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.

Spoke with my DeLorean's owner from the 90's

The previous owner of my DeLorean did an excellent job in documenting all of the repairs and upgrades that he completed by keeping all of the receipts. I have kept up with this as well and have a long Google Sheet full of all previous parts purchased, so I have an accurate picture of what's been done from 2007 to the present. Unfortunately, I know very little about the history of VIN 02087 prior to the previous owner, who was located in Mississippi. A vehicle history report that I purchased during the negotiations of my car didn't show any history of ownership prior to 2006, but did show that the previous owner bought it from someone located in Wisconsin. 

During my effort of documenting all previous work, I found a plastic sleeve with various service records from 1990 through 1992 with the owner's name on the documents, including a Florida Vehicle Registration Certificate from 1990. I started Googling information about the previous owner. There were actually two different names listed in the various service records, both men, but I discovered that one of the people in the records had passed away in 2007 in Naples, FL. I found his obituary and discovered another name in the obit for his son, Terry, from Wisconsin that was listed in some of the service records. 

After doing some more digging online, I was able to track down a couple of possible phone numbers for his son and decided to give them a try. The first number I tried was no longer in service, but the 2nd number was still good and I was able to leave a message explaining that I was looking for the previous owner of my DeLorean and to give me a call back if I had the right person.

Later that day, I got a call back from Terry, a very nice man now in his 80's, who was the true owner of the car back in the 90's. He actually had owned two DeLoreans at the same time back in the day, so he didn't know which of the two that I had. I understand that he had one car with him in Wisconsin that he drove a lot, while the other one he kept at his father's place in Florida, which had to be the one that I had. He didn't recall a lot of specific details about my car, but I brought up some of the service records that I had found, including one from the now defunct DeLorean One in Houston, TX. He recalled that he had shipped the car to Texas to be worked on in the 90's, and from the looks of the records, he spent a lot of money making sure the car was in good condition. 

 I can't tell if the documents I have are for quoting purposes only, or if everything listed was indeed completed. Above are pictures of the registration card, and service records for a couple of shops in FL. If it was all done, he spent a small fortune just at DeLorean One (shown in a previous blog post), which was over $14k in the early 90's. The records also show that it had 43k miles at that time, just a few thousand more from the service records from 1990. 

He didn't remember who he ended up selling the car to, but it must have been to someone else in Wisconsin as that appears to be where the previous owner bought the car from back in 2007. The strange thing is that from 1992 to 2007, the car was only driven a few thousand miles as it only had 49,800 miles when I bought it in 2011. I contacted the previous owner to see what details he could recall about the former owner, but I haven't heard anything back yet.

Terry was a very fun guy to talk to who has led an interesting life. Even though he's in his 80's, he still owns and drives a Ferrari 360, has owned and flown several planes, and has owned so many various cars over the years that I wasn't too surprised that he didn't recall too many details about my DeLorean. I'm glad I took the time to track him down and speak with him before it was too late. If I am able to track down any more historical details about my car, I'll come back and post an update.

Replaced original DeLorean fuel accumulator

Back in 2020, I got together with several local DeLorean owners for a tech session. We were bouncing ideas off one another on how we've approached various issues with our cars and future issues we wanted to tackle. One of mine happened to be my hard starting problem that was introduced when I replaced my original fuel lines back in 2016. It would run really rough for a while when cold starting, but would just crank endlessly when trying to start the car when it was hot. 

One of the other owners suggested that it would be good to replace the fuel accumulator as its job is to maintain pressure in the fuel line after the car is shut off so as to prevent the fuel in the lines from vaporizing, creating a vapor lock, or hot start problem.

Pictures of the accumulator and a search of the stack of service records I have, confirmed that the fuel accumulator was original. 

The white material around one of the fuel hoses above is what is exposed after the black rubber layer wears off. The black hose on the left was what it used to look like. I couldn't believe how far gone the hose on the right had become. I ordered a new fuel accumulator and hoses back in May of 2020, but just got around to installing it a year later.

I had heard that this job was a bit difficult, but I found several resources that helped me do things in the right order, including this PDF. I had my DeLorean on jack stands in the front and in the back so it was high enough off the ground for me to comfortably work on it from underneath. This job definitely cannot be done any other way than from under the car. You'll also want to wear safety glasses as debris may fall into your face as you work under the car. You'll also want a small bucket to catch the fuel that will drain out of the lines once you have them disconnected.

As I dove it, I first tried to loosen the nut on the hard line coming into the accumulator with a 17mm stubby wrench. The nut was so tight that I had to get a breaker bar on the end of the stubby wrench to get enough torque to break it loose. That was probably the most difficult part of the whole job. Then I was then able to remove the four 10mm bolts holding the retaining strap. So with the strap out of the way and the nut off of the hard line, I discovered that the hard line was not budging from the elbow fitting. I had to wiggle the accumulator and fight it to finally break free the hard line from the elbow connector, even though the nut was out of the way. I guess 40 years being together made them so they didn't want to be separated. 

