Restoring DeLorean drive axles

 Almost exactly 10 years ago, I replaced the boots on the drive axles, as documented on this post. After I removed the engine and transmission from my DeLorean, I saw that the boots were still in great shape, but that the drive axles were caked in grease. They likely were seeping grease juice, causing them to look pretty nasty. Even though the boots were fine, I decided now would be as good of a time as any to restore the drive axles to as good of condition as I could.

They looked good from far, but far from good after taking them out of the car:

Again, the boots were fine, but grease juice had been escaping from somewhere. I thought I could do a better job of restoring these the second time around.

I knocked off the cap ends, cut the zip ties holding on the boots, and dove into the greasy mess.

On the end of the shaft, there is a c-clip that holds on the cup end. It's buried under the black grease in this picture:

I was much more careful in working on the axles this time by trying to keep surfaces clean with paper towels, wearing gloves, and not holding back on trying to get everything as clean as possible as I completely disassembled each drive axle.

Unlike last time, this go around I removed and cleaned everything. Last time, I cleaned things with the bearings still in the cup assembly, leaving a lot of the old grease in place. I wanted a completely fresh start this time.

I took it a step further and sandblasted all of the external components down to the bare metal. I then wiped them down with acetone before applying paint. For the shaft, I used black POR-15, which is some of the most durable paint that I have had experience with. For the other pieces, I either used black POR-15, or I used primer, gold engine paint, followed by an engine clear coat.

Before reassembling, it's important to know how the pieces fit together. You have the inner "star" inside the smaller circle that have wide and sharper points. The wide points need to align to the skinny sections on the outer circle and the skinny points need to align to the wider section, as shown in the photo below:

After several days of painting various coats, here are the pieces getting ready to be reassembled:

Here is the proper alignment of the outer section. It's important to not mess this up:

One curious thing I found when I disassembled my axles is that the c-clips were different from one shaft to the other. I much preferred those with the holes as it made it much easier to remove. I reused these as the new boot kit did not come with replacements:

After installing the c-clips, I then repacked the joints with new grease, starting with the outside.

I then put the outside cover on, using some sealant to prevent future seeping. Time will tell if this works.

I then packed the joint with grease on the shaft side:

I also applied some RTV sealant around the cup to prevent seeping around the large end of the boot. Again, we'll see if this works over time.

Both axles went back together nicely, after which I installed them in the car and torqued the new bolts down to 30 ft-lbs.

Reinstalling DeLorean engine and transmission

 After successfully mating the engine and transmission back together after several months apart and all the other prep work had been completed (frame cleanup, new motor mounts, restored transmission mounts, etc.), the time had arrived to put them back into the car. 

The process to reinstall them was much more delicate, deliberate, and slow than taking them out of the car. It took a lot of adjusting with the load leveler to get the angles right, getting the transmission under the body of the car without having the engine hit the back of the frame.

In addition to using the engine hoist and load leveler, I also had a jack under the frame to raise and lower the car when necessary. This turned out to be very helpful to be able to adjust the height of the car in addition to height of the engine and transmission.

The last hurdle to cross is to get all of the mounts to line up correctly. I was able to get the transmission mounts close enough to be able to put the bolts through the mount holes which allowed me to then focus on getting the motor mounts to line up. It took a bit of wiggling of the motor, but eventually I was able to get it to fall into place into the mounts.

Next up will be to hook up the transmission linkages, electrical connections, fuel lines, cooling lines, and anything else required for the motor to run before firing it up again.

Replacing DeLorean positive battery cable and refreshing battery compartment

 After pulling out the engine and transmission to fix a broken motor mount, I discovered something very unusual with the positive battery cable. It had been wrapped in a lot of electrical tape, clearly not done at the factory.

 After unwrapping this, I was horrified that I had been driving the car like this for the last 10+ years. The wire had melted nearly in half in some point in the past. The green copper corrosion showed that it had been this way for a very long time. Unbelievable. I ordered a new cable and undertook the uncommon task of replacing that cable.

The positive cable runs from the battery compartment, over the top of the rear trailing arm, then goes between the frame and the fiberglass under body. If the cable has never been removed, it is held in place by multiple clips, which makes it very difficult to get it out. I realized that if I could barely get it out, it would be just that much harder to get a new cable in. I had the genius idea to connect a thin metal wire to one end of the cable that I was removing so that I could have a guide wire to pull the new cable through.

I found I could get more pulling leverage if I pulled it out towards the engine instead of from the battery side. I lifted up the passenger side of the under body to try and get as much room for the cable to move and I ended up breaking all of the clips that hold the cable to the frame as I pulled and tugged on the old cable. I finally got it out and you can see the metal wire I used as a fishing line below:

Getting the new cable in was just the reverse. It was much easier getting the new cable fished in than it was getting the old one out. Here is the final product with the new cable installed:

In the process of installing the new positive battery cable, I discovered that my battery compartment was in pretty sad shape, first evidenced by the crusty bracket holding the battery strap:

After taking out the battery, I found a badly worn battery pad and very corroded bolts for the rear air deflector shields that I have never had installed on my car. Those bolts were just loosely sitting there with no nuts on the outside holding them in, but were just held in by a little RTV sealant.

The bolts on the outside that held these pieces in place were not in any better shape either:

I started by removing the bracket that holds in the battery strap:

I then removed the battery pad, which had been adhered to the bottom of the battery compartment. That took a lot of scraping and Goo Gone to get it clean. I also removed the rusty bolts for the air deflector shields. I then sandblasted and painted the battery strap bracket, got stainless retaining strips for the rear deflector shields, and put in a new battery pad from DMCH:

I also replaced all of the external nuts and bolts with stainless steel, greatly improving the look and restoring the look of each of those components:

For some other cosmetic improvements, I took the original starter and painted it with black POR-15 to make it look new again:

I also restored the look of the coil suppressor and replaced all of the little nuts and bolts in that area with stainless steel: