VIN 4365 Project

[mrsandman]

This one has been in the family since 1985, unfortunately, its been sitting in a garage since ~1989. It was driven into the garage one fall, just wasn't pulled back out in the spring. Each year it sat, the more work was required to get it out again. It has become my project to get her back on the road again.

Current condition:
The body is in great shape, the interior is in great shape as well. No cracks or rips in the seats or dash. The engine however is ceased.

The first order of business is to get the engine to turn. While the engine is soaking, I'll take a look at the fuel (tank, pump, lines, injectors, etc). I'm hoping I don't have the pull the engine right away. I'm sure it will be inevitable though.

Just a couple of pics for now. I've got her in storage for the winter as I don't have a shop. Its a bit cold here in the north to work on her now.

I'm following http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?14574-VIN-2706-s-20-year-nap as it sounds like a similar situation.


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More pics and updates after the winter thaw!

[sdg3205]

Love to hear about more cars coming out of moth balls. More pics indeed.

[powerline84]

Very similar story to mine lol. My motor is siezed currently working a replacement . I have been allowing the cylinders to soak with a 50/50 mix of atf/diesel for 2 weeks. Either way I am gonna pull my block. Congrats !

[powerline84]

Hows progress coming for yah ?

[mrsandman]

She's in cold storage right now. I don't have a shop and when the ambient temperature is about zero, it's no fun working on cars. If the weather warms up a bit, I'll go out and grab some pics. I'll take a look at a few things like the fuse box and see what I might need in the future. That way I can start to acquire parts I will need.

Thanks for checking in!

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[mrsandman]

Sorry it's been a while, but I finally pulled her out of storage today. I think the frosty season is behind us here in the northern climate.
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We got her loaded and put into the garage. Not much work was done today. We were able to pull out the spark plugs and poured some ATF / acetone mixture into the cylinders. I'll let that soak for a while to see if we can break the motor free.
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I did a quick inspection of the fuse block and things look good there. I'll do a more thorough look when I get some time. I'll still want to look into updating the fan system though.

Next step I think is to look at the fuel system. I'm sure I'll need to do some work there.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170416/90dea7770cb99a1d5e7013d026af5af3.jpg

[mrsandman]

We keep adding ATF and acetone to the cylinders without any movement. I'll keep adding and hopefully I'll get something to move one of these days.

I took a quick look at the fuse block today and it is in great shape! I'll take the win while can.

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It doesn't look like there was anything bypassed nor does it appear anything got melted.

[mrsandman]

Good news today, I managed to get the motor to budge slightly! I ended up moving the motor slightly and poured more ATF into the cylinders. I didn't try to push my luck and rotate it completely. I will move it a little bit each day and eventually get her all the way around.

Needless to say, it was another successful day here!

I've got lots more with to do before I can fire it up!

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[powerline84]

Nice! I can tell you that once I broke down my Siezed block the bottom end actually turned fine, what was locked up and extremely rusty was the timing chains and the cams.

[mrsandman]

Nice! I can tell you that once I broke down my Siezed block the bottom end actually turned fine, what was locked up and extremely rusty was the timing chains and the cams.
That's good to know. I'll add to the list to take a look at those items before I try to fire it up.

Thanks!

[Lwanmtr]

Good luck, hope you get it running soon

[mrsandman]

I managed to get some time with it yesterday. I took the plunge and mucked out the gas tank. There wasn't as much crap in there as I thought. I managed to get all of the crap out of the tank without getting much on myself.

The fuel pump boot was not quite covering the hole anymore. Thankfully, it doesn't look like much moisture got into the tank itself. Pulling out the fuel pump was kind of a challenge. I made the mistake of pulling it out before disconnecting the lines. The rubber lining was not much like rubber anymore, it was quite nasty. I'll have to decide if I want to just replace the fuel lines or see if I can get these clean. Based on how the outer rubber coating on the fuel line just flaked off, I might have to just replace them. That will be a project for another day!

I'll have to upload some pics of the components I pulled out later, for now, I've got an action shot of me arm deep into the tank.
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[Lwanmtr]

I managed to get some time with it yesterday. I took the plunge and mucked out the gas tank. There wasn't as much crap in there as I thought. I managed to get all of the crap out of the tank without getting much on myself.

I've got an action shot of me arm deep into the tank.

Hmm... Delorean Action figures.... curled up under the dash, arms inside the fuel tank, holding a light trying to find that nut in the valley of death, scratching head (wondering wtf the po was thinking by putting a fish tank filter in there).....hehe

Nice that you didnt have a ton of gunk in there.

