Restored DeLorean seat belt hardware

As I work my way down the list of cosmetic fixes, I got to work on some minor things in the interior of the DeLorean. One small thing that surprised me when I got my car was how much corrosion there was on the seat belt bolts and the metal brackets on the bottom of the interior of the car. I decided to replace the old bolts with new ones, but to keep the original hardware, but refresh it by sandblasting and painting it to look new again. 

Here are the old bolts after taking them out, as well as what the old washers and other hardware looked like. The passenger side hardware (2nd picture below) was in much worse condition than the driver side (3rd picture below):

I sandblasted all of the washers and other hardware and even the metal brackets that are attached to the ends of the seat belts as they had the black paint or powdercoating material worn off in several places and had rust showing. I painted those with black POR15, trying my best to not get that on the actual seat belt itself, as well as a large washer that was originally black. I also painted the other washers and hardware in either silver or gold, depending on their original color. 

 It's such a small thing, but they look so much better and I'm very pleased with the result. It's not a bad time in DeLorean ownership when you can start worrying about small things like this.

Installed DeLorean radiator bleed kit

 With the complete removal and installation of the engine, nearly all of the coolant had been drained from the system and I didn't want any funny business with getting it put back together. My car already had the automatic bleeder kit installed and it had worked great for the last decade or so, but I had never had the radiator bone dry. For peace of mind, I bought a radiator bleed kit from DMCMW and installed it in less than 10 minutes.

It hooks into the small upper line coming off the radiator on the passenger side of the motor. You just cut out an inch or two of the line, install the T-fitting, tighten the clamps, and you're good to go. 

Here's what the line looks like before the install:

Here it is after the install. It comes with the clear tube so you can see when bubbles stop coming out when you are bleeding it:

You can remove the clear tube, if you'd like. After I filled the system up with coolant, I opened the t-fitting and quite a bit of air came out. I later opened it again after running the car for a while and was surprised at how many more bubbles came out, even with the automatic bleeder in the engine bay. That proves to me that this wasn't a terrible idea to put on my car after all. So far, the cooling system is working well, getting up to temperature, and the system is pressurizing, so I'm very pleased.

Fixed DeLorean interior dome lights

Ever since I bought my car back in 2011, the interior dome lights never turned on when the doors open. I could get them to turn on manually when flipping them on, shown in this explanation video I did back in 2013:

 

 

I even replaced the original dome lights with some nice new ones back in 2016 because the originals were being held in place with double sided foam tape and looked tacky. I documented that in this post.

 

I had done all of the obvious checks, such as the door plunger wiring, the wiring on the dome lights, but missed one of the most simple things to replace: the diodes. 

 

The diodes for these lights are located on the driver side of the center console, not too far from the gas pedal. Mine were red, blue, and black, shown here:

 

 

I had three new diodes from DMCH that I had sitting on my shelf that I never got around to installing until this week. I am pleased to report that my interior dome lights now work perfectly. They come on when a door is open and turn off when the door closes. I can't believe that it took me 11 years of ownership to finally repair something so simple!