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.

DeLorean Automatic Antenna Replacement #2

Back in 2012, I bought and installed a Legacy LN46 automatic antenna, as outlined here.

That antenna was crap and wouldn't go down all the way unless you pushed it down for the short period of time that the motor tried to put it down after turning off the radio. I knew that it had to go shortly after installing it.

Another DeLorean owner informed me of an antenna that he had used successfully, so I found and bought a Metra 44-PW22B on ebay. I never did like the chrome look of the Legacy LN46 antenna and was pleased that the Metra unit came with a black mast.
 
It took me a while to get the antenna as straight as possible since my car has a car alarm siren in the cubby where the antenna goes. It made for very difficult working angles and it took me an entire afternoon before it was lined up in a way that I was happy with. I didn't take pics since it was nearly the same process as I had posted about before. Here's a video of it working properly going both up and down. Yay!

Installed DeLorean poly sway bar kit

I have had a squeak coming from the drivers side front suspension for a couple of years. I thought I had narrowed it down to the rubber sway bar bushings, so I bought a poly sway bar bushing kit from DMCNW. The install seemed pretty straightforward. This is what the sway bar end looked like after taking it off the DeLorean:

I then went to install the new poly bushing and I realized that something wasn't right. the inside diameter of the new bushing sleeve was not big enough to fit over the end of the sway bar. The original rubber bushing had a much larger hole to allow it to slip over the end. See the comparison below:

I realized that the part I was trying to fit the new bushing onto was a vulcanized sleeve that needed to come off, as well as the washer. It had seized on there pretty good and it took a combination of pounding it with a hammer and prying it with a screwdriver. Here's what it looked like during the process of removal:

Once I got it off, I cleaned it up with a wire wheel to prep for paint and installation.

Here it is all installed:

The bad news is that it didn't fix my squeaking noise, but at least I now have bushings that are nice and tight compared to the old ones.

DeLorean mirror switch fix

When I was fixing my stuck DeLorean driver's side door, the poor mirror switch came apart.

 The back side where all the wires connect came apart from the rest of the body, spilling the internal guts of little bearing-like metal pieces and electrical connections. I tried in vain for a couple of hours to get it all back together, but I was unsuccessful.

After posting a question to the online DeLorean community on how to get it back together successfully, a member told me that he had a Saab switch that was a great replacement for the DMC version, and he would give it to me for free as long as I paid for shipping. It arrived from Texas a few days later and it hooked right up to the existing connections and works flawlessly.

Here it is all installed:

When I was fixing the stuck door, it might have been the first time that I had personally had the lower door panel off the driver's side door and I couldn't help but notice all of the foam that had been put in the panel around the door vent. After inquiring about this online, this wasn't done at the factory, but by a previous owner in an attempt to make the door vent work better. Luckily, it's one of those things that I don't have to look at when I drive the car, so I won't worry about it.