Note: I want to preface the story with this reflection of why I want to restore this car and let young drivers use it:
My biggest concern about getting into racing was that the other drivers would be hyper-aggressive ‘type-a’ people, which I am not. I couldn’t have been more surprised to literally and figuratively be welcomed into the group with a big, warm hug, and untold amounts of help. We go out and competitively race wheel to wheel, and get back to the paddock as better friends. No yelling, screaming, fights, etc. Share the track, then share a beer and a meal and laughter. It’s the most fun, least dramatic group of men I’ve ever associated with, and we need more humans, especially men, interacting in this way.
We inherited this Austin Healey “Bugeye” Sprite race car from my Father-in-Law, Sam Hamilton. When going through the paperwork I found a 1974 California registration card the listed the owner and address. Because the history of our vintage race cars is part of the fun, I endeavored to track down Arnold or his family and was, much to my surprise, successful.
Arnold bought the car at a Bay-area used car lot in the early 60s. He started with autocross racing as he, over several years, fully race-prepared it. On May 3, 1970 Arnold raced the car for the first time (Note: We later found out that Arnold’s first race was in pre-log book 1967 at Lake Tahoe). Hilariously, the car was written up for having a then-illegal center main bearing strap/reinforcement. I asked Arnold how they found this and will make a video in the coming months that explains it.
After years of racing at famed tracks like Laguna-Seca and Sears Point, Arnold sold the car to a Richard Gilbert in June of 1979. Our attempts to find Mr. Gilbert or his family have not yet been successful. According to the log book, he attended driver’s school the weekends of March 1 and March 15, 1980. The log book does not indicate where, but here are those pages:
February 14, 2025: An observant person just noted that the signature on the left appears to be Bob Bondurant!
The log book shows Mr. Gilbert entered an event called “G.S.I.R.” on April 13, 1980, and that is the last entry. Where the car was or how it was used from 1980 until my Father-in-Law bought it in the mid-2000s remains a mystery. If you have any info, please use email address listed below to contact us.
Update: 60 year veteran racer Stephen Newby informs us that G.S.I.R. stands for Golden State International Raceway, a.k.a Sears Point a.k.a. Sonoma. So we know that Richard Gilbert at least initially kept the car in the Bay area.
We are, as of Fall of 2024, working to restore the car to track-ready condition for the 2025 2026 season (these projects always take longer than I expect). While the body is in excellent shape, it needs a lot of other parts and work: Paint, running gear, suspension, interior, wiring, etc. Arnold is quite excited about his race car returning to the track and we’d like to find a way to get it to Sprite-Midget Challenge race at Laguna-Seca next June get the car on track for the 2026 SOVREN Spring Sprints in May. The car will be painted to Arnold’s original yellow with black stripes and roundels.
As I have my Father-in-Law’s Bugeye racer, this car will be used to allow new, young racers to begin their race career without the expense of buying a car. To help with this goal, we have a GoFundMe page that is accepting financial donations that, with the completion of the car, are used to scholarship rentals for younger drivers. A list of parts we need is here. April 24, 2026: Parts are complete; the car is assembled!.
Thank you:
VTO Wheels: A GORGEOUS set of Retro 4 wheels in black!
John “Nhoj” Alexander, much needed drive shaft
Tony Garmey, re-welding the diff, extremely cool Huffaker oil pan
Jonathan Eilers (son of Arnold!), generous cash donation
Gary Davis, generous cash donation
Corky Russel, donated labor and skill to paint the car!
Brian Volkert, generous cash donation
Lance Lambert, generous cash donation
Gunther Ruppel, generous pricing on used parts
Winner’s Circle (www.spridget.com), discounts on some parts
Brian and Laurie Gray, donated gauge
Jake and Kristi Angel, generous cash donation
ATL, Inc, discounted SP-108 fuel cell
Steve Carlsen, show-car level body work
Every bit helps; even $5 or $10 means a lot and helps. For those able to offer larger donations, we are offering the following perks:
$100: Your name on the dashboard of my car for one live-streamed race and the edited video of that race.
$500: Your name on the dashboard of my car for one entire live-streamed race weekend and the edited video of those races.
$1000: Your name in decal on Arnold’s car for all of its first race season and a personal thank-you on a race live-stream.
As of May 1, 2026, all donations will be used maintain the car in race-ready condition and reduce rental costs for younger drivers. We have already purchased an enclosed trailer for the car and have begun interior and engine bay painting. May 1, 2026: The restoration is complete!
To donate parts please contact us at this email address:
Some photos from the start of the restoration. We will update with more photos and video as the project progresses.
January 18-19, 2025 Update
Rod and Owen visited from Victoria, BC for the SOVREN Annual General Meeting (awards banquet). We happily headed into the garage on Saturday and Sunday morning and got some work done, primarily cutting out and replacing the footwell floors, long ago hastily and poorly repaired. We also cleaned and repainted the steering column, removed the old fuel tank (we’ll install a fuel cell), and inspected the rest of the underside of the car.
Short update, February 8, 2025
The engine bay and front half of the underside of the car are as cleaned up as they can be with the steering rack and suspension in. Today I installed the refurbed steering column with the quick release steering wheel hub, put the doors back on, and took it off jack stands: It goes to Goodman Racing next Friday for an upgrade to the roll cage. My car, #12, will go on the lift and be the focus until it’s ready for our first race in May. That list got much easier for me thanks to some key help from Stephen Newby.
It’s going to be a push to get the Arnold car ready for the May race, but not impossible. Send us good vibes for low complication and plenty of energy to get it to grid on May 2nd.
February 17, 2025
The car came back from ace fabricator Dean on Saturday with door bars, a knee bar, and footwell bracing installed. It’s now a safer, stiffer race car.
May 12, 2025
While progress isn’t as fast as we’d all like, there is progress. Yesterday the car was picked up from Steve Carlsen, who generously donated his bodywork skills to repair the rear deck on the car, which was hacked up long ago to try to make more room for a seat. After a few superfluous holes get filled and a little a-pillar repair the car will go to SOVREN legend Corky Russell for paint. THANK YOU, Steve!!
July 10, 2025 Update
Once again, Rod and Owen stayed over after Historics and we spent a couple days working on the car. We’re deep into paint prep now, smoothing out 65 years of dents and divots and warps before final primer and delivery of the car to Corky for paint.
Coincidentally, Arnold himself reach out on July 7 and sent a couple photos of himself at Laguna Seca and one of the car in about 1966.
August 11, 2025
Arnold sent over another photo, this one from Laguna Seca in June of 1968.
September 12, 2025
We reached a milestone this week. With help from Rod, Brian, and Sam the body is prepped for paint and loaded on the trailer. The bonnet is currently at a local powder coat shop for media blasting. Once it’s done we’ll drop both off with Corky, a long-time SOVREN member, who has generously donated painting labor (and skill). The car should be back to Arnold’s yellow in the next photos we post!
Brian works the rear fenders while Sam focuses on the rocker panels. September, 2025.
September 17, 2025
After some unexpected but unsurprising bonnet repair, the car was dropped off at Corky’s shop for paint today. After some tribulation, we are going with an original Bugeye color: Primrose Yellow. Arnold’s racing stripes, roundels, and some of the decals will be reproduced as well.
Holes in the upper bonnet near the right hinge.
November 10, 2025
Where did those two months go?? We’ve made some progress on the car: The new exterior paint is color sanded, cut and buffed. No stripes or hardware yet, but that will get done, including Arnold’s iconic red decal.
Next up is to get the car on jack stands, remove the front and rear suspension, axle housing, steering rack, etc. and finish the engine bay and underbody paint. The rear shocks will go out for race build, the old rear springs will get tossed for *new* quarter-elliptic race springs (thank you Rod “The Oracle” Duncan for sourcing those!), spray the cage black, touch up the interior paint, then start putting it all back together!
November 12, 2025
After all these years, the car is finally fully stripped down. Last night the front suspension and steer rack, and rear axle and suspension came out of the car. It went very smoothly, with just one broken bolt in a throw-away part. Along the way I found some nice surprises, including double-bearing rear hubs and a fine welded 4.22 diff. Next up us getting everything cleaned up: Steering rack, rear axle housing, front springs, the rest of the underside and engine bay. The front hubs are too far gone to reuse for racing and will get replaced. Once everything is clean and painted we can start reassembly, including the new rear springs.
November 17, 2025
After two full days of sanding and cleaning with help from five people, the underside and lower engine bay is clean and ready to paint. Holding an angle grinder over your head for three hours is equally exhausting and filth-ifying.
