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Bernie H

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Hello, I have recently bought a bugeye and found this forum as a source for advice, and possibly sympathy. The car is in reasonable shape, some one had worked on it in the past and there appears to be a fair amount of Bondo in what I assume are the usual places.

I grew up in England and spent much of the 1970s nursing an A35 with little money for parts and few tools. I have restored a few vehicles in the last few years, Chevy trucks and Jeeps, and thought it would be interesting to try a Sprite. My children talk darkly of a second childhood.

I am in process of replacing the front drums with discs and a dual master cylinder. It is going fairly smoothly although I had to weld in a new pivot for the passenger side wishbone. From Google searches I see that I have to move the wiper motor. The flexible shaft is in some kind of tube which does not seem amenable to being moved and the shaft itself does not seem to be long enough to be moved. I think that I must be missing something so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Bernie
 
Welcome to the forum, Bernie!

As Dale suggests, the Spriget branch is the place with the experts. Good Luck!
 
Hi Bernie, I'm a Brit as well living in Illinois, but way south of you. Funny how we have a hankering for cars from the homeland. Currently got the 100 being restored, a 77 MGB and a 53 TD. Welcome to the forum.
 
Hi Bernie,

I'm an Aussie living a little North of you in NW Suburbs of Chicago. Actually, my daughter will be going to College at NIU in August, so i will be down in DeKalb from time to time. I have a Bugeye and a Sebring Fastback Sprite build underway, as well as a 100-6 project ! For the Sebring, I moved to a dual line Brake Master from a MK4, because the car is based n a Mk4 '68 Sprite, which also ses a different wiper motor in a different location.

For the disk brakes, unless you really need the dual line setup, your best bet is to stay with the original style Master so you don't need to move the wiper motor. But it needs to be upgraded to 3/4" bore from the original 7/8". In addition, for nice brake balance, you should replace the rear wheel cylinders with Morris Minor wheel cylinders, which are also 3/4" bore. You can find these on eBay or via Gerard's Garage (he has the better quality ones) at https://www.gerardsgarage.com/

Gerard also does a nice upgrade of your original 7/8" Master Cylinder with new sleeved bores and light weight pistons, which are the hard part to find. I have two new Gerard pistons for 3/4" bore that I would like to sell for $40 (half his price), and then he can upgrade your Master to complete the 3/4" setup. I decide not use them because I found 2 original pistons to complete the 3/4"bore Master Cylinder I will use on my Bugeye.

Anyway, back to the wiper motor. I have seen several solutions. One may be to obtain a later model cable and metal tube setup that will provide addition length that would allow it to be moved to the left of the late model Dual Brake Line Master, as shown here on the Sebring.

Another option which I considered for my Bugeye, was to fabricate a bracket to lift the wiper motor up, allowing the dual pipes to run underneath or through the bracket, or alternatively, put it on stilts ! In doing this, the wiper tube length would not need to be changed as there is some rotation ability in the outside tube.

Let me know if want to buy those pistons for a Gerard upgrade!

IMG_0015.jpg

Best Regards
Lew



Bernie H said:
Hello, I have recently bought a bugeye and found this forum as a source for advice, and possibly sympathy. The car is in reasonable shape, some one had worked on it in the past and there appears to be a fair amount of Bondo in what I assume are the usual places.

I grew up in England and spent much of the 1970s nursing an A35 with little money for parts and few tools. I have restored a few vehicles in the last few years, Chevy trucks and Jeeps, and thought it would be interesting to try a Sprite. My children talk darkly of a second childhood.

I am in process of replacing the front drums with discs and a dual master cylinder. It is going fairly smoothly although I had to weld in a new pivot for the passenger side wishbone. From Google searches I see that I have to move the wiper motor. The flexible shaft is in some kind of tube which does not seem amenable to being moved and the shaft itself does not seem to be long enough to be moved. I think that I must be missing something so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Bernie
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