do it, maybe at least you will learn "How Not To" do it. All of the
messages on this subject will be titled "Building a Spridget" so those of you
that are not interested can just delete them when they arrive.
I learned of this car through a "friend" and fellow member of the Pebble Beach
Sports Car Club (PBSCC). The car had been setting in a Pacific Grove
California backyard, uncovered and totally exposed to the elements for about
five years. Although the winters here are not as severe as in other parts of
the country, it is damp, and the air is salty so its not like the desert but
its not real bad either. The current owner had purchased the car from a guy
that had raced it back in the late 60's early 70's and who had stored it
inside for most of the in-between years. It had a lot of rust but most of it
was just surface stuff and was not a problem. The real problem with the car
was the Bonnet. The current owner had purchased the car strictly for the
Bonnet and the passenger side door to replace the ones on his MKII. which has
a Bugeye Bonnet. The original Bonnet was near perfect but the one he swapped
it for was a total loss as far as my metal working skills were concerned. The
fender seams where rusted through almost the entire length of both fenders.
The flange on the fenders and the center section were mostly gone. It would
have required someone with a lot of skill and a lot of money on my part to
fix. I bought the car anyway.
The racer had enlarged the slave cylinder access hole and had cut a hole in
the bottom of the driveshaft tunnel to facilitate driveshaft installation. He
had also cut two, two inch square holes, one on each side of the license plate
recess area. It looked like he had installed some kind of lights in them. I
contemplated for a while and decided to keep the enlarged slave cylinder
access hole and the driveshaft tunnel hole looking on them as improvements. I
made some covers out of aluminum and bolted them on to cover the holes but
still allow access for clutch bleeding and driveshaft installation when
required. I made patches and filled the holes in the licensee plate recess.
The car had been totally stripped except for the rust, six layers of paint,
suspension, steering, doors, and Bonnet. The inner fenders on the front had
also been removed (why?). The passenger side door that had been swapped with
the MKII's was in pretty bad shape, the skin was stretched and it would just
flop in or out when touched, and it had a large dent in the front hinge edge
above the top hinge, how this was done I don't know. I found a very good door
at the last Mini Mania Swap meet and it fits pretty well so that problem is
solved. The front and rear suspension was removed and checked for usability.
The only things retained where the front hubs, the rear axle housing, the
differential, and the rear axle shafts. Although I plan to replace the axles
with hardened ones, I will probably use them initially. The next order of
business was removing the old paint, under coating, and 35 years of
accumulated crap.
The tub and doors were taken down to bare metal, top and bottom, inside and
outside. The only place not stripped was the inside of the
transmission/driveshaft tunnel and if anyone has any good ideas (other than
growing longer arms) on how to do that area by hand I would be interested. I
used a combination of paint removal wheels of various types, wire wheels of
various types, paint remover, an electric drill, a Propane torch, various
scrappers, and a siphon type sand blaster. You have not lived until you have
sandblasted the inside of a Bugeye trunk. It took me about three months of
hard labor but I got the entire car down to bare metal. I know there are
easier and probably better ways to do this but they are not nearly as much fun
and do not provide nearly as much satisfaction as doing it by hand. Its very
therapeutic laying on your back scrapping and wire brushing on the bottom of a
Spridget for hours at a time. It gives you a lot of time to contemplate the
vagaries of life and LBC's. The hardest stuff to get off was the undercoating.
I ended up using a propane torch to heat it up and then a putty knife to
scrape it off. After the outer crust of undercoating was removed, paint
remover would dissolve most of the rest and then the wire brush would clean it
up.
There was not as many bad rust spots as you might think. The lower portion of
door hinge post on the drivers side, the pockets behind the rear wheel wells
(found a partially decomposed pine cone in one side), and the trough that runs
across the rear of the Bugeye trunk pan. If your Bugeye has to set outside in
the rain or is driven in the rain keep an eye on this trough, it is a perfect
water retention spot. I drilled drain holes in the new sheet metal after it
was installed. All of these places had to be cut out and replaced along with
the inner fenders on the front. I got the inner fenders from Moss because they
sell them in one piece. Other places that I checked sold them in the two
separate pieces that they consist of. I made my own patches from 20 gauge
sheet metal using a sheet metal nipper. I then used a pair of flanging pliers
to flange the edges of each patch. This works o.k. when you can put the patch
in place from the back but it can be difficult to insert the flange from the
outside so you may not be able to flange all of the edges. I used a spot
welder attachment of my Mity-Mite welder to spot the patches and inner fenders
in place. The spot welder works o.k. as long as there is no air gap between
the two pieces being welded. If there is any air gap at all, it tends to just
burn a hole in the outer piece. After the patches were spot welded, I used a
combination of an arc welder and a gas welder with a #1 tip to weld the seams.
I then used a heavy sanding/grinding wheel (paper backed) in my trusty drill
to grind the welds down to surface level. At this point the dreaded Bondo came
into play. I don't really have a problem with Bondo just the way some people
use it. I used it to smooth the area after welding and grinding.
I have taken some flack over this but I coated the entire floor pan, top and
bottom with POR-15. I have used this stuff in the past and liked it. Others
have told me that after putting it on they could peel it off in large
sections. I used it over bare metal (a lot of it sandblasted) after prepping
the surface with a metal prep also made by the POR-15 company. I had
previously used it on sections of Bugeye #1's floorpan and don't see any
problems with it. I then painted over the POR-15 with a flat black enamel
followed by a coat of rubberized undercoating. At this point the tub is pretty
much finished except for stripping the new passenger door.
More "Building a Spridget" Later
BTW
If anyone on this list lives in the Monterey/Salinas area, or anywhere in the
region for that matter, and is interested in meeting other car nuts let me
know. I am a member of the Pebble Beach Sports Car club and we are always
looking for new members. The PBSCC is one of the oldest sports car clubs in
the United States. It was formed in 1952 and incorporated in 1954 and we
still have at least one member from the 50's. This club started the race
scene in the Monterey area and was instremental in the early years of Laguna
Seca. We are not a British car club, although most of us own British cars.
Car ownership is not a requirement for joining the club. All we ask is that
you love cars as much as the rest of us do. Also in case the "Pebble Beach"
in the name turns you off, it does not refer to the "Pebble Beach" of golf
course fame but to a small beach up the coast near Half Moon Bay.
Larry Miller
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