[Citizen]

I'll have to upload some pics of the components I pulled out later, for now, I've got an action shot of me arm deep into the tank.
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Looking at the pictures you posted, I got to thinking; Can you imagine how miserable it would have been working on DeLorean fuel problems if the engineers had not seen fit to put that access panel right there?

Sheesh!

...

[mrsandman]

Where has the summer gone! Life keeps getting in the way and I can't seem to get time to work on my car!

Today I finally got some time to do some work. The fuel tank is now cleaned out and looking good. Today I wanted to flush the fuel lines. I followed the recommendation from a post in the how to section and connected the supply and return lines in the engine compartment. After a few trips to the store to get the right hoses connected, a new utility fuel pump, fresh gas, etc, I was finally able to start flushing the lines.

Unfortunately, it appears there is something plugging the line. I couldn't get anything through. I tried to remove the fuel filter to see if that was the issue, but that is currently not disconnecting from the hard fuel line. I've got penetrating oil working on it now.

I also found out today the oil drain plug is missing. Must have gotten misplaced in my dad's garage somewhere. That would explain why the ATF I've dumped into the cylinders has now managed to leak out on to the garage floor! [Add a drain plug to the order list.]

Needless to say, today wasn't all that productive, but I got a chance to spend some time in the garage!

Next step is to order the list of supplies for the fuel system, including all fuel lines for the engine compartment. At 35 years old, it's good to get them replaced. So I guess I'll flush the hard fuel lines one section at a time.

[mrsandman]

Had a few hours to work on it today. Managed to get the fuel filter out without wrecking the hard line. It took some hits with a hammer to get the line out of the fitting. Didn't have enough time to try to clean them out save that for another day.

Pulled off the wheels for the first time. Plenty of rust on the brake components. I'll have to invest some time to go through the brakes before I'll consider it road worthy. The hard brake lines look good. The rubber lines will need replacement for sure. I was actually surprised I was able to move the parking brake mechanism on the rears. I didn't try the cables, I'm sure those are rusted up and will need replacement.

That's all for today. I'll have to get some pics to share.

[Lwanmtr]

Sounds like youre getting in there and finding all the niggly things to fix.

I'll be having all my mechanical and brakes inspected up at DMCNW, since they'll know more about what will need replaced.

[mrsandman]

Sounds like youre getting in there and finding all the niggly things to fix.

I'll be having all my mechanical and brakes inspected up at DMCNW, since they'll know more about what will need replaced.
As far as breaks are concerned it should be easy to figure out what needs to be replaced: just about everything!

Yep, finding all kinds of fun things to R&R. Today I tried to pump through without removing the accumulator. That didn't happen. I'll need to get that out of there. From everything I've read, it sounds pretty high on the swear meter. I'll need some extra patience for that....

[Lwanmtr]

Good luck with that...I've only read vageu descriptions of where its at...sounds like a chore...hehe.

[mrsandman]

So I managed to get the fuel hard lines all cleaned out, and spent some time getting the fuel accumulator, fuel pump, and fuel filter put back in.

Wow! I thought getting the accumulator in was going to be hard, I really didn't think the filter was going to be that bad. Boy was I wrong. I figured the filter would be easy because its mostly accessible. I think I put that thing in so many times and got it wrong just as many! I think it took me about 90 minutes just to get it installed. For an item that needs replacement, I wouldn't have thought it to be so difficult!

Installing the accumulator, that is just difficult because there isn't good access. I can understand that one. I don't remember how many hours it took, but it makes sense. The fuel return line I never got the flared end to disconnect. I managed to get the nut removed, but not the brass flare. I ended up connecting the new hose to brass and tightened it down. I figure if it wants to stay there that bad, it can continue to seal! So new hoses and a new accumulator all back in place. Glad to have that done (hopefully everything is tight enough to be sealed! No fuel in the tank yet, so I'll have to test another day.

Next is to pull off the distributor and replace all the fuel lines in the engine compartment. Test out the distributor...

Fuel filter removed:
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Accumulator removed, note return line:
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[mrsandman]

The wheels are off and the brakes are removed. I pulled apart the calipers and they all seem to be in decent shape. The pistons are in good shape and no pitting or anything else that I can see. All the rust appears to be on the outside. The brake fluid that leaked out was not exactly clean, but it wasn't anywhere near black either. I'll have to clean them off and rebuild them. I want to paint them right away as long as I have them out. I've got a guy here in town that is willing to sand blast them for me. So it looks like some rebuild kits are in my future.

Anybody have recommendations on the paint to use on the brakes? I know it will require high temperature paint. I'm still debating on the color to paint them. I don't think the car needs to be flashy so maybe just a nice black to keep it from rusting.