November 23, 2025
After an epic weekend of grinding, wire-wheeling, sanding, scraping and all manner of cleaning with lots of help from Brian, Aiden, Sam, Jonathan, and Clete, I was able to complete the paint on the underbody and engine bay, and even mask (takes FOREVER) and spray the roll cage this weekend. It’s starting to look like a proper vintage race car now.
November 24, 2025
Arnold found and sent another photo of the car today. He thinks it’s from about 1972. Racing was different then: Production-class cars were often street-legal and driven to/from the track rather than being trailered.
December 8, 2025
One Step Forward, One Step Backward
There is a project on this car that I’ve been dreading and procrastinating about. At some point the front of this car took a substantial diagonal hit. Judging from the gobs of stick weld, the right-hand frame horn was ripped nearly or entirely off the car. When it was repaired, it was left with enough twist that the sway bar mounts were likely to bind and getting the bonnet aligned would have been difficult. It needed to be de-twisted.
On top of that, the car was setup with the flimsy factory sway bar mounts…essentially small threaded blocked tack welded to the 18 gauge underside skin of the horns.
My fabrication skills and tools are meager and this seemed complicated. Thankfully I got a bit of direction from Matt Stoffregen and some smart ideas from Jonathan McTaggart. I got the horn straight enough and got the bottom skins peeled off (with the help of a spot weld drill bit and a breaker. Next up is fabricating a new piece of steel that will cover the entire underside of the area, not just the horns. This will add strength and force more air through the radiator.
So that was the step back: The horns and surrounding area were clean and painted and now they are clean and unpainted and incomplete.
Moving forward the first few parts were bolted back onto the car. Okay, it was just ten bolts and three parts, the footwell clutch guard and the trailing arm/shock brackets. But, to bludgeon a phrase, a journey of 1000 bolts starts with one nut. And I’m that nut.
Some photos for you…
December 8…big day of updates here. Here are Arnold’s two log books!
And lastly for today…a couple new photos Arnold sent this morning, from his Sears Point race in 1973.
December 22, 2025
It’s a bit of a quiet period in the garage as we enjoy the holidays with family and friends. I’m getting parts and knowledge lined up to go WOT on assembling the car in January. In the meantime, we have some additional photos that Arnold himself sent along. Enjoy!
Here is Arnold’s recollection of the weekend:
The car still had drum brakes on the front. I had drilled out the rivets from the linings, expecting that the bonding would be sufficient. It was not. During the race the lining on one side separated and crumbled.
I didn’t know if there had been a hydraulic failure or just what had happened. I just knew that the pedal was going LOTS further down. I finished using the handbrake before turns. An H Prod car ahead of me DNFed and I think I won!
I can tell you from direct experience, a brake failure during a race is profoundly disorienting and unnerving. I cannot imagine racing with only a handbrake!
December 29, 2025
The holiday break is over for me! I got two solid days of work in on the Arnold car last weekend.
Saturday I focused on the mount for the fuel cell. The cell that ATL sold me at a discount because of the nature of this project (thank you, ATL!) is about 3/4″ too tall to fit under the horizontal cage bar under the rear cowl. After a lot of deliberation about options, I chose the more difficult thing now for a lot less hassle in the future: Design and have a pan fabbed, cut a hole in the underside of the car, and bolt the pan under the car.
I was able to get the pan welded, fabricate the brackets, cut the hole in the car, weld in the bolts, and test fit the pan before priming it and the brackets. Yay!
Sunday I turned my focus to the front frame horns. The right one had been hit and fixed at one point, but it was still twisted. I was concerned about the amount of twist causing the sway bar to bind and also about the integrity of the 18 gauge skins spot-welded to the bottom of the horns at the factory…they just weren’t designed for the forces exerted via the sway bar mounts during racing. I’d previously drilled out the spot welds and pried off the skins. On Sunday I worked a bit more on the twist and bends and fabricated a full plate that will span both horns and the space between them. This will make the area stronger and stiffer, and force more air through the radiator.
That plate had to have the sway bar mounts reattached in the right locations, be fettled to fit my imprecise skin removal and the weld repair on the right side, and get a drain hole added to let coolant out when draining the radiator. It took me most of the day.
January 7th, 2026 Update
Happy New Year! I took a much-needed four day weekend, Jan 1-4 and was able to get a lot done on the car (though it may not look like a lot yet).
Aside from a cover for the parking brake opening in the transmission tunnel, which I totally missed/forgot to make, the cleaning, grinding, welding, priming, and painting is DONE. Whew. The fuel cell is mounted in the pan and I’ve test-fit it to the body. I installed a vent and made an AN hose line for it. I started putting the front and rear hubs together, including installing the bearings and wheel studs, but found that I’m short one set of races for the front. Drat. I cleaned up the shock mount bolts, but wasn’t happy with them, went out Monday and got new grade 8 bolts. I inspected the steering rack and replaced the boots and ends. Still have to figure out how to get the heavy oil into it…the Moss boots are, uh, not really right. I cleaned, filled, primed, and sprayed the cockpit surround trim. It doesn’t make the car faster, but it will look nice.
The finished fuel cell pan fitted with the cell in it for the first time. I later patched the OEM gas tank filler neck hole:
Primed cockpit trim has dents repaired with glazing putty:
Not sure about these Moss tie rod boots. I had to trim them and they are stretched quite a bit to fit, on both ends:
Finished rack, aside from oil. The boots are so tight I can’t get the can nipple past to fill it:
These strips insulate the steel rack from its aluminum mounting brackets. Galvanic cell begone! I got very lucky with my eyeball of the correct length:
Three complete hubs, one awaiting outer tapered bearing races:
And a recent video:
January 12, 2026
Last Saturday was SOVREN’s annual banquet and I was on the hook for the Powerpoint/AV stuff, so no work on the car. But Sunday was another story. The most noticeable progress was that I cut a hole in the freshly-painted rear deck for the fuel filler neck. This was a bit scary, as incorrect placement would have caused a lot of work to fix. Happily, the hole size and placement were correct and the filler neck from Newby Racing was just what we needed. I test fit everything and was thinking the grommet and neck were final-installed, then I remembered they need to come back out to put the stripes on the car. I guess it’s time to order the stripes!
Then I dove into some less visible but equally important tasks: Cut down and install the rear and upper bump stops, and install the one front shock arm bump stop I had (the second delivers today). The latter was a tedious; the material is quite hard and resisted squeezing down to the hole, even after I broke out the heat gun. I finally slit the ‘mushroom cap’ so it would squish together more easily and was able to get it installed. You look at something like that and don’t think twice about it, but it took 30 minutes to get where it goes. Hopefully the second one is faster.
With the adjustable-camber a-arms we use in front, the kingpin noses have to be rounded off, so I got that done.
I bolted into place the front and rear shocks. The brand new grade-8 bolts I got for the fronts bottomed out on their threads despite being identical in overall and thread length to the ones I took out (I mixture of grade 8 and 5, and some without any marking at all). I was perplexed for a moment and then I remembered that while disassembling we’d found a stack of washers under each shock bolt location…another way to adjust camber on these cars without an designed way to do so. Absent those washers the bolts were too long. THANKFULLY I had the correct length bolts.
The rear quarter-elliptic springs are held to the body with very strong, special U-bolts. I cleaned them up and chased the threads. The bolts I’m reusing for the rear control arms and spring to axle bushings also got cleaned up.
With the switch from cut-down, flattened 15-leaf stock springs to purpose built 4-leaf springs, those special U-bolts are too long. There are several ways to address this, but I chose to make some spacers for the top of the springs. With limited shop tools and raw materials, this meant cutting two strips of 1/4″ steel for each side, welding them together, then drilling a pilot hole with my largest bit: 1/2″. The bolts themselves are 1/2″, but the top (bottom of the U) area is flattened to fit snugly against the spring stack. This means the material is less than 1/2″ in one direction, and more in the other. So I spent a long time with Mr. Angle Grinder and Mrs. Right Angle Die Grinder to get the notches deep and wide enough. It would have been 15 minutes with a mill…
So my excitement about the end of grinding, cleaning, and painting was premature…the truth about it is that with these cars, especially racing them, there is *always* more cleaning, grinding, and painting to come.
January 16, 2026
It’s all custom.
Drill a hole in the center of the rear deck, cut a hole in the floor of the back end. Pan for the fuel cell. Last night was cutting down camber adjustment shims for modified 4x4s to work as rear lowering shims. Slot the body-side of the motor mounts for easier in/out, touch up the paint on them (yes, there will ALWAYS be more painting), then the fun part: Test fit the new (custom) rear quarter-elliptic springs for the first time, with the top spacers and the lowering shims. Oh but wait…the beefy grade 8 washers I got for the U-bolts needed to be…yep: customized.
January 19, 2026
Surprise! Things take longer than expected and I don’t reach my very ambitious stretch goal.
The stretch goal was to have the car back on its wheels over the weekend. Even for me, this was very optimistic, but what the heck…it’s a fun milestone to chase.
The weekend started with front and rear shocks and the front a-arms in the car. Saturday I started on the rear, reinstalling the rear springs (after a test-fit), and discovering that I purchased new bolts for the front end of them (in the spring box/perch) that were too long; I measured what was there and bought new. I didn’t consider that the car came to me with cut-down stock 12-leaf stock springs and it now has four-leaf race springs. There is no source for grade 8 bolts on weekend reasonably close, so I got the tap and die set out and extended the threads on what I had.
Mid-day I turned my attention to a project for a race buddy: Installing my baffle kit in one of his oil pans. My setup is still in the state where I’m refining parts and procedures, so this took a bit. Spot welding the mounting tabs was faster than using the MIG and switching to rivnuts means I can include bolts with safety-wire holes in the kit.
Back at the Arnold car, I hung the rear suspension, axle housing, and attached the shocks and trailing arms. Having not done this before it…yep…took a while. I also painted (yeah, still painting) the 4.22 diff that Tony Garmey generously re-welded for the project, the special (Huffaker or Speedwell) oil pan he donated, the coil bracket, and something else I now can’t remember.
Sunday morning I woke up excited…still aimed at getting the car back to being a roller. I got the backing plates on the axle flanges, then wrestled for entirely too long with the spring washers that come with them. The short of it is that they have to get squished too much to put on, to the point of deformation. They are either shitty spring material, or the wheel cylinders have the slot for them in the wrong place, or both. On top of that, this set obstructed the bleed screw. In the end I used circlip, with another, slightly larger one as a sort of washer under it. Gave a nice, snug fit.
Over that hump the rest went quickly: Shoes drilled for relocated springs and mounted, hubs, already assembled, on. Then we hopped in my wife’s Bugeye to go pick up the drums, reamed for the 7/16 wheel studs we run.
In the final stretch, I have the axle flange gasket on and discover I’d forgotten something: To get the stud holes in the axles reamed. D’oh. That was full stop on the rear.
I moved to the front of the car, where I got one swivel axle hung on one side and the other prepped with the kingpin installed. I ran out of gas at 10:00 PM.
As I shifted over the front end of the car, which was disassembled months ago, I was able to find all the fasteners and other bits, including the special ones like the trunnions and trunnion bolts. I wouldn’t give my organizational system an A, but I feel very grateful to arrive at Monday not panic-ordering fasteners.
February 2, 2026
Whew. Where to start… The car still isn’t on its wheels. Part of this is because I decided it will be easier to plumb (brakes, clutch) without the wheels in the way, and part is because there is a geometry issue on the left front. The caliper binds on the rotor when it’s bolted on. I tried the caliper that was on the car when it came up from Tucson and it was worse. I think the stub axle is just slightly bent.
Other things are moving along. I spent a good bit of time last week on the plumbing design, including a bill of materials (so many hose ends and fasteners!). The week before it was a wiring diagram so I could get my head around what’s needed for that. Last Friday I ordered wire, fittings, hose, brackets, plus fun things like the windscreen, oil cooler, remote oil filter stand, the fuel pressure gauge, the stripes and roundels, etc.
Meanwhile, in the garage I had a limited weekend followed by a very full weekend. The rear end is assembled and the drums are on. The brakes need to be adjusted and the axle needs to be trued up. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to put a short block in the car, level the face of the block, and then make the diff flange plumb to it, or hook everything up, make the driveshaft level, and then make the diff flange plumb.
The right front is done, with new Hawk Blue pads installed, except tightening down the tie-rod end nut and grinding it, and drilling and pinning it and the kingpin top nut.
I went through the big bin of gauges we inherited and discovered that none of the nice Smiths dual water temp/oil pressure gauges work. But then I found a shop in the U.S. that repairs them beautifully. We’ll send some out this week to get fixed up.
I found two Smiths tachs, an 8000 RPM and a 10,000 RPM. The 8k RVI (induction) tach will get a modern circuit board from Clocks and Classics that replaces all of the 60 year old bits (the capacitors are prone to failure) and it will work with the modern electronic distributors we run.
There’s still some fab and painting and cleaning going on, too. I cut and primed the front and rear turn signal block-offs and a bracket to relocate the rear brake line too to the top of the diff, which makes changing diffs easier.
Also went through the three dashes we have and ended up choosing the one that was on the car…Arnold’s dash. It got cleaned up and primed, and will get re-faced with aluminum so we can put the gauges where we want them.
But the most fun news is that the headlight trims are on the bonnet, and the bonnet is on the car. This wasn’t without challenges. Frankly, the Moss replacement chrome trim rings are just too small and won’t go on without a lot of screwing around.
The car pitched me a knuckleball when I went to attach the front bonnet mount flanges. One of the captive nuts on the left side broke loose inside the frame horn. Yep, inside the frame horn that had the bottom skin off so the nut would have been really easy to repair…if I had noticed it was hanging on by a thread. A bit of fiddling and a new nut and soon enough it was welded up, primed, and the bracket on.
Setting the bonnet on the car, with all the rubber bump stops installed, turning the pins to latch it, and tilting it up was the highlight of the weekend, for sure. The center striping showed up at about 9:00 PM, which was right after I called it quits after a twelve hour day in the garage. Look for stripes and a bonnet roundel on the car soon!
February 9, 2026
It was a short weekend of work, as I hung out with my buddies at the Pacific Raceways swap meet on Saturday and finished taking down Christmas (yeah, we leave some of it up for a long time) Saturday morning. But I hit the garage on Saturday afternoon and was out there for a few hours on Sunday, too.
Parts have rolled in over the last week: A bunch of AN fittings and line I need for fuel and oil. A fuel pressure regulator and gauge. Some really nice looking Setrab kit: Oil cooler and remote filter stand (plus a take-off for a race motor I have that’s built on a Marina block). Stephen kindly made up an oil return fitting, so that’s off the list now. Oh, and box of wire in a rainbow of colors.
So what did I get done last weekend? I trimmed and painted the 4 degree lowering shims, and it seems pretty clear that the 6 degree shims are too much for these quarter-elliptic race springs we’re testing.
I also made, painted, and installed the rear brake tee relocation bracket and a body mount for the other end of the flex line. With that done I was able to fabricate and install the hard lines from the tee to the rear brake cylinders. This was my first time bending/forming NiCopp line. Unsurprisingly the second one turned out better, though both are fully serviceable.
Sunday afternoon and evening I turned my attention to the dashboard. Previously I chose one, cleaned it up, and primed it. It happened to be the one that came out of the car and it had really been holed-up over the years. To clean it up and also make wiring more accessible, I fabricated new face for it out of aluminum. It will bolt onto the original dash, but will easily tip forward and down, allowing full access behind. Getting a template made for this was time-consuming, but now I have one that I can use in the future. Once the new face was made and bolts holes drilled, I cut out a lot of the face of the old dash; it’s not needed, and resprayed it. It was a lot of tracing, cutting, grinding, cutting, welding, drilling, grinding, and then a lot of cleanup.
Rear brake hard lines secured to the axle housing.
February 16, 2026
Nope, not on its wheels yet. Waiting for a left front swivel axle to finish that side.
But lots got done last weekend, especially on a 13 hour day in the garage on Sunday.
Saturday started with installing a “Unitacho” circuit board in an original Smiths RVI-type 8000 RPM tach. The I in RVI stands for “impulse”; these tachs use current flow through the wire from the ignition switch to the coil to induce current in an internal coil. That current drives the tach movement. They don’t work well or at all with electronic distributors like Pertronix or 123Ignition. And 60+ year old electronics, especially capacitors, often don’t work at all. It’s a neat little setup that eliminates all of the internal electronics, can be calibrated, and can be set to work with 4, 6, or 8 cylinder engines. Unfortunately, the little slip of paper included with it says to look online for calibration directions, online has only links to YouTube videos, and the calibration video says to look in the included directions for setting the ignition type. I cleaned the lens and replaced the crusty old glass-to-bezel seal and set it aside for now.
After that I went about fitting the rear sway bar. More instruction challenges as it came with parts that weren’t in the 70s-era instruction sheet and was missing bolts and washers (thankfully I noticed this before the weekend and got new grade 8 yellow zinc fasteners for all of it). I felt a bit sad to be drilling new holes in the car after spending so much time and energy filling, grinding, and painting holes, but this is the way.
