1960 Bugeye

[94touring]

Tig up an old pipe with pin holes...yikes. 

[MiniDave]

The metal is solid, it just got nicked or rubbed somehow.....I have a better pic of it....

But just to prove my theory, Ima find the pipe I have and install it and see what it does. No leaks will be proof positive.

[MiniDave]

Found my Mini oil pipe, and as Bruce pointed out the filter housing is different, so it will not work. Plus too and also, it uses a different fitting on the filter housing end. I could use a Mini filter housing and that would have the added benefit of using a spin on filter but like I said.....he wants it to be original as much as possible, so I'll wait and see how his guy does with tigging up the old pipe.

Come to think of it, I may have a Sprite pipe here too....guess I'll go dig some more.

Edit: Found my Sprite pipe, it's the same as a Mini, so I'm dead in the water till I get the original pipe back. Good news is, I now have two pipes that will fit a Mini if I ever need one!

[MiniDave]

Pipe came back this morning, I think he did a good job on it....even gave it a coat of paint and baked it on for an hour! I'll know in a bit when I put it back on and fire that muther up......

[MiniDave]

Well, good news - not so good news.....oil leak is fixed, exhaust is still leaking at the headpipe. I'll take it back apart (have to remove the carbs and intake manifold) and see if I can see where it's leaking from exactly, he offered to make a more robust clamp in his shop - he may end up dong exactly that but first I'll see whether it's come out of alignment or if I can tighten it some more. It's a real mickey mouse clamp anyway, but that's how the factory built them so my feeling is it should work.

I'm really tired of messing with this thing, and of  hitting my head on the damn hood!

[94touring]

That exhaust looks problematic just from the pics.  Good luck with it!

[MPlayle]

The diameter of the pipe flare has to be real close to that of the manifold flange for the clamp to works best.  Sometimes flipping the clamp helps as the notch of the clamp may be "offset" for the pipe flare being slightly wider than the manifold flange.

Also try some of your exhaust sealer on the mating surfaces?

[MiniDave]

I did use the sealer, it's leaking at the split in the clamp. I may have to machine some more off the bell of the pipe to allow the clamp to ride up further.....won't know for sure till I take it apart. It's really frustrating me tho......

[MPlayle]

My Moke uses the same arrangement (although the intake and exhaust are joined) and same clamp.  I guess I got lucky when I assembled the new stuff on mine as it is not leaking there.  I do know I have some minor leaking at the joints underneath.

[MiniDave]

I *think* I got it.

I pulled the carbs off yet again so I could see it clearly, took the clamp off and the pipe is lined up perfectly, so I figure this clamp is just that - a clamp - it doesn't draw the pipes together. So, I put a jack with a block of wood under the pipe and pushed it up hard against the manifold, then put the clamp on and tightened it as much as I could. Reinstalled the carbs and started it and it sounds quiet now. I'll run it some more today to flush out the cooling system and see if it stays quiet, but I think it will. What a PITA!

1st pic I'm pointing to where it was blowing out, 2 nd after the clamp is off the pipe lines up nicely.

[MiniDave]

I ran the engine for about 10 minutes and the exhaust seems to be good now....no leaks that I can find. And the engine seems to run a little cooler now - where it would get up to 200 or so on a long idle (like at a long red light) it only got to 180 - the thermostat setting. Maybe getting all that mud out of the radiator helped? Still more in there tho.....

However................

I went to pull it out of the shop so I could flush the water/mud out of it on the driveway and got the next surprise - no clutch. The master cylinder was empty, so I topped it off and after a bit of pumping I now have pedal again, but where the hell did all the fluid go? I don't see any puddles on the floor.....OTOH, I've never checked it before - still the clutch and brakes were fine before, so it must have a leak somewhere. Damn. Always sumthin with these Brit cars... :-[

[MiniDave]

Well, it's nice to see it's not leaking any oil ....at least from here where it was pouring out.

Since I can't back it out of the shop I've been draining it and refilling it - this is the 5th bucket of this I've gotten out of it so far, and that's after thoroughly cleaning the radiator off the car - which had almost solid mud in it.

These hold more coolant than a Mini - 1 1/2 gallons vs about 1 gallon in a Mini.

[BruceK]

That really does look like mud. Why not try that special flush we've been discussing?  Might be at lot more effective. 

