Lawrence All British Car Club Lawrence, Kansas March 3, 2015 Join us on Facebook. Lawrence All British Car Club Bug Eyes or Frog Eyes? The Austin-Healey Sprite is a small open sports car that was announced to the press in Monte Carlo by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) on 20 May 1958, just before that year's Monaco Grand Prix. It was intended to be a low-cost model that "a chap could keep in his bike shed", yet be the successor to the sporting versions of the pre-war Austin Seven. The Sprite was designed by the Donald Healey Motor Company, which received a royalty payment from the manufacturers BMC. It first went on sale at a price of £669, using a tuned version of the Austin A-Series engine and as many other components from existing cars as possible to keep costs down. The Sprite was made at the MG sports car factory at Abingdon and it was inevitable that the success of the design would spawn an MG version known as the Midget, reviving a popular pre-war model name. Enthusiasts often refer to Sprites and MG Midgets collectively as "Spridgets." In this month’s issue: • Bug Eyed Sprites • “Boot” Sale Invite • McKenzie’s Bugeye • McKenzie’s Two Pence • British National Meet Info. • Healey/MGA Racing? • Baustian/Holzmeister Tool • Mary’s Minutes • Mini Fuel Cell • The Last Page ! Page 1 Lawrence All British Car Club Lawrence, Kansas March 3, 2015 TheJames Bugeye McKenzie experience... offers forth. too much More offun! his miniPhotos reconstruction. by Bill Fisher ! Page 2 Lawrence All British Car Club Lawrence, Kansas March 3, 2015 More Bugeye views. Photos by Bill Fisher Like miniature Big Mouth Bass just waiting to get You hooked. James McKenzie’s Bugeye in Old English White. New Pres. Charles Linn’s blue Bugeye. ! Page 3 Lawrence All British Car Club Lawrence, Kansas March 3, 2015 New Pres. Charles Linn’s blue Bugeye. McKenzie’s Bugeye story. By James McKenzie A rare stock 948 cc bugeye, 1960 OE white. It has stock drum brakes all around. 155 13" tires. No carpet, ribbed rubber and is very original. Almost all bugeyes have been changed to 1275 engines and disc brakes up front. The 948 is surprisingly quite a good engine. Cruising speed is comfortable at 55 to 60. There are two sets of side curtains, the later aluminum frame with sliding windows and the original windows that are clear plastic that snap over a frame. I did rebuild the seats. The original Dunlop rubber foam was deteriorating and smelled horrible. Also the duct tape repairs was really sticky and going bad. The original interior was all red, someone had spray painted it black. Its mostly back to red, still have to recover the dash. One change I made, the stock mechanical fuel pump got tossed on the shelf. Went to electric, the mechanical pump suffered from vapor lock on a regular basis. After getting stranded numerous times and almost run over several times it became a safety issue. ! Page 4 Lawrence All British Car Club Lawrence, Kansas March 3, 2015 More Bugeye fun! Photos by Bill Fisher ! Page 5 Lawrence All British Car Club Lawrence, Kansas March 3, 2015 ! Page 6 Lawrence All British Car Club Lawrence, Kansas March 3, 2015 James McKenzie offers forth. More of his mini reconstruction. 1962 MG Midget repair. by Jim Baustian. It is agreed, this is a somewhat unusual heading for an article in a club newsletter. It takes on more meaning when it is explained that the owner of this 62 Midget discovered he had a problem. The speedometer in his Midget had quit working. Like most of us who enjoy British sports cars, we often dig in and try to find what happened. His effort quickly identified the problem but a way to fix it was allusive. The item shown in the lower left of the photo below is the speedometer gear and shaft. They are shown in the plastic remains of the mounting. The challenge takes on more significance when it is discovered that replacements for this mounting are not available. The plastic mounting is more complex than a first glance may indicate. Operation of the speedometer depends on power taken from a gear inside the transmission. Rotation off the shaft through the mounting is made possible by the small gear and shaft shown in the photo. The shaft goes through the mounting to the speedometer cable which in turn transmits the motion to the speedometer so that vehicle speed and mileage can be seen. To do all these things the mounting must provide a method of going through the transmission casing to provide the pivot point for the shaft as well as a method