I opted to drill a 3/8″ hole in the brackets welded to the axle housing (where the shock links go) rather than using the included exhaust clamps around the axle housing. This seemed like a little more work but less prone to problems later. The install was fiddly and every time I drill into the body I seem to hit a flange or extra thicknesses of steel or something. And my dill bit set is very tired. I have a nice new set ordered, doesn’t arrive until later this week.
With the sway bar done I finally turned my attention to some wiring. I opened the boxes for the tail lights and LED conversions and promptly discovered that the MOSS LED tail lights for Bugeyes don’t fit inside the lenses. No. Way. I had to resort to using a Dremel to grind down the width until they fit. I used to feel frustrated when things I thought would take two minutes took an hour, but I know know that this is also the way, most of time. Because this LED conversion wants the bolts that holding the housing to the car to pass through the circuit boards too, the bolts I had were too short. So off to the hardware store on a weekend for four bolts. At least I thought ahead a bit and got a few other things I thought I might need for work coming up.
With the tail lights mounted (they look so nice!), I availed myself of the huge benefit of the hole I cut in the back of the car for the fuel cell: Instead of painfully laying in the back of the car from the cockpit, I comfortable stood with my head and hands in the hole and got busy wiring.
Everyone has an opinion about wiring cars, especially race cars. After listening to a lot of it, I decided to use 14 gauge stranded solid copper wire for most of it. I wanted to use tinned copper wire, but the process of getting it was too tedious. Anyway, I’m soldering connections, and using good quality shrink tube. For the ends at the fuse box I’m using print-on white Dymo shink tube for labeling. I’ve had more than enough head-scratching over the bodged wiring in the #12 car (it will get re-wired next winter). The wire has a nice, thick sheath, but I also opted to further protect it. After a good bit of poking around, I chose this loom product because it seemed durable, flexible, and because it’s split, it’s easy to have wires join or leave anywhere. So far, so good. Getting the wire into the loom took a while, but I really like how protected it is and how nice it looks. I’m using a different color for every run and working from a wiring diagram I made. NO MORE GUESSING which wire goes where and how many times it’s spliced and changes color.
I decided to mount the fuse box on the firewall forward of the shifter. With it here I can get to it from either side and while sitting in the car. Though it appears to be at first glance, this spot is far from flat, so I used some thick rubber washers as shims. The top mounting holes ended up above the “tool shelf” (heater plenum) in the engine bay. The bottom holes were in the plenum. So the top holes got stainless bolts and nylocks and the bottom got sheet metal screws. Messes with my sense of doing everything just right, but there was no other reasonable solution.
Somewhere along the way here I drilled holes for and mounted the Facet fuel pump. Like the 12 car, I have it on the rear deck, forward of the axle hump, on the passenger side. After considering fuel line runs and access to the integrated filter Facet uses, I opted to rotate it 90 degrees from how it is in the 12 car, with the filter cap facing forward. These pumps ground to the body and I double up the ground wires that jumper over the vibration isolation pads), so it was just one wire that joined the rear tail light wires in the loom.
I dropped the tail light ground wires and fuel pump wire out of the loom above the fuse box, then added a wire (12v supply to the pressure switch) and continued the tail light wires across the dash and through a grommet into the engine bay where they will connect to the pressure switch (once it’s mounted).
Next up: Fuel lines. I re-installed the fuel cell in its hole, then built the supply line from it to the pump. I use AN6 all the way the tee for the carbs, and the ATL cell has AN6 fittings; convenient. Then I had to work backwards a bit: I couldn’t size the line from the pump to the bulkhead fitting without that fitting in place, and to place that fitting, the fuel pressure regulator has to be placed.
I was happy to find that the mounting bracket for the Summit pressure regulator has been improved so I was able to just use it without any extra work. YAY! I placed the bracket and fastened one corner with a self-tapping sheet metal screw, then the other. Then the first one on the bottom…clank. The screw hit the knee bar behind the dash (see previous note about always hitting something when making holes). Off it came, two new holes added, then back on. The pressure regulator mounted easily to the bracket, and with it in place, I was able to measure for the 90 degree bulkhead fitting, drill, and get it installed. The line from the regulator to it is short and so tricky to get right. I ended up with it a bit long, but usable. Then the long line from the pump to the bulkhead. Put one fitting on, then secure it along its route before measuring for the cut. Undo all the fasteners, cut, put the fitting on the fuel pump end, reinstall. I also added a bit of silicone hose where it contacted the body: No use it having it mar the paint and eventually wear through the braided steel.
Then I took the pressure regulator off the car to paint the bracket (no raw metal, please). This also reassured me that it will easily come apart and go back together with fitting setup I chose.
I also laid out the rest of the fittings I’m going to use for the fuel system to make sure that I have everything, discovering in the process that the AN6 to AN4 adapters I got don’t work with the AN6 tee I have. Not sure yet what I’ll do about that.
Lastly, with about ten more minutes of energy, I decided to break down the driveshaft to replace the U-joints. I’d kind of been avoiding this and 45 minutes later, when I finally had everything cleaned and apart, I knew why. At 10:30 PM I washed my hands and went to bed.
Coming up will be the dash layout. To do that properly, I need to be able to sit in the car, so this morning I ordered the Kirkey seat and seat cover for it. There will be some fab work to get the seat mounted to the OMP slider and adjustable rear brace, but that shouldn’t have to be done to layout the gauges.
February 23, 2026
“Loren, you have a tendency to make things more complicated than they need to be.”
It was a casual observation made by a friend 25+ years ago. The friendship faded out, but the observation has stuck as a yardstick against which I often measure my ideas, plans, and activities.
It’s been a frequent visitor to my mind as I’ve worked through design issues for the Arnold car, from prep, repair, paint, cage, wiring, plumbing, even the seat design. Which is what consumed much of last weekend.
In the #12 car that I race, took a guess, bolted the Kirkey seat to the Kirkey seat brackets, and bolted the brackets to the floor. I had no idea what was good to do, how I would fit, anything really. I subsequently made two adjustments before landing where I am now.
Arnold’s car is more complicated because I want a lot of people to be able to get in and race it without a lot of hassle. It turns out that making a seat slide in a race car, especially a Spridget with that infernal but necessary fore-aft structural box on the floor, is a hassle. Minus that box, it would just be a matter of bolting the sliders to the floor, the brackets to the slider, and an adjustable rear brace for the seat (more on that later).
What I ended up doing looks pretty simple, but getting to it took most of the weekend. It involved building a mock-up wood mount for the slider, brackets, and seat, changing my mind about the bracket plan, building the final parts, test fitting and adjusting, cleaning and painting, and finally a full-fit. Once that was done I was able to work on the rear brace. In the end, the seat was bolted into the car four times. It’s not like a normal size car…the bolts are in tight spaces, hard to reach, etc. Slow going.
The rear brace, by comparison, ended up being pretty simple: I bought a kit designed for this, did just a bit of modification to make the seat back bracket fit around the curved Kirkey seat back, and spent a good bit of time getting the sliding post parallel to the seat slider so the post wouldn’t bind as the seat moved.
While I initially planned to modify two Kirkey seat brackets, I abandoned that plan because it required welding by others…I don’t have a TIG welder and can’t weld aluminum. I ended up kind-of replicating them in steel (which I can weld with my MIG), though with just the bits I needed, so the weight is about the same.
The sliders are by OMP. They lock on both sides as required. I made spacers to get them both above the stiffening box out of aluminum bar.
There was just a ton of clearance and fitment puzzles, which I enjoy but consume time. In the end it got done around 2:00 on Sunday. Yay. The seat moves about five inches, which should accommodate drivers from about 5′-4″ to 6′-4″.
I was literally tightening the last bolt on the seat back brace when Jonathan arrived to pitch it. I’m happy working alone, and it’s also nice to have some help. Jonathan is clever, which is a critical attribute when designing on the fly.
We shaped and ran the hard line from the rear brake flex to 90 degree fitting below the pedal box. That bulkhead fitting is attached to the car with a bracket we fabricated. My plan was to re-used the AN4 hard line compressing fittings that were on the stainless lines we took off the car, but we discovered that the stainless lines, circa 1975, are thicker than modern 3/16″ NiCopp lines, so the fittings were too big. And no one makes a 3/16″ to AN4 compression fitting, so the 90 degree bulkhead for the rear brakes and the tee for the front brakes (which we also mounted) need to be replaced with AN3 fittings. Alas.
Unable to complete the rear hard line or continue it up to the pedal box, we made up the hard lines for the front brakes. Working with NiCopp is pretty easy, but it will strain harden and crack on bend lines if over-worked.
