59 days to the WCC "06" No heads yet. I'm not too worried yet. I can complete the Alien Resurection in a week. So My friend needed a hood for his Beetle. While I was building my garage I put a really nice one up in the loft. I never put the stairs in to the loft. So the hood was too big to get down through the small access hole I left. One thing lead to another... I had to build a stairway to get to the hood.


Well We got the hood down now anyway.


Then, some of you know Sandy was looking for a summer car to replace the Titan. She doesn't need to drive that big gas sucker all week to work. We missed the So Cal 914 by about 4 hours. We checked out another car in Mich. By then she was over 914's....

She spotted a Bugeye ad, and off we went with the trailer. This is a true Barn Find. The P.O. bought this car as you see it 10 years ago. It was sitting in a wrecking yard with a bunch of Caddy's. He moved to his Barn and never looked in the corner again.

Here's her new ride! 1959 Austin Healey Bugeye, It looks tough but it's all surface rusted. No holes or issues with the pan.

I just bought a Suzuki Swift 16V DOHC engine and a Samuri 5 speed trans. I may run Solexs on it. It's only 1300 cc's. The car will be stripped and sand blasted over the next two weeks. More photos to come.

Sence I Was a young man I have always loved those cars. It was between the

"Bugeye" and a TD, so I got the 914. Nice find.

Very nice. You have my approval.

Congrats Sandy. <---(the closest I could find for a Bugeye smilie)

nice score!

She asked my to take her picture with the car. I think she likes this one.

Here's an update if your interested...

Someone cut the curve off the front and rear of the quarters and rockers. I'm putting them back on. Here's how....

Finshed the right rear. BTW: still no heads, all my fault..

Looking good.

Keep the progress coming.

What kind of rear suspension does that beast have?

archaic

Congrats Sandy!

And nice job there Rich!

Lisa

Assuming it's at all stock, it will have quarter elliptic springs (i.e., one set of leaf springs, cut in half, with the square end bolted to the tub, and the "pointy" end bolted to the axle), which perform all lateral and longitudinal location. Lever-arm shocks. Very simple, with generally awful geometry. Archaic is a good description.

Some of you may have wondered how this is done. Here's a couple more from tonight.

pattern

any reason why someone would do that to the fenders? to get larger tires under it?

Rick, as always, beautiful work. Love your industrial jack stands

Finished the right side, on the the left. This is about 10 hrs of work stretched out over 4 evenings give or take. The repair pieces are butt welded.

rick... why the suzuki motor?

wouldnt the OE motor help with value and resale?

I was reading this thread and thinking about all the MGs that I see around where I live. Comming back to the store the other day I asked Erin if she would like one. I'd always thought she would look great in a little brit sports car.

She turned me down. Flat. I was stunned.

Oh well, maybe when she sees how nice my 914 is gunna be.
(or maybe she sees the mess that my 914 is now....)

Zach

I'm guessing that she might want to actually drive with more than 60HP

I love my MGA but... higways are completely off limits. Crusing at 3500 - 4000 RPM to do 60-65 when your redline is 5200 is not something you want to do for more than a few minutes at a time (especially with a 46 year old never rebuilt motor).

The sierra 5 speed conversion is also a popular conversion for the MG's as well... people sell kits to work with the stock motor.

It isn't so much the 60HP, but the driving aspect, I would imagine. The Suzuki motor doesn't have any vintage Lucas components.

Beautiful car though - I could see how she picked it over a 914.

This car came with a 948 cc motor (I think 40 hp) and a 4 sp trans. The trans was filled with water and is completely seized, and the engine is of unknown condition.

I rebuilt a 5 main 1800 cc for her MGA once. it ran fine but like others said, 55 mph was it. It was unpredictable, and unreliable for her as a daily commuter car. She never drove it, ever! The only time she would go anywhere in it is if I drove her. I have my own cars to drive.

A couple of reasons I picked the Swift motor. First is parts availability.

Second is it looks like a lotus twin cam motor. (staying with the British look anyway)

Third is it has 100 hp. The Samurai 5 speed is a direct bolt on, which gives the car overdrive with a high reving import motor. This should make the car very drivable for weekend trips.

