Additional DeLorean frame rust repair

 I recently dove into one project on the DeLorean (replacing the rubber coolant hoses with silicone hoses) that created a snowball of projects under the guise of "while I'm in there." I'll cover the coolant hose replacement in another post. While I was in the process of replacing the hoses, I noticed several areas around the gas tank where there was some rust poking through the epoxy coating on the frame. While I was in there, I knew that the only way to correctly fix the issue was to drop the gas tank out of the car so I could access the parts of the frame that needed to be addressed.

That led to other projects, like replacing the fuel pump with a modern pump, which I will also cover in another post. Here is what I found after I dropped the fuel tank:

It wasn't terrible as it was all just surface rust. I had previously done some rust repair on the frame about 10 years ago, but did what I could to fix the rust around the tank without removing it. It is very easy to repair with a few simple steps:

1. Get to the bare metal wherever rust is showing. My tool of choice is a flap disc on a grinder

2. Apply a couple of coats of POR15. For the frame, I use the gray color

3. Apply finishing coat of paint color of choice. For the frame, an extremely close match is Krylon Smoke Gray

This process takes several days as POR15 takes a day to cure for each coat, but the end result is a fix that will potentially last forever. 

After I dropped the tank, I wanted to inspect other areas of the frame for possible corrosion, such as the front frame extension. It all looked very dirty, but in really good shape with no visible rust:

In addition to around the gas tank, I also found some other surface rust spots in the middle of the frame and near the transmission. Here are a few shots of what these spots looked like after I ground off the rust:

Here is after applying POR15:

I forgot to take pics of the final product after applying the Krylon Smoke Gray, but it looked fantastic. I had restored the fuel tank closing plate several years ago, but when I took it off to drop the tank, I found that a few areas had not been restored to my liking, and the tank had been rubbing on the closing plate and didn't look the greatest. I ground down the areas that I wanted to improve and coated them in POR 15:

Here's the final product after the last coat of Krylon Smoke Gray. You can see how nicely it blends everything together.

I replaced all of the foam around the gas tank, and I made sure to put in a foam piece on top of the fuel tank closing plate, which I hadn't done before. The original piece had disintegrated long ago and I didn't even know that there was supposed to be a foam triangle piece there when I first restored the closing plate. The frame is now in excellent condition and will hopefully stay that way for the rest of its days.