Stymied by the fittings issue, I moved along to mounting the battery and making up the battery cable to run to the master on/off switch. I drilled our carefully repaired and closed-up front cowl for the switch and put it in place temporarily.
First thing last, I got the turn signal covers installed. This was the second time I made them. The first time out of lighter, easier to work with aluminum, but I make an error that, because I can’t weld aluminum, I couldn’t fix. This time I made them out of steel.
March 2, 2026
Oh shit, it’s March.
Where did January and February go, gone in a flash??
What didn’t get done last weekend: The roundels and stripes didn’t get done. Why? Because the roundels I ordered in January and waited six weeks to get…I ordered them wrong. Just black trim rings instead of black trim rings on white. D’oh!
But progress was made. Perhaps the biggest item checked off the list is disassembling, cleaning, painting, and rebuilding the pedal box/master cylinder assembly. After watching this John Twist video I opted to not dive into the complicated rebuild of the dual-output brake master, and just replaced it. The original Lockheed clutch master was in fine shape, so I just cleaned it up and bit and replaced the two inner seals and boot. This was the last bigger item on the list that was both messy and that I hadn’t done before.
Note: These dual-output brake masters MUST be bench-bled. It’s difficult to impossible to get the air between the outlets purged with on the car. I made up two nicopp lines with long tube nuts that fit, installed them, then curved them around back into the reservoirs. Easy.
Notably, in the image above, one brake master has brass fittings and the other aluminum fittings. Neither is correct: They are designed to take a deep 3/16″ tube nut on a bubble flare. I guess with soft metals, if you apply enough torque they will conform. But it also likely explains why that side of the pedal box was such a rusty mess, as was the body of the blue #12 car where it was originally installed.
On Friday the drive shaft arrived, thank you John A!! I removed the u-joints (NOT my favorite task at all), cleaned the u-joint cap bores, and cleaned and painted the main shaft. Didn’t quite get around to reassembling, as I was letting the paint cure.
The fuel cell was dropped back out so I could easily removed the filler neck to apply the center stripe on the rear deck. It will stay out until the small cage mod gets done (to fix a shoulder belt geometry issue). With the cell out I also took some time to build the inner reinforcements for the Q1 Engineering tow hooks/tie-downs that will bolt through the rear bumperette holes. Those holes are strong enough to hold the little chrome bumpers, but not to hold the car down in the trailer or for e-crew towing. This wasn’t on the critical path to get the car race-ready, but I had a can of 2k clear open and was painting other things so I got it done.
Unable to locate the little race throttle pedal that used to be on my car, I made a new one out of 1″ angle. The pedal box and throttle linkage were test-fit. With several options for mounting the pedal, we can accommodate small to Bozo-size feet.
Let’s talk about flare tools. Years ago I needed to flare some lines that were already installed on my wife’s Bugeye. I bought a very nice Eastwood hydraulic flare tool. For this project, I also need to flare some lines for AN fittings, which are 37 degree instead of 45. Unfortunately, Eastwood has let me down and never produced a 37 degree die set for the tool, despite saying it was “in the works”. After a lot of effort to find dies that would work in the Eastwood tool, I gave up and bought a lever-action flare tool that came with a 37 degree die set. I’ll cut to the chase: If you are trying to make flares with one of these janky-ass tools and you think the reason they come out shitty is you, you’re wrong. I’ve made many dozens of flares with the Eastwood tool and never had a bad one. In over an hour making flare after flare with the lever-action tool I never got even one good one. Not one, out of two dozen. I gave up and ordered a Mastercool hydraulic tool and die set. And with it I made the front brake lines without one bad flare. Just spend the money, get a good tool, and stop wasting your time and nicopp.
Yeah, so the lines from the front tee to the flex lines at the calipers are done. I couldn’t run the line from the master to the tee without the pedal box in place (which is why I dove into that), nor could I form the line from the 90 where the rear line terminates, up to the pedal box.
Lastly, and importantly, the replacement swivel axle arrived from Winner’s Circle. I got it installed on the left side of the car and the clearance issue between the caliper and rotor was gone.
I’m going to put this week and coming weekend into the car, then it’s going to get that harness bar mod done. While it’s away, I’ll get the car I race prepped and ready for Spring Sprints. So the Arnold car will be back on its wheels in less than a week, finally!
Man, it looks good with the stripes!!
Epic Thursday Night
I’ve settled into Monday morning updates, but last night was 5+ hour garage session working on the car. Mid-day I made my umpteenth dozen trip to Tacoma Screw to replenish my 1/4-28 fastener supply. For whatever reason, getting the pedal box/master assembly installed felt exciting, so that’s what I dove into first.
That was holding up finishing the brake lines, so with the box in place I finished the line I started from the front brake tee to the dual-output brake master. Next was the line for the rear brakes. I’d previously fashioned the line from the rear flex to the 90 degree bulkhead under the clutch detonation guard, so I went to work on the assembly from there to the master. This section is a bit more complex, as I needed to include a tee for the brake light switch.
This took a couple tries, mostly because I didn’t go look at my design notes to remind myself what fittings I planned to use. So the first short piece of nicopp from the master to the tee got built with the wrong fitting and it was too short to cut off and re-flare. The line from the tee down to the 90 wasn’t too bad and I was chomping at the bit to pull out the plug I fashioned from the master and connect it when I remembered I hadn’t cut, flared, and connected the rear line to the tee. Well, I screwed that up in the classic fashion: I forgot to put the fitting on before I flared the line and with it cut just the right length, I had to start over. At this point my skills with nicopp have improved, so the re-do went a lot faster and turned out better than the original.
By the way…from the department of things that don’t seem to get mentioned much…advice to bench-bleed the dual-output brake master is abundant. But no one talks about what you do after it’s bled, you know, with brake fluid in the reservoir and cylinder wanting to drip out everywhere. I made up two plugs from short pieces of nicopp with tube nuts and bubble flares, then crushed the non-flare end flat and rolled it up a couple times. I installed these in the output ports and had no leakage at all during a lot of test-fitting and final install. I later made one up with an AN3 compression fitting so I could install the rear line into the master with the tee/brake pressure switch, cap it, and final measure and cut the line that comes up from the 90.
I also went back and added copper washers to the bolt head side of the front flex lines where they connect to the calipers. I’d had one of those middle-of-the-night messages from the Universe that I’d forgotten that.
The brakes are entirely done: I need to secure the lines to the body and bleed them. But getting all the lines run and connected is a huge step.
I also tested the Longacre heavy duty master cutoff…it’s a kinda weird thing and I needed a better understanding of how it works so I could decide how to wire it. For anyone wondering, in the off position all four poles (two labeled A and two B) are disconnected from one another. In the on position, the two A poles are connected and the two B poles are connected. I think it’s done this way to provide a dedicated high-current pathway from a high-output alternator to the battery. The piddly 14 gauge wire I use from the low-output race alternator won’t need this.
I almost forgot until I looked at the photos: I also installed the oil cooler and the remote spin-on oil filter bracket. It really was an epic evening in the garage!
It was past 10:30 PM when Rod, who I’d been chatting with as we both worked (him bodging his Frontline front suspension kit in), said he was calling it a night. I finished up the re-do on the long rear brake line and called it a night, too.
Now on to the weekend (and daylight savings time)!
March 9, 2026
A couple more long days in the garage yielded progress, but nothing visually fun, like putting the bonnet on or laying on the rear stripes. And oh, wait. Yeah, it was such a long weekend out there that I momentarily forgot: Right as F1 was kicking off their season, I lowered the car off the jack stands, back onto its wheels!
Leading up to that that was a rough alignment, grinding and pinning the outer tie rod ends, and bleeding the brakes (no leaks!).
Earlier in the day I installed the rear cockpit trim, which was a tedious job that I’d been dreading. It involved pry bars on the driver side to get the trim to clear a cage tube and a lot of work with a small drift to get the bolts in place. The rear deck on this car had been squished and repaired and isn’t exactly on the OEM contour. But it got done.
I also cut out paper circles to represent the gauges and played with layouts. I test-fit the radiator to see if the temp sensor line on a Smiths combo gauge is long enough to reach the radiator if the gauge is inside the steering wheel…yes!
I added a bit of edge guard in the back of the car where the brake light wires might rub on the wheel well braces, fixed an issue with the turn signal block-off plate screws, and did a final install of the fuel cell.
The coil bracket I’d picked out was too big for the coil, so I dug up and painted another. It has a nifty bolt slot design that they all should have: You don’t have to remove the bolts to remove the bracket from the car!