The rotors, though covered in rust, don't seem to be worn badly. I'll knock off the rust to see how much metal is left. I can't make much of an assessment until I take care of the rust.

The last piece is the brake lines. The hard lines look ok. I'm just worried about the rubber lines after this many years. The coupler that goes through the frame looks like it leaked, so I'll have to take a look at that. Not sure if its the coupler or the lines. Hard to tell with the coolant line running right there.

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[Lwanmtr]

Really digging in there...

I agree access to the fuel filter is somewhat lacking..they shoulda put it in a more accesible place like either near the distributor or the pump, IMO.

Those rotors may just have surface rust (hopefully) as mine did/do...when they get used most of that will come off..but looking at a couple of your pics they have a bit more than mine..so may need replacing.

I've heard its a good idea to replace the rubber lines if they are the originals, simply because that old, they probably wont last too much longer.

[mrsandman]

I've gotten back to her now that the snow is gone. Not too long ago we had snow here, today its going to be 95 degrees. We seemed to have gone from winter straight to summer here in Wisconsin.

I've spend a few nights out there and took off the distributor, air metering system, and intake. The good news is the metering system looks good. Doesn't look like there are any issues there. Just need to clean it up and make it look good.

Now comes the bad news, the distributor is about as stuck as it can be. I've put some atf/acetone on the piston to try to get it to move and I can't get any movement on it. The only thing I haven't tried is air pressure through the WUR port. I've been kind of afraid to try it. At this point, I don't think I have much to lose.

Another thing is that I found lots of walnut shells under the intake. A rodent of some sort made a home under the intake, so I pulled that off. So far the valley of death looks good. I still need to do some cleaning on it because of all the crap the rodents left behind. As long as I'm in there I might as well replace the hoses and water pump.

So this brings up my question: with all the issues I'm likely to find with this fuel system, should I just bite the bullet at this point and switch to EFI? I've looked through the forums and it seems like its best to start with a well running motor. If I'm going to invest into getting the Bosch system working, I'm going to use it. I figure by the time I take care the fuel lines, distributor, lambda, and all of these other components, I'm going to be well into a better, more modern fuel system.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the K-jet system is well documented enough that it won't be a problem keeping it running. Any thoughts?

So my next steps are to do inspections inside the heads and lower unit to see if those need to come apart as well. I'm hoping they will look good, but I won't know until I put a camera in there to take a look.

Picture of the valley, after some cleaning.
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Some of the walnut shells removed - some...
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Pic of the distributor
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[mrsandman]

I got to spend some time over the past couple of weekends. The water pump is out and now I've got full access to the valley. After clearing out all of the rodent crap and whatever else was in there, I inspected the valley. The valley appears to be in good shape! I'm quite happy I don't have any issues there. It was kind of a pain in the butt to get all they way down there to remove all of the accumulated stuff. Once I got to the bottom, I could see it is solid metal at the bottom and there aren't any leaks.

After doing some research, it appears the EFI change over is a little bit involved. I'll just stick with the KJet system for now. It sounds like its best to start with a running motor, and it is a winter project.

I pulled out the warm up regulator to give that a cleaning, not much dirt in there. I ended up just cleaning it up and putting it back together. There was a couple of bits of junk in the fuel screen. See pics.

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I now have an order for all the rubber hoses, water pump, rebuild kits, etc. Hopefully all of it will go on as easily as it is coming off. There is plenty of documentation on the vacuum hose routing so hopefully I don't run into problems there!

I also tried to get the fuel distributor apart. I will admit, I didn't try to hard for fear to wrecking it. Since the part normally has a pretty hefty core charge, I wanted to make sure I've got one to send back, preferably one that is still rebuildable! Since I can't get the plunger to move and I can't get it to separate, I'll let someone with more experience rebuild it. I'm sure there is plenty of dried up fuel in there. It might take some extra work to get it open and operational again.

That's about it for now!

[Lwanmtr]

Sounds like some decent progress :)

[powerline84]

Do yourself a favor and use silicone hoses and good clamps in the valley, pressure test while apart and then reinstall top end ....or they Will loosen up and you'll be taking the top end off again lol.

[mrsandman]

That's a great idea. I didn't think about doing a pressure test right away. Thanks.

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[Mark D]

Wow, I don't know how I missed this thread for the past year and a half. I'm also in WI so it's cool to learn about another restoration in progress close by. I'm in the Stevens Point area so if you are ever passing through give me a shout. I saw in your previous post that you're in Mt. Horeb. Great work on the car so far!