I've since thought about carbs over injection. I'm going to modify the stock intake to fit within the confines of the engine bay and stay with the stock injection. I may move to MS as an easy way to get a tune-able system. This will make it much easier for sandy to start and run it after work.

If your interested I'll post more photos as I work on it. I know it's not a 914 but I havn't found a stateside Healey board with real traffic. And I know some of you guys are as nuts as I am.

You better keep updating the thread! I love reading this stuff. It keeps me intrested in working on my car. :-)

Zach

Ya know all this bashing of Lucas electrics... I have NEVER, EVER had a problem with my MGA. I have driven through horrendous rain storms etc and not one hitch.

Crap my JVC CD player died in the last rain storm but the car never quit.

I don't doubt that there were/are owners who never had problems with their British cars. However in my personal experience, these cars have always been problematic. Growing up, my parents had an MG Miget, and that was frequently having problems. I got my first taste of wrenching on cars from "helping" my Dad out working on that thing. I learned how push starting worked from that car. The top never leaked, but it had plenty of other problems.

Everybody that I know personally who has owned a classic British car at any point in their lives has similar tales of woe, from fires, to receiving shocks when operating switches (in one instance, a brand new Spitfire that had a short in the electric overdrive switch), to leaky windows, carbs that never quite worked right, etc...

But like I said, I don't doubt that some people had perfect experiences. And in spite of the reputations for being trouble, I still think the old Jags, MGs, Healeys, etc look great and I'd love to have one.

I've been working on the Healey. If it ever cools down I'm ready to paint the shell. The bonnet and doors are still in need of work. But if I get the shell in paint the interior, wiring and motor and trans can go in.

Damn Rick... you do amazing body work.

That would have taken me four times as long and would not have looked 1/4 as good.

Stay in touch buddy.

Thanks man, Sandy wants the car this year. (yes dear...) I'm in a time crunch. My job may pull me away at any minute. So I'm jamming to knock it out. I'll probably be gone again for awhile. But not gone...

Rick, I once thought I saw a picture of a 100S in your shop. Missed you guys at the WCC.
:PERMAGRIN: Joe

Here is a nice "Bug" that was at the PIR Historics/WCC06 event.

Yep, I have a 1954 Austin Healey 100-4 project car. I was going to do it stock but I changed my mind. I think I'm going to do a Rover V8.

Dood!

WOW!

What a sharp car!

John

Painted the rear shell today.

looks great. My family has a '60 bugeye thats old english white....original for the most part and unrestored. Great little car. Its on my blog

I am jealous of the 100-4..would love to have one of those.


I need to show thsese pics to my dad...

My mom lived with a dude who had a white one. It was a very cool little car. I see you removed the fender splices on the top of the fenders or at least looks like you did. Nice work and will be alot of fun with 100 HPs.


Their Lotus engines were very unreliable, good choice with the new toy motor.

Rick,

I cannot say on this forum what I do while waiting for my head...suffice to say it is embarassing

Looking good Sandy!

Nice job Rick!

Rick,

this was at the same garage I picked up the Westy from last week.....59 all original ..... needs paint, it's in SE Iowa. The owner was driving it away and it sounded good...

For those interested, Here's an update. I set the Suzuki Swift motor and Samurai 5sp into the Bugeye. No mounts yet. Here are a couple of photos of the intake mod.

In the first photo you can see the intake flange cut off the manifold. The intake is a ram horn design. The ram tubes curled down in the swift. It would not fit into the Bugeye that way. I modified the intake so the ram tubes curl up and the throttle body faces forward.

one more

AWESOME Rick... you are the MAN

Now that the site is back up I have an update coming soon.

Looking forward to the new pics, Rick! I wanna see the welding on that intake.

are you going to use a extrusion type process to clean up the welds on the interior runner sufaces? i still think the seeing the usa from the business end of a paint gun is a good idea.

k

I'm going to Gas weld it. I'm still out of practice. Back in the day that's all I had was torches before mig welders were common. I don't have a tig, so.... I've been practicing off and on for a week.

Nothing as high tec as the extrude hone, more like a die grinder. I would love to be a traveling body shop assistant. But I'm not sure the wife would go for that..

The mounts are done on the Healey and I just received the mandrel bent tubing for the header I need to build. I was going to run the stock exhaust manifold but when I took it off I discovered it was cracked.