Somewhere in there I installed the Brooklands windscreen and touched up the yellow paint in the driver side door jamb so I could install the door hinges.
Sunday morning, after a later start I’ll attribute to the start of daylight savings time, I finished the oil pan baffle…a process I still don’t have refined, but got done. Then moved on to the drive shaft. Installing the u-joints did not go well at all. To the point that I gave up after ruining two and will have the balancing shop do. Ugh.
Late afternoon and evening I dove into wiring. The #12 car is a wiring mess: A terminal strip in the engine bay leads to another under the dash where wires change color before going to gauges and other places. I can’t see it without crawling under the dash and I’ve made it worse as I added things (like the O2 sensor). That situation/experience is influencing how I’m wiring the Arnold car. Working from a wiring diagram I made, each wire is a unique color for traceability, each connector is soldered, and I’m using 3:1 shrink tube that I can print on with a Dymo labeler. Fuses are abundant.
I got all but three wires run and terminated on one end. I ran out of colors and had to order more varieties. Once the gauges and toggles are installed in the dash faceplate, I’ll be able to finish terminations and tidy up behind the dash. Some engine bay wiring, like the distributor, will have to wait until there is an engine in the car…along with oil lines.
This was the last big weekend working on the car for a bit. Next weekend my car goes in the garage to get prepped for the season. Once it’s ready for the first race weekend, May 1-3, I’ll get back after the Arnold car.
March 16, 2026
Well that didn’t go as planned. Last Monday I told a buddy in the Midwest that after mid-March the Seattle lowlands wouldn’t get any additional snow accumulation. Then it started snowing Thursday night, and snowed all day Friday. Snow in the driveway meant I couldn’t push the race cars around, on/off the trailer. So the Arnold Car got another weekend of work.
I got a late start on Saturday after a fun (and late) Friday night out catching the early show for Kat Robichaud’s Misfit Cabaret, and then hopping over to Owl & Thistle to see The Scuppermonkeys. Anyway, the big thing that got done on Saturday was installing the doors and latches, and completing the stripes (with help from my lovely wife). From the outside the car is looking pretty complete (still need to install the rear and side-view mirrors). I also finalized the dash layout, cut the gauge and switch holes, and painted the dash frame and face.
Most of Sunday was working on the dash and wiring for the dash. Drilling big holes in the aluminum face I spent a good deal of time crafting was a bit nerve-wracking. In the end it went okay, though a toggle I added later got drilled a bit low and, as I’m writing this, I’ve had to replace the little 1.5″ fuel pressure gauge with a bigger one…so that hole will have to get enlarged somehow. Ugh. But I’m replacing the mechanical gauge with an electric one, so no fuel lines to run to it…maybe a time wash? I should have just gone with the electric gauge from the start.
Late afternoon I ran out of print-on shrink tube, shink-fit spade connectors, and the 6 gauge main and starter power crimp lugs. I don’t think the Dymo shrink tube had anywhere close to the advertised five feet of material.
For fun I tipped up the dash and fastened it in place with a couple screws, then tidied up the wire a bit. It needed to get into sheath anyway and now that’s mostly done. Then I put the steering wheel on and made race car sounds. Vroom!
I finally got the pedal box seal I ordered from Moss on December 19…yep, almost three months. And after three months, this is what they sent me. Fail.
With a bit more energy left, I had wifey help me unload the engine from the back of my car onto the stand. Inspection revealed a few parts needed for it: Crank pulley, heater tap block-off plate, head water temp sensor plug, and a thermostat housing. I was glad to find everything except the block-off plate. We’re going to start this car with a standard helical-cut box, so I pulled that out of the locker, too.
I’m going to stop predicting what comes next…the only thing consistent about that is me being wrong. Tune in next week…
March 22, 2026
The days are starting to blur together a bit. I read through this entire page on Sunday. Over and over I thought, “How could that have been months ago?”
The fuel pressure gauge shown in the photos above wasn’t going to work; there was no way to secure it to the dash. I caved in and bought a 2″ electric gauge with a sender unit. More money, less hassle, arguably safer. But that meant I had to enlarge the 1.5″ hole I’d already drilled in the dash for the smaller mechanical gauge…not easy. I ended up bolting it to a 2×6, clamping the 2×6 to the drill press arbor, lining it up without the pilot bit in the hole saw, and then carefully and slowly drilling it out. That got me most of the way there. 2″ gauges are apparently 2-1/16″, so I had to enlarge the hole a bit with a dremel. Then the larger gauge was hitting the dash skeleton, so it came out to have that area removed. All good and fitted now.
That was Friday.
Saturday morning I put the dash back on the car, then bolted the transmission to the engine and pulled the assembly out of the garage. It’s the first time I’ve picked an A-Series from the bell housing bolt and the front manifold bolt. I had an issue with a cut water pump gasket last year that was caused by a shitty water pump casing and picking the motor from the water pump/alternator bolt hole. Well this way worked better; the motor was didn’t rotate as much, so it’s the way going forward.
Under sunny but cool skies, I dropped the motor and trans into the car. So fun. I decided to try the slotted motor mount setup on this car and it seems to work fine. I (re)discovered that one of the motor mount captive nuts is stripped…I remembered finding this many months ago but didn’t make a note of it so it didn’t get fixed. I’ll use a long bolt and a loose nut for now, and helicoil it next time the motor is out.
With the motor secured, I pushed the car off the lift and out of the garage for the first time since November. Wow. So fun.
I turned my attention to the bonnet. I got a nice new grille for my wife’s street Bugeye so I could use her 9/10 grille on this race car. I installed it, then she came out and helped me set the bonnet on the car. I’d earlier taken the 12 car out of the trailer where it had been since October and washed it. Now, with them sitting side by side in the driveway, I sat down, enjoyed the view, and had a beer. Cheers, Sam! Cheers, Arnold!
With wifey running errands I went ahead and installed the side mirrors. Now, aside from a couple decals, the exterior of the car is done.
We pushed it on the trailer and put the 12 car on the lift to prep for Spring Sprints the first weekend of May. An oil change and re-make and re-route of the oil return line, then I fired it up. Race season is coming soon!
March 30, 2026
Not a lot of OMG progress to report for this week. Thursday night Jonathan came over to help me. We finished up checking and adjusting the brakes on the 12 car, then made some additional, thicker a-arm shims for the Arnold car. I’ve no clue why it has so much positive camber, but I’m going to first try to dial it out with shims on the Clancy adjustable a-arms.
Saturday I let the 12 car idle and come up to temp to check for oil leaks while I turned the Arnold car around in the driveway (harder than it sounds with a welded diff!). Everything seemed dry with the 12 car, so I shut it off and went to work on wiring…in the sunshine in the driveway, yay Spring!
When the clouds rolled in I pushed the 12 car off the lift and…puddle of oil under it. Gah! I think it must have come from the remote oil filter adapter area, so more investigation is needed, and maybe a new adapter.
Then the Arnold car went on the lift and I continued to plunk away at wiring. The wiring in the 12 car is functional, but a mess. There is a distribution block under the bonnet and another under the dash. Wires change color under the dash, which makes tracing things quite hard. There’s no wiring diagram. As a result, every wire in the Arnold car is a unique color, the grounds all come back to the distribution panel, every wire end is labeled, and I’m working from a diagram. It ends up being more complicated than it needs to be, but hopefully easy to maintain, manage, and troubleshoot. We’ll soon see…all that’s left to wire is a ground for the 123Ignition distributor, the solenoid end of the starter wire, and the wire from the solenoid to the starter motor. Then it will be test time.
Sunday I took a day off from my garage to help Stephen and Devon Newby with Devon’s new Sprite race car. While Stephen worked from the rear forward on fuel lines, I worked from the front backward on brake lines. Having just built the lines for the Arnold car, I enjoyed deploying my newly acquired set of modest skills to help out my buddies.
April 6, 2026
It’s been another busy week in the garage making progress on the car, though at this point, there isn’t much changing visually. Here’s list of things completed in the last week:
- Finished and tested wiring except alternator and radiator fan. Thank you, Jonathan, who came over Thursday eve and helped with this.
- Installed the Sprite badge on the back of the car.
- Secured fuel line fittings from the cell to the pressure regulator.
- Installed eye bolts for belts/harness. The seat had to come out to do this.
- Found the spare alternator in storage and installed it.
- Dug the header and exhaust out of storage.
- Cleaned and painted the header.
- Installed the fuel pressure sender and shortened the wire harness to it.
- Wired the distributor.
- Modified SU carburetor float bowl lids for 1/8″ NPT fittings.