Once I had the hard line separated, I was able to pull the fuel accumulator through the hole in the frame so that it was hanging down, shown above. I then tried to remove the fuel lines that were still connected to the accumulator. Where they both connect near the top of the frame, there weren't clamps securing them on, but they just slipped onto the fittings, which I thought meant that they would be easy to get off. I was very much mistaken. As much pulling and twisting that I did, it did nothing except stretch the original plastic fuel line that is under the rubber and white layers. The old line was so old that it had no flexibility left to be able to pull it off. I ended up having to get a box cutter blade and I sliced the line down the fitting to finally get them to let loose. Here's one of the lines after I got it out:

 

 

As I worked to get both of the lines out, virtually any remaining rubber coating on the lines disintegrated in my hand and either fell into my face, or fell into the frame tunnel. After I got the accumulator out, I swapped over the elbow fitting for the hard line from the old to the new accumulator and hooked up the new rubber fuel hoses and attached the new black accumulator pad where the retaining strap holds onto the accumulator. Below, you can see the old and new parts next to each other, as well as the stubby wrench that is a must-have to do this job more easily:

 

Putting it all back in the car was pretty straightforward. The worst part was just trying to keep the accumulator in the right position while I tried to get the four 10mm bolts started on the retaining strap. Before doing that, I hooked up the new rubber lines to their respective lines at the top of the frame, and tightened their new hose clamps. I also hooked up the hard line to the elbow fitting, but do not tighten the hard line nut yet. You just need to get it started so it helps get everything into position.

Next, you need to reattach the retaining strap, making sure the accumulator is in the right position, then tighten them down the four 10mm bolts. Once the retaining strap is completely secure, you can tighten down the hard line nut. I once again found it difficult to get enough torque on the hard line nut with just my hands, so used the breaker bar to make sure it was nice and snug. I then made sure the new rubber fuel lines weren't rubbing on any of the shift linkage and moved one of them out of the way with a zip tie.

 

 

I snapped a photo into the frame tunnel to see how dirty it was and was glad to see it was virtually rust free. The debris you see at the bottom includes much of the remains of the original rubber coating on the fuel line that was just the cloth coating. I did what I could to get that cleaned from out of the frame tunnel, but didn't worry too much about it. The only way to visually inspect this part of the frame is to do something like this with a camera. 

 

I had a delay in testing for leaks as I also decided to put in a new, modern fuel pump at the same time, but I was happy and relieved that when it came time to fire up the car again, there weren't any leaks and my issues I was having with the car not wanting to start have disappeared. Here are a few more pics of the final install:

In all, because of the extra time it took for me to figure out how to loosen the hard line nut, get the hard line loose from the elbow fitting, and getting the original rubber lines off of their fittings, it took me much longer than the one hour estimate that I had heard it would take. So if you're going to tackle this project, learn from my issues and you will hopefully get it done in less time. I don't know the exact amount of time that it took me, but I estimate it was about 2.5 hours.

Fixing the old DeLorean smell

 From the first time I sat in my DeLorean when I bought it in 2011, I couldn't help but notice its distinctive "old car" smell. I didn't mind it too much as it was part of what made it what it was. However, I knew that I would eventually do something to alleviate some of the strong aroma since I would walk away smelling like the car anytime I drove it.

Like many other owners, I determined that some of the unique smell was coming from the original insulation material located under the carpet on the parcel shelf behind the seats. This material originally had a rubber covering on it, but the rubber on mine was removed before I owned the car. As you can see below, some of mine was already starting to come apart.

 

Some owners have removed the insulation, which looks suspiciously like carpet padding, and gone to such lengths as to cover their entire fiberglass tubs with Dynamat, or other similar products. I wasn't looking to go to such lengths at this point. As time went on, my wife and I happened to be adding new carpet to our house, and I decided to snag some extra padding to use to replace the padding on the DeLorean's parcel shelf. First, I took out the old stuff.

It was on there pretty good with whatever adhesive was used before, but with a little patience, elbow grease, and acetone, it cleaned up nicely for the new padding that I added. I just cut the new padding to size and stuck it on there. This was several years ago, and for the life of me, I don't recall if I even used adhesive to permanently adhere the new padding, or if I just laid it there loosely. If I ever go into that area again, I'll see what I did and take some "after" photos. 

I am happy to report that the strong stench did greatly diminish. It isn't entirely gone, but I imagine that some of the other old materials in the car either held onto the smell from the old insulation, or those materials themselves are also emitting their own stench. 

Several owners have completely removed their interiors and washed them down, including the carpets, which I imagine would be a tremendous help. If I ever have a need to completely disassemble my interior, I'll join that club.