[MiniDave]

Well, I was hoping to finish it this weekend.....but now that may not be possible, depending on what's leaking in they hydraulics.

I also found another oil leak - from the fuel pump block off plate.

and the accelerator cable is frayed........

[MPlayle]

It looks like it is missing the gasket that should be behind the fuel pump block-off plate.

[MiniDave]

The gasket was there, but it did not matter as the plate was too long and was hitting on a boss on the block.

So I cut the bottom off the plate to match the gasket and used some Permaflex gasket sealer on it just in case. 

The last bucket of water I drained out was pretty clean, so I'm calling it good.

The engine starts and runs nicely, so the next thing I need is to find the hydraulic leak......I also need to replace the accelerator cable as it's frayed.

[MiniDave]

Had a terrible thought this am while having my Cheerios.....I wonder if that oil puddle I found was actually coming out of the road draft tube? As is engine blow by?

This car has a big fuzzy felt ring as the front crank seal - never seen one of those before but it would take major modification of the timing cover to put in a regular lip seal, so I didn't do it. But, I wonder if a lot of the oil leakage all over this engine is due to high crankcase pressure? I wouldn't think that an engine with a road draft tube could have high crankcase pressures, since it's a 1/2" tube open to the atmosphere.......and it has a corresponding sized tube on the top of the valve cover.

There was oil on the top of the sump flange right below the fuel pump block off plate, which led me to it, but the road draft tube exits just a few  inches back of there - of ourse it's a lot lower too - but I was running the engine in the same spot while I drained and refilled the water......

I need to find out where all the brake fluid went first - since this car does not have a brake booster it has to be leaking from somewhere....then I can run the engine again and see if I get nother puddle. It's odd that it would leak so much from the fuel pump block off plate anyway as it's so far above the sump level, but then the road draft tube is way above THAT. I think the only way a lot of oil could come out of the road draft tube is if the drain holes around the lifters were blocked, filling that chanber and dripping out of the tube as an overflow of sorts.

All speculation on my part till I get a chance to fire it up again and watch it carefully.

[MiniDave]

More progress on the Bug, I found the brake fluid leak - sort of. It's pissing out of the clutch slave cylinder, I have a new one ready to go on but......(there's always a but with this car- for being so small it's a total PITA to work on parts of it) to get the slave off there's an access panel on the side of the transmission tunnel, held on with two screws, both of which turn like crazy but don't release the panel. I quit for the night......

[Scargo]

Dave,

The slave is accessible thru a rectangular cut-out in the gearbox tunnel on the RH side as you describe, but in my '60, that access hole is covered by a 2"x3" rubber plug exactly like the one on the LH side which gets removed to access the gearbox filler plug. Are you saying the car you are working on does not have this rubber plug?

Although it's a tight squeeze, you can access the two retaining bolts for the slave from under the car.

[MiniDave]

Yes, there is an opening but it has a metal plate over it ostensibly held with two screws. However, on closer inspection I'm thinking the plate is simply attached with silicone sealer. I tried to take the slave off from below but could not get the top bolt all the way out....if that plate comes off the way I think it will I can get a new rubber plug from Vicky Brits.

I'll go after it some more tomorrow after work.

[MiniDave]

More Bugeye woes......as you may remember, I wanted to pull the slave cylinder as it was pissing brake fluid.....or was it?

I tried taking it out from the bottom, but once I wound the top bolt out a ways it trapped my gear wrench between the head and the frame. So I decided to remove the plate in the footwell to see if I could gain better access....HA! Instead of a nice easy to remove rubber plug they had bodged up some sort of sandwich of two plates with some rubbery insulation between and held together with two screws and nuts. They then painted the car so now the two nuts turn with the screws and there is no way to get a wrench or pliers or anything on them - so I got out the angle grinder - off with their heads! Getting the plate out of the way really didn't help. With a good sized prybar I managed to get the engine moved enough to free my wrench, the I backed the bolt out.....and out.....and out....till it hit the frame rail and it's still in there. Because they used this extra stupid long bolt, they had slotted the top hole in the slave cylinder!