- Installed the clutch slave and checked the flex line for routing and length. The engine backing plate had to be clearanced for the slave cylinder…so not as simple as it sounds.
The tail end of yesterday was spent on the front suspension, which is now more of a head scratcher than it was before. The car had a ton of positive camber. I setup the Clancy adjustable a-arms with the same number of 0.05″ shims as the 12 car, three. With that shimming the 12 car has about 1.5 degrees of negative camber. The Arnold car has 3.8 degrees of positive camber. I got longer bolts and cut shims out of 0.125 and 0.5″ aluminum.
Installing the much thicker shims meant disassembling the front suspension to install longer bolts in the a-arms. I took the opportunity to also add 1/2″ lowering shims. The good news is that the car now sits within 1/4″ of level, front to back. The bad news is that the shims didn’t get me home on camber. The left/driver side in particular seems to be very long at the top of the tire and wheel, to the point that it’s out past the fender. My tentative plan is to try using washers under the shocks to tip the top of the wheels in.
I’m still taking extra time to do things in a way that make maintenance, R&R, etc. easier and faster. For example: The three-wire connection to the distributor got a water-tight quick disconnect. The radiator will be the same.
April 13, 2026
The work has shifted from focusing on one big area for a week or weekend, to a spread of littler things all over the car.
Thursday night Jonathan came over (Thank you, Jonathan!!) and we made up the fuel lines to the carburetors and all the oil lines. It can be difficult to get the 10-AN braided steel line into the fittings, even with the set of “Kool Tool” aids, but these went pretty smoothly, save one stubborn one. Jonathan brought along a neat pair of snips that flush-cut tie-wraps so they don’t have a protruding edge that can cause injury. As he was leaving he told me they were a gift. Jonathan gives gifts like I do: Less for occasion, more for application. Good human, he is.
Over the next week I’ll keep better track of what I’ve done. Saturday is a bit of a fog, as I flitted from one thing to another. I retrieved some front SU float bowl lids from storage to replace the one that cracked when I was installing the fitting. That one was pretty new, and wow, is there ever a difference in the quality of the aluminum. The older ones are dense and smooth. The newer one was lighter in color and the porosity of the aluminum was clear to the naked eye. Sigh.
I also leveled the car so I could set the trailing/control arms on the rear suspension. I considered a number of ways to do this and was going to level the face of the block before putting the head on, but Stephen did me a huge favor by installing the reconditioned head before I got the motor back. So I removed the valve cover and found that I could place a level on the machined face of the head. I used the ramps for the lift to raise the rear a bit until it was level, then put the level on the face of the diff flange and adjusted the control arms until it was plumb. Lock-em down, done.
Earlier in the week I installed the some additional shims in the a-arms and got the camber close enough. I have a set of Mamba Motorsports shock plates making their way to me and that will be the final solution for the camber puzzle. That will require futzing with the shims again and I’ll work to get it perfect then.
With camber done I moved to alignment and got that dialed after a good bit of back and forth. I have a big caliper thing I use and it’s not ideal for Sprites…slow and fiddly, but it gets the job done.
One task I wasn’t excited about was securing all the hydraulic hard lines. I’d put the engine and trans in the car to fit some other things before getting the lines secured, so they had to come back out. Going in reverse isn’t super exciting, but it wasn’t like the engine was fully installed- just the two motor mount bolts, the starter, and the distributor. Out the engine and trans came on Sunday morning.
I used a combination of pop-riveted plastic clips and tie-wrap mounts. The former for things that are secured long-term.
While the engine and trans were out I decided how to route the hard line for the clutch. I chose to send to across the leading edge of the “tool shelf” (the heater plenum) and used the existing starter solenoid mount tab for the 90 degree 4-AN bulkhead fitting where the line will transition to braided steel. I feel particularly happy to have used something already there instead of fabricating something new.
When pushing the car backwards onto the lift, the header caught on the cross-member of the lift. I’d noticed it was a bit low and was being careful. I had to take it off the car to get the car on the lift. Once the engine and trans were back in I went through the McTaggart McStraightening Procedure to adjust the manifold: Bolt it onto the head upside down, heat the area I wanted to move, and use a pry bar to gently adjust it. I used a marked dowel to get pretty darn close to the desired 3/4″ of movement.
Then commenced what I hope will be some final assembly (before test-driving) work: Carbs and manifold, fuel lines, distributor, oil lines. I also secured the oil lines and protected them with silicone coolant hose where they are close to the body.
Engine oil and transmission drain plugs were cross-drilled and safety-wired.
Two engine ground straps were installed, at the left front motor mount and the bottom of the transmission bell housing.
The alternator wiring was finished. I had to repair the plug on the alternator, and then I wired in a disconnect in case I run an engine with the little Bosch or other alternator; it can be connected to the vehicle harness without cutting lines. This leaves just the radiator fan wiring to complete.
The seat on the carbs for the throttle cable was too big for the end of the cable sheath, so I drilled it out, then mounted the cable and secured it to the trunnion. The car has a functional throttle control! Still need to check it for full close and full open, but as-is it’s functional!
Toward the end of Sunday I went back at the radiator. I ran this radiator in the 12 car in 2022 and 2023 and knew it was a very close fit against the bonnet. Using Play-Doh and with plastic kitchen wrap over the top, I put balls of it on the likely strike points, including the freshly installed engine vent catch can. After some fiddling with the bonnet pin brackets, I got it down to just one spot where the Play-Doh was squished completely and the radiator showed. I think I’m going address this with a bit of padding on the bonnet, as the radiator won’t go any lower and the bonnet won’t go any higher.
Next I tackled the adjust seat rear brace. I had the seat out to install the harness eye bolts, and when I put it back in it was clear that the brace needed some adjustment. Too low, and too far to one side, I first set about extending the slots in the bracket for more vertical adjustment. The lateral adjustment was severely hampered by the blind socket head Allen bolts holding the clamp to the cage cross-bar. I knew when I put them in that it was going to be hard to find the right wrench to loosen them in the future, as they are right under the rear cowl, recessed, and face up, so are entirely blind. I’d set the Allen aside two months and many workbench cleanups ago, and over thirty minutes had no luck finding a fit from my generic bin of Allen wrenches. In a bit of a facepalm moment, I looked on the workbench and there with a signifying piece of tape, what one lone Allen wrench. THE Allen wrench. Adjust made, that wrench is now duct-taped the bracket for future hassle-free use.
As I sat chatting with Rod at 9:00 PM on Sunday, his continued efforts on his car motivated me and I pulled the shifter cowl off the “painted parts” shelf and installed it, the shifter, and the shifter knob. Aside from looking forward to seeing the decorated cowl in the car, it was also the LAST part on the “painted parts” shelf, bringing another stage of the project to a close.
April 21, 2026
I know, I hear you, “What happened to the Monday update??”
I spent my two hour Monday update window doing something else, but stay tuned.
Remember when I said I’d keep a better list of what I did this last week? I didn’t. But I did things. During the week:
- Installed the driveshaft
- Adjusted front-end alignment
- Put an advance curve on the distributor
- Swapped tires around so the Toyos are on the car
- Added 1/2″ wheel spacers in the rear for better spring clearance
- Finished wiring the radiator fan
- Added some silicone padding inside the bonnet where the radiator is too close or contacting it
- Found a plug for the temp bung in the radiator; I’m picking up water temp at the head
- Filled the engine with oil and cranked it until it got pressure. It’s just a great feeling to see the needle wiggle, then move upward.
- Finished and installed the exhaust.
I also didn’t take many photos over the last week.
By the time Jonathan arrived on Saturday morning I’d been in the garage an hour or so. The goal for the day was to try to get the car started, but I also knew if it started, I’d want to drive it, and that meant finishing the clutch line and bleeding. Jonathan concurred that we should finish that up, for the same reason. The hard line was previously completed, ending in a bulkhead fitting on the stock starter solenoid bracket. From there we ran braided steel 4-AN to the slave cylinder, already setup with that fitting and a braided steel bleeder extension. That would have gone faster had a brand-new AN fitting not failed. Sheesh, am I ever tired of brand new parts being shitty.
After bleeding however, the clutch wouldn’t disengage. We fiddled with it for a while, then I declared that, not knowing what else to do, I wanted to shift to getting it started. No test drive, but the main goal was still possible.
I also wanted to test out live-streaming directly to YouTube, since the channel now has enough subscribers to do that. A GoPro was screwed to the ceiling above the car, aimed, and the live-stream commenced.