[mrsandman]

Wow, I don't know how I missed this thread for the past year and a half. I'm also in WI so it's cool to learn about another restoration in progress close by. I'm in the Stevens Point area so if you are ever passing through give me a shout. I saw in your previous post that you're in Mt. Horeb. Great work on the car so far!

Yep, I'm down in Horeb, a bit of a drive from the Point.

I'm just trying to get her back on the road again at this point. I think I've got quite a bit of work to do just to get it drive-able again. I've got a bunch of parts coming in soon.

If you are in the neighborhood feel free to stop by! I can always use another hand to turn a wrench! ;)

[mrsandman]

Last weekend I did some hose replacing. I started to pull out all of the hard lines on the drivers side of the car. I've got them out at the moment. I'm going to clean them up to make sure the new hoses will have a good surface to seal. I'm doing one side at a time so I make sure the replacement hoses are correct ones. There are many more of the short hoses than I thought there would be!

I've got the new water pump in my hands, so I started to pull off the backing and thermostat housing from the old one. It took a bit of time and lots of patience to get all of the 35+ year old gasket off the backing. That needed to soak in parts cleaner for a while! It's nice and clean now, no need to give the gasket any reason to leak!

Taking out the hard coolant lines also gave me a chance to look at the brake coupler where it goes through the frame. Either the line or the coupler leaked. The coupler and the line were pretty well rusted. I had to cut the coupler out. Took a while, but nothing a hacksaw couldn't cure.

The brake fluid then leaked down the frame. Which then ate away at the coating. I was actually surprised the frame wasn't rusted more. I just took the wire brush on it and took it down to bare metal. I've got some paint to put on it to seal it back up again.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any interesting pics. I'll have to try to get some this weekend.

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[mrsandman]

Sorry for the long delay since my last update. I had to take a break for a while due to personal and financial reasons. Yep, it happens to us sometimes. Now, the wrench is back in my hand, so I’ve actually been making some progress.

Brakes

Since my last update, I’ve gone through the hard lines for the brakes. I had to replace one of the hard lines plus the coupler through the frame. While I had that apart, I put some new paint on the frame after taking care of the rust in that area.

All four brake hoses were replaced with stainless steel braided lines. Not that the old hoses were bad, but since they are nearly 40 years old, I don’t think I wanted to trust them. The hoses weren’t terrible to replace, but they weren’t easy either. I used a crows foot flare wrench to help with the rear hoses. Once those were replaced I felt a bit happier about the lines.

I took all four calipers to a local shop and got them back rebuilt, and painted. They sand blasted and painted them up. In the end, I think I might have been better off just doing a caliper exchange with one of the vendors, oh well. The calipers still look great, so that is what matters!

I ended up replacing the original master cylinder as well. It still had the factory master in place, so I figured it was time to replace. The reservoir was filled with tons of crap, glad I decided to replace it. I pulled off the booster unit as long as I was there. There was a touch of rust on it, so I took care of that and put some fresh paint on it. Looks better, hopefully the booster is still good. I bought the rebuild kit, but once I saw what goes into rebuilding it, I’ll just wait to see if the booster is bad first.

I bought one of the cheap vacuum bleeders off Amazon. I think it lasted about 3 and a half minutes before it broke. I don’t think it ever was able to get any brake fluid back to the caliper before it broke. Ended up just recruiting my son, and bled the brakes the old fashioned way.

The cables for the parking brakes are not in good shape. The cable ends ended up breaking off where they connected to the calipers, so new cables will be needed before it will work again. I pulled the parking calipers off, and took them to a friends place to sand blast. I’ve got them bagged up in oil to keep them from rusting. They will stay there until I end up replacing the brake cables.

Cooling system
I pulled the entire cooling system apart from front to back. I ended up taking the radiator to a local shop for testing. They nearly laughed at me when they told me it couldn’t hold any pressure. For some reason they couldn’t find a replacement for me. No problem, there are Delorean vendors for that! New radiator, fans and shroud were ordered.

As long as the radiator supports were out, I sandblasted and painted them up. I might have to revisit them a bit to make sure I didn’t screw up any ground connections. I know I’ll have to make sure to get the ground connection accessible for the horns. I might just run the ground buss through the car to take car of that anyway.

I pulled out most of the aluminum lines and cleaned them up. When I inspected the ends, I’m a bit concerned about some pitting. I’m not sure if there are any holes in the aluminum. I’ll see when I do pressure test.

While I had the valley all apart, I ended up rolling the car on to the driveway, so I could flush the block. The plugs were removed from the block and I took the hose to the flush the cooling passages. I was careful to only put water into the coolant passages. That would be a bad day if I got water into the head! Thankfully, the water only went where it should! There was a bit of gunk that came out, but not bad.