of fastening it to the casing while providing a method of sealing to prevent the lubricating oil from leaking out of the gear box. Obviously, the fix will not be simple. The material chosen for the replacement mounting is the one and one eighth inch hexagonal steel bar shown in the upper portion of the photo. A four inch long section of this bar was used as the base. The hex is the correct shape to allow the finished mounting to be fastened into the gear box with a wrench. Careful measurements assured that the remaining changes to this piece would be positioned correctly and in the needed patterns. Then the piece was placed in a machinists lathe to cut these shapes. The turning motion of the lathe and the skill of the machinist have produced the changes shown up to this point. The taper of the left end as well as the threaded portions (18 TPI) have been reproduced exactly. The hex portion is in place for fastening as well as providing a base for a seal between the mounting and the gear box. Another change not shown in the photo is that the interior of the mounting has been bored to accommodate the speedometer drive pinion as well as the required seals. The right end of the mounting is shown unfinished for a reason. Turning raw steel in a lathe demands an absolutely solid grip by the lathe chuck so that the tools used to cut the steel produce the required shape exactly. Up to this point, the work piece has been held directly by the lathe chuck. The unfinished surface shown on the right end must be machined to accommodate the 26 TPI (threads per inch) for fastening the speedometer cable to the mounting but putting them in the chuck would damage them. A two inch diameter round aluminum block was drilled and internally threaded. This will allow the mounting in process to be screwed into this block so that the block can be gripped by the lathe to allow turning the 26 TPI needed on the surface. These two steps are shown in the second photo. At first it would appear to be a great deal of work to replace a plastic mounting, however, the only alternative would be to find a good used replacement from a fifty three year old donor car. Thanks to Dave Holzmeister of Dave’s Foreign Car Repair this 62 Midget will be on the road again! ! Page 7 Lawrence All British Car Club Lawrence, Kansas March 3, 2015 McKenzie’s Mini stuff. 5 gal aluminum fuel cell, 3/4" steel straps that are powder coated. There will be no rust anywhere in this fuel system. Will put in the new fuel pump tomorrow and fuel lines. ! Page 8 Lawrence All British Car Club Lawrence, Kansas March 3, 2015 British Car Parts • British Car Parts • British Car Parts • British Car Parts • British Car Parts 2nd Annual British Multi-Club “Boot Sale” Bring whatever you can haul, sell or trade to our Swap Meet. 301 NW Reo St. Topeka, KS A+ Collision & Restoration (Mark Canadayʼs shop) Saturday March 21st • 9:00 ʻtill 3:00 pm. Bring your British car stuff and enjoy the first day of SPRING! Mark Canaday 785-234-2005 • Bill Fisher 785-760-1747 ! Page 9 Lawrence All British Car Club Lawrence, Kansas March 3, 2015 McKenzie’s 2 Pence Worth... by V.P. James McKenzie Ethanol-blended fuels Ethanol is destructive to fuel systems and to your engine. It absorbs water, which leads to phase separation in the gas tank. That causes problems. Water causes rust and if you look in some of the old gas tanks they are rusty. Ethanol also creates formic acid, which is destructive to cylinder walls,and especially destructive to rod and main bearings. It leads to vapor lock issues with older cars, especially above 90 degrees. Ethanol produces 33% less energy than pure gasoline and lower gas mileage. You can buy special fuel lines now that are expensive but will not dissolve from the ethanol. Do not, I mean do not use Ethanol in lawn mowers, snow blowers, chain saws or any small engines. The fuel lines will go as well as gaskets. They will be very hard to start and after sitting all winter you will have water in the gas tank and ruined gaskets. I will give you an example about how crummy Ethanol is. After Christmas Susan and I drove to Illinois to see her family. We took the new Ford F150 4x4 with Eco-tec turbo engine. The truck is EPA rated at 21 mpg which it will do. We can go the entire way, 500 miles on one tank of gas, but taxes are so high in Illinois on fuel ( they have to have nice prisons for all the ex- governors to live in ) that when I got to the edge of Iowa I decided to fill up with much cheaper fuel at a large truck stop.