Sam showed up about that time and we got busy prepping for startup: Good plugs replaced the hole-fillers, plug wires on (with a coil wire borrowed from the 12 car), gas in. Fire extinguishers at the ready, pressurized the system, and….spent the next 90 minutes chasing leaks, the most vexing of which turned out to be related to drilling and tapping the float bowl lids for 1/8″ NPT fittings. Good catch, Jonathan!
It was essentially Jonathan’s 3:00 curfew to head home when we finally pressurized the system and had no leaks. Less than five minutes later the car was RUNNING. Wow, I mean, 3+ years of work and just a few minutes after clearing the fuel issue, VROOM. I felt surprised it wasn’t more obstinate, but also grateful.
We exchange a handshake and congratulations, and Jonathan heads home. I spend the next 90 minutes re-torquing the head, putting a petcock in the radiator, filling the engine with coolant, and letting it fully warm up. No electrical issues, no blown fuses, and the idle mixture was dead-on right out of the gate. There’s still some adjusting to do, but it’s very, very close.
Twelve minute startup video:
Two minute TL/DR startup video:
(editing these two videos is what I did on Monday, instead of writing this update)
Sunday I cogitated on the clutch issue, basked in the glow of the successful start, and got some other things done. I built up a baffled oil pan for Stephen, then pulled the diff to replace the pinion seal. Even sitting it had a slow drip and I was concerned about what it would do on a track. It turned out that my concern was valid; the seal was REALLY old and ROCK hard. It actually cracked when I pulled it. It was a hassle to pull the axles to do this, but it definitely needed to be done, and it hasn’t dripped since.
While the rear end was on stands I added 1/2″ spacers to make more clearance between the tires and the springs, and adjusted the brakes.
With the help of my wife, I tried some other bleeding techniques on the clutch, and did get a bit more air out, but there was no change in its behavior: Not disengaging.
I finished assembling the steering rack oiler, but couldn’t find my service manual to get the quantity or type of oil to use, so it’s not filled. I also took a look at the pedal return spring situation…it’s going to be more complicated than I hoped to install them, but not onerously so.
The clutch is the last blocking issue on the work list; once it’s resolved I can get done the handful of other things (like bedding in the brake pads and adjusting the carbs/needles)
One last bit: Up until this moment, this project has been about restoration. Today, just now, a SOVREN scrutineer passed the car to return to racing for 2026; it’s the first little step of the project shifting from restoration to racing. Hurray!
April 22, 2026
This isn’t a prep/restoration update, it’s an update on the history of the car.
Arnold and his son Jon both told me the car was raced at the very first road-racing event at Sonoma/Sears Point/GSIR. I did some digging around and there are two events that could be considered the “first”.
The official opening of the track was March 28-29, 1969 for an SCCA event. But prior to that, on November 30, 1968, there was an informal SCCA event with an enduro. During an interview with Arnold, he said this was the ‘first’ event that he and Jon meant. He also said he was the very first car onto the track and, humorously, the first car off the track…into a tire wall.
The SCCA now has a great, collected library of information and documents and an archivist who is keen and helpful. I made an inquiry and they came back with a set of information about Arnold and the car, including some images from the January, 1969 issue of “The Wheel”, which was the San Francisco region’s publication. While it doesn’t list entries in the 1968 event, it does have a couple images that I think show the car.
April 27, 2026
Frankly, I’m surprised I’ve not run into more of them during the last four months: That little step that should take 15 minutes that devolves (yes, with a red power dome) into a multi-day or multi-week vexing, nebulous, mysterious, enigmatic, energy-sucking, knuckle busting black hole of confusion.
The clutch. The clutch. The clutch. All we had to do is fabricate one flex line, install it, and bleed the clutch. Saturday morning, April 18. Then start the live stream, see about starting it, and most fun, go for a test drive in the car. After two-plus hours of dorking around with the clutch, which steadfastly refused to disengage, that morning, we punted and moved along to starting the car, which, after chasing some fuel leaks, went very smoothly.
Saturday, April 25. Eight days later. I’ve bled and bled the line using three techniques. I’ve changed the master. I’ve changed to a Goodrich pre-made flex line. I’ve laid awake at night. I’ve obsessed during the day when I should have been doing other things. Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
It was Rod “The Oracle” Duncan who mentioned to me that he has his clutch slave on a long flex line so he can pull it up from under the car and bleed it from the engine bay. Clever fellow. Flat out of other ideas, I unbolted the slave and bungie-corded the bleeder extension up to a nearby ladder, so it was a continuous uphill run from the 90 degree bulkhead fitting on the “tool shelf” where the hard line ended.
Then my kind, patient wife got in the car three times over 90 minutes to bleed it. I gave it time between to let air bubbles float all the way up. After the third time I raised the lift with her in the car, bolted the slave back on, pinned it to the throw-out lever. I lowered the car a bit and had her put it in gear with the clutch out. We’d done this part a dozen or more times over the last eight days, each time my hopes were dashed onto the rocky, deadly BMC shores. In gear, clutch out, the car didn’t roll…as expect. I take a breath, close my eyes, temper my hopes and dreams, and have her push the clutch pedal in. And. The. Car. Rolls. Holy craptoast.
I send a single-word text message to Jonathan: “CLUTCH!!!”
The phone rings almost instantly. He wants to be here for the test drive, but is tied up. I set about tidying up, taking care of a few other things, and pushing the car out of the garage.
Then he arrives. I drive it with him sitting on the battery, they he, very deservedly, drives it with me sitting on the battery. He’s 6′-4″ tall. The seat slider I spent so much time on *works*, as he fits comfortably.
Hell yes. I upload an unedited video and send it to Arnold. I want him to see it before anyone else.
Then libations.
Hell yes.
Sunday.
Earlier in the week I’d noticed coolant under the car. It turned out to be a failed water pump gasket. The radiator was pulled, the gasket replaced, and all of it put back together. This got done before Saturday, of course.
My plan for Sunday was to continue the celebration by sleeping in was ruined by how excited I felt when I woke up. Despite lazing in bed for a couple hours, I’m back in the garage by 9:00. I ticked a bunch more things off the list:
- The Springtime Big Trailer Shuffle: The black trailer out from its over-winter location next to the house, the white street Bugeye off it, etc.
- Pull the disty and check the drive gear orientation.
- Re-time the car.
- Finish bolting on the front tow/tie-down mounts.
- Pop-rivet the transponder mount on the left-side radiator upright.
- Clean up and re-paint the areas that got dorked up by brake fluid.
- Install padding on the cage tubes where arms could hit. (FIA padding will go on helmet-impact locations at the track)
- Installed the pedal return spring bracket I made and install the springs.
- Balance the carbs.
- Drill and pin the king pin nuts.
- Remove the speedometer drive from the transmission and install a Q1 Classic Engineering plug. DON’T burn up a very expensive, hard to find speedo drive in your race trans!!
With just three items remaining on the list, FIA padding, additional decals, bed front brake pads, I washed both trailers, loaded the cars, put the trailers back in the driveway, and sat there with a Tanguery and tonic, enjoying the evening sunshine in the driveway and trying to comprehend that the build of this car is complete. What remains now is routine adjustments and maintenance. And racing it.
Barring something unexpected, the Arnold car will roll onto the track Friday morning for some low-speed test laps, its first track time since 1980.
Cheers, Arnold!
May 6, 2026
This page is about the restoration of the car and returning it to racing. I’m more surprised than anyone to say, “It’s done.”
The car ran very well during two test and tune sessions on Friday. A very good SOVREN YoDA Program driver has been busting his butt with his grandfather to get his Marcos GT ready to race for Spring Sprints after a catastrophic engine failure at Fall Finale. Despite an enormous effort, they were foiled in the last hours by a balky clutch. He came down to the track on Friday anyway, and in an entirely unplanned burst of inspiration, I offered him the seat for the weekend.
Jack Stark is his name. He was genuinely grateful for the opportunity and was calm and patient as we dealt with an ignition issue twice on Saturday (two tow-offs), and endured the car hitting the rear bump stops all morning before we had time to pull the lowering shims at lunch. Jack’s name is first in the log book since 1980; he continues the heritage and story of the car.
In addition, Jack drove the car in the Sprite-Midget Challenge race Saturday. It was the 14th car entered and that was a record number of cars in one of our races. My thank-you and hearty congratulations to Jack for putting a very nice ending on the restoration/return to racing chapter, and starting a new one.
The car will return to the track on May 15, with aspiring racer Owen Duncan behind the wheel for his race driver training. Owen will race the car in the future. So will I. And if it goes according to plan, so will many other aspiring and established drivers.
This is the end of updates on this page (future updates will be posts shown on the home page), but it’s just the beginning of a new chapter in the racing history of the Arnold Eilers Bugeye Race Car.