The new water pump and radiator are now installed, the hard lines are in place. I’m in process of installing the new silicone lines. Once I get all of those connected, I can pressure test the system. Hopefully I’ll get to that soon.

Vacuum Lines
I purchased a vacuum line kit and I’ve started to replace the lines as I can. With the valley all taken apart, I can only replace so many of the lines. After I get the pressure test done, I’ll put the valley all back together and make sure I don’t have any vacuum leaks.

Electrical
I purchased the relay and fuse kit. That is all replaced. Since I don’t have a battery in place, I can’t test to see if everything works, yet.

I pulled the Duelceller alternator and took it to a local shop for testing. They laughed at me as well because he didn’t have a connector for it. Apparently, he needed to have a replacement for it before he could test it. As long as its out, I replaced the belts. Not sure if the alternator works, but from what I read, they are not reliable. A new one is on the way.

Sorry for the long post if you made it through all of this!

[CFI]

The Ducellier alternator was marginal at best, that’s why the factory stopped using them. Even the Motorola was only slightly better. Get yourself one of the modern, 100+ amp, GM style CS130- based alternators.

[MrChocky]

The Ducellier alternator was marginal at best, that’s why the factory stopped using them. Even the Motorola was only slightly better. Get yourself one of the modern, 100+ amp, GM style CS130- based alternators.No kidding. I have one. I mean, the car is mostly OK, but definitely on the list of things to replace.

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[mrsandman]

I spent most of the winter tinkering on the engine and have it all back together. Tested the coolant system, tested the vacuum lines. All looks like it should work ok.

But today....

Today, I got the first fire in 30 years from the engine!

https://youtu.be/GM3tdVXGRbU

It got a little smokey in the garage, and I'm surprised the neighbors didn't call the fire department with all the smoke. The smoke was coming from all the ATF I poured down the cylinders because the engine was seized when I first got it.

Anyway, good progress was made. Now I will need to do some tuning. I wasn't able to hit the gas at all. It would stall out and misfire. She idled well and I was able to let it run for quite a while.

[Lwanmtr]

Cool. always good when you can see it fire up like that...even with the smoke..hehe

[mrsandman]

I've been working on the engine a bit to see if I can get it to the a bit better. Right now I can't get much for RPMs. I can't really get much more than 2500, even there I can hear a bit of misfires.

I currently have a bypass on the fuel pump and lambda. Not sure why the RPM relay isn't working, I haven't had a chance to poke into that.The FV is buzzing so that appears to be good. Idle is a bit high, I can't seem to get it much below 1k. The idle switch is working because the idle changes when I engage the switch. The engine appears to run smooth when at idle, so I would assume all the cylinders are firing.

There is still smoke coming out of the exhaust. I believe there is still some ATF in the cat because the smoke doesn't start right away. I guess I would have thought the smoke would go away after bringing the car up to temperature a couple of times.

The O2 sensor is still original, so I might try to replace that. From there I'll have to dig into how to start tuning the engine. I think I found a post on where to get started.

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[mrsandman]

Since the last post, I've been trying to get the engine to run right. It just was not running properly, I couldn't get any RPM's out of it. I even tried to back it out of the driveway on to the road and I just couldn't get any power. I could only get it up to about 8 MPH (far cry from 88!)

After testing just about everything I could - vacuum, vacuum leaks, compression, injectors, fuel pump, ignition coil, distributor, timing, and probably a few others I have forgotten. I just could not get any power out of the engine. This all led me to the fuel distributor pressure test. I was getting some odd readings there. After a few messages with a fellow owner, I had two lines swapped on the fuel distributor: frequency valve and WUR. Once I fixed those, I'm able to get power!

I was able to drive it on the road, which was really nice! I took it to the gas station to fill it with some fresh fuel and ran a couple of errands in town. During these excursions I could feel the automatic trans shifting into second and third while coasting, but would immediately shift back if I gave any throttle. Looking through the threads, it sounds like the governor computer is the likely culprit. My digikey order should be in today, so I will have my soldering iron ready.

Last night I made my way to the station to wash it for the first time in years.

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It is finally starting to come together. Thank you for all the help with all the threads in the forums. I've been reading through them whenever I start to dive into something new. I think next I will be going through the heat/ac vents up front. I figure the mice have been in there too. From what I read it will not be a fun job.

[Lwanmtr]

Cool. Nice when things start to go in a good direction :)

[Helirich]

Congratulations,

It's nicer to work on things when it runs.