New DeLorean fuel lines

I can't believe that it has been nearly FIVE YEARS since my last progress post, but I have had way more important things going on. For example, here are a few things that have taken priority:

• Had two more kids, for a grand total of four
• Finished the basement of our house
• Improved my employment situation
• Overhauled my '99 Jeep Cherokee's steering, suspension, and cooling system
  
• Got tired of being overweight and started working out regularly since 2018
• Re-landscaped my entire front and backyard, including an in-ground trampoline, a flag pole, over 10 new trees, flowers shrubs, garden boxes, ground fabric, mulch, curbing, sprinklers, fire pit, basketball court, etc. that took two years to complete
• Put epoxy on our home garage floor
  
• Built a backyard deck with a pitched roof
• And more
  

In other words, the DeLorean has been low on the list of things needing my immediate attention. Going through pictures over the last several years made me realize that I did in fact spend time working on the car, but simply failed to post about it.  

Unbelievably, I've been dealing with issues getting the car to start reliably after I replaced the original fuel lines back in 2016. I replaced them out of caution since the fuel lines were original, but I wasn't have any problems until after I swapped them out. Go figure, right? I bought a SS fuel line kit from DeLorean Performance Industries, and the lines appeared to be made well. I replaced one line at a time, so I knew that the lines were in the right locations, but the car ran really rough for the first minute or so, but then smoothed out and ran great.

The issues didn't go away though as it has not been easy to start in most conditions. If cold, it will usually start the easiest. If it was just turned off, then it will fire right back up. If it was hot, either outside or from running the engine, and if more than about 10 minutes have passed, it will just crank and crank and not start. I have literally sat in a parking lot while out doing errands for over an hour trying to get the car to start. Once I do get it to start, however, it seems to run fine with good power and no other issues.

This may also be one reason that I haven't driven the car much, unless I could drive it and return home all in the same trip without turning off the car for very long to avoid being stranded. Here are some pics I took when I was double checking that I had all the lines hooked up correctly:

 

 

Here's a video I took after the lines were installed while the car was running so I could document any leaks or other things that looked out of place. Everything appeared to be fine, visually.

 

I suspected that something was causing the car to lose fuel pressure after shutting off, causing a form of vapor lock in the heat. One quick way to test pressure in the system is to see how much effort it takes to press down the fuel metering plate under the air intake. This first clip shows how bouncy and how little resistance there is on the plate:

 

After running the car, you can see how much more pressure there is, meaning it isn't as easy to push it down:

How long that pressure is there indicates how long the car is holding fuel pressure, or at least that's how I understood it.

 

In the process of trying to figure out the problem, I discovered a fuel leak coming from the fuel filter. It was weeping out from where the hard line connects to the bottom of the filter. I had that torqued down as hard as I could and the fitting still leaked. This is not an uncommon problem, and DeLorean Performance Industries was able to provide me with a new fitting and fuel filter. The original hard line had to be cut near the filter, then the new fitting went in its place. Here's the old fitting after I cut it off from the hard line:

 

 

 

Here are the shiny new parts that I installed to fix the leak:

Here is the repaired fuel line using the new parts that fixed the leak:

 

Unfortunately, that fix did nothing to solve my starting issues, which I am still dealing with to this day. But there is hope on the horizon. After getting together with a group of local owners last summer and troubleshooting my issue, the consensus was that I should go ahead and replace the fuel accumulator, which is responsible for maintaining fuel pressure in the lines after the car is shut off. I have no record of a PO replacing that, and based on the pictures, it looks to be very, very old:

I was able to source a Bosch unit from RockAuto.com, then got some new lines that attach to the accumulator from DeLorean Go. I have all those parts in hand, but haven't made it a priority to tackle that job yet. Fingers are crossed that this will be the silver bullet to fixing the starting problems. If not, we'll see if any new symptoms appear.

New interior dome lights

Ever since I bought my DeLorean back in 2011, the interior dome lights have had several issues. First, they don't turn on automatically when the doors are open. I have not addressed that issue yet.

Second, they don't stay put in the roof and I have to keep pushing them into place. That is the issue I decided to address first. There were some replacement dome lights available for sale on ebay for around $16 each. This link may not work in the future, but I'll post it anyway: DeLorean Courtesy Dome Light

This was a super easy replacement. They popped right into place and they work great. In the future, I will tackle the issue of them not coming on when the doors are open, but at least I don't have to worry about them constantly falling out anymore. Also, they look great!

Another DeLorean Oil Change

I decided that I wanted another oil type in my DeLorean, even though I hadn't driven it much since the last change. It had been about 16 months since the last change. You can read about another oil change here.

I didn't want 10w-30 anymore, but 20w-50. I understand that this is the recommended by many DeLorean parts vendors, so I'm confident that the engine will be just fine with this oil.

The oil change was successful and would definitely recommend the oil below to anyone considering oil for their DeLorean.