Congratulations.
Too bad you weren't road worthy a bit sooner, you could've come up for our
tour to Ft. Ross. Both Rick&Carolyn and David "Crash" Ramsey drove their
bugeyes. We had a great time. Began with breakfast and ended after dinner.
Full and fun day.
:-)
At 12:44 PM 8/9/99 -0700, Bryan Vandiver wrote:
>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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