Now to the "fun" part, it wasn't the slave leaking brake fluid - they used a solid line between the slave and the body of the car - and of course it fractured that line. So I went to Vicky Brits and bought a new rubber hose for the slave cylinder, only to find when I got it home that it doesn't fit the cylinder....or the line that I would have to attach to it. So, now I'm on a quest to find a brake hose that will fit the cylinder, then I'll need to fab up a way to hook the hard line to the cylinder. I'll also cut the long bolt off and use one that is the appropriate length so the next guy can at least work on the damn thing. Oh, and I did manage to find the right rubber plug for the hole in the transmission tunnel.

Next, the owner wanted to buy a new shift knob - a nice one too - so he asked me what thread size the shaft was - it was the standard 5/16-18 I told him, so he ordered a new knob. When I took the old one off - well the pic tells the story - so I called around my buddies and one had a lever I could have, I picked it up this morning only to discover it was a 3/8 shaft! The good news, it had a really nice wooden shift knob still on it.

This car is going to make me old before my time!

Oh wait, too late - I'm already old..... :-[ ::)

[BruceK]

So the Bugeye has a special lightened racing gearlever, eh?

[MiniDave]

Ridiculous, isn't it?

I think I figured out a work around for the clutch hose, a Spitfire rear brake hose has the right fittings on it, now I have to get my cutoff wheel up in there and cut that monster long bolt in half and get it out, then I can start putting it back together. I noticed the push rod clevis pin didn't have a cotter pin in it either - or any lube on the pivot....sheesh.

[jeff10049]

damn, and this would have been considered a well-restored car by most. See it all the time someone gets a car and can't stop talking about how great it is other than the fact that you have to redo the whole thing.

Not that the owner of this is that way just commenting that the car was probably not what he thought it was or was said to be.

Sometimes I hear about some new shop that's the cats azz and almost feel like I should be jealous of their work and then I get a chance to see the work and realize we do a very good job and never need to be concerned about some hot shot car builder their stuff is always crap under the lipstick.

Like you I like to make a car right not just look good so many nice looking cars are a hacked POS.

[MiniDave]

I know, I thought this car was going to be a good buy (I still think it is, the bones are good at least) but wow I am finding hack after hack, bodge after bodge. The sad part is I know the guy who did the work (well, the assembly anyway) and he's a friend so I can't say anything......he said he got a bare, painted shell - the motor and trans were rebuilt be someone else.

This damn engine is still leaking oil, although not anything like before......it's still dripping out from the bottom of the timing cover even after I had it apart, checked everything and put a new gasket on it. BTW, this timing cover had the strangest oil seal - it looks like a felt donut stuffed into a round hole in the timing cover surrounding the crankshaft....I'm wondering if that could be the problem? I'm thinking I'll find a later style timing cover with the regular seal in it and put that on it - if the nose of the crank is the same size. These 948's seem to be a breed of their own.

It's also leaking out of the transmission - I don't know whether its the rear mainshaft seal or something else as it runs down onto the drain plug(lowest point on the trans) and drips off of there - the plug is tight, even has Teflon tape on it. There is no access so the only way to fix it is pull the motor - I'm not keen on doing that.

I did get the slave all back in - I found a Spitfire rear brake hose that had the right ends on it and made up a hose assembly that would tie into the existing line, I also found a shorter bolt that will go in and out without fouling on the frame - now I just need someone to help me bleed the clutch and brakes (shared master cylinder) and I should be able to drive it - except that it's raining cats and dogs today. I also replaced the crusty rusty pushrod and pin and put a cotter pin in and some grease on the clevis. Sheesh....

I still have some electrical issues to sort out - the new fuel gauge reads full all the time (new sender in the tank and the gauge was refurbished by Nisonger) so the wire going to the sender must be shorted somewhere, and the horn beeps intermittently when driving - same issue I'm betting. You'd think as simple as this wiring is I'd be able to find these problems easily, but I sure haven't found where it could be shorted yet!

My guy has never complained about my bill - if he ever does I'll refer him to those from Jet Motors on the Minis on BaT!  ;D

I have a feeling before I'm all done with this car I will have the motor trans and diff out of it, the motor to go thru and find/fix all the leaks, the trans cause the synchros are weak on 2nd and 3rd and I can put in one of the ribcase transmissions I built for another guy who never used them, and the diff just because he'll want me to go thru it. Besides, at some point he will break a rear axle - these Sprites are really prone to that. Wonder if anyone makes a reasonably priced uprated axle yet?