What easy and inexpensive upgrades/mods would you suggest for a new owner?

[David T]

Bumping this out of curiosity -- what mods did you decide to work on???

Blinker mod is a popular one, and is a GREAT intro to working with your car's electronic system. Get a few scotchlok connectors before you start to make things easy:

Any generic will work too. I know Radioshack sells them in their electrical components section, I believe Lowe's and Home Depot do too if you know where to look. These are also incredibly useful for third taillight mods and other electrical projects. Only requires wire and pliers to use. Piece of cake!

Please don't use those things. Yes, they are quick, easy and cheap. The downside, the steel blade inside rusts and causes bad connections. Any moisture and they will rot the wiring.

[mluder]

I decided that mluder's advice in this thread was the best:



That being said... 6 months to see what goes wrong? Try 6 days! My parking brake cables disengaged from the yoke, so I've spent a few hours over the past few days dealing with that. Thread on that here.

Welcome to DeLorean ownership...

The other Law of Ownership you will eventually run into states that "In the process of fixing a singular item you will inevitably accidentally break or lose of at least 2 additional items."

BTW - I don't recall... Does your factory radio work? If so there's an FM Modulator that you can connect inline to the antenna lead. It works much better than the stand alone modulators because it interrupts the antenna feed and sends the radio signal directly to the radio. I have this kit and it works pretty well. http://www.ebay.com/itm/SCOSCHE-FMMO...item53f71e4acc
If your antenna is in the rear pontoon then there's an antenna coupling location in the compartment under the parcel shelf behind the driver's seat. All you need to do is provide power and ground - also locally available and you're set.

Of course this doesn't increase the power output of the factory stereo but its a cheap and easy remedy.

[Shep]

Please don't use those things. Yes, they are quick, easy and cheap. The downside, the steel blade inside rusts and causes bad connections. Any moisture and they will rot the wiring.

Precisely why they make a good intro, not a good long-term solution. I have quite a few in my taillight wiring setup (before I really knew electronics), and am going through them to properly solder them in the coming days, now that I can successfully wield a soldering iron without burning a hole in my skin.

Although they're not all steel, are they? I'm fairly certain I have only seen a few very old ones rust on me, most of the time they're perfectly fine years later with no rust at all when broken apart (I say this on unrelated family projects, not on my DeLorean -- some dating back before I was born!). Could be mistaken though, but at least in my experience, they're a good interim solution until you have the know-how to wire it up correctly. Good call on the disclaimer though!

[Nicholas R]

Please don't use those things. Yes, they are quick, easy and cheap. The downside, the steel blade inside rusts and causes bad connections. Any moisture and they will rot the wiring.

I have to admit, I agree. Also, if you don't size the size of the connectors to your wire gauge, you can end up slicing through some of the wire strands inside, or have poor contact. Truthfully, nothing beats a soldered connection with heat shrink. If I'm in a situation where I have to use connectors, it's almost always crimped and soldered spade connectors, or at worst, butt splices. For testing or temporary installations I'll use wire nuts but that's only if I know it's getting removed or made permanent in the future.

[Rich_NYS]

Can you point me to any step-by-step instructions, including what to buy, etc.?

This looks like a pretty good video:

I bought my LED kit from DMCMW....

[vps3922]

Hi, I can add my 5 cents to it. I exchanged all light bulbs in my car to LED (with the exception of the battery light and headlights). I followed this and this blog.

I think that it is always a good idea to take the load of the battery of an old car and LEDs are the way to go. But this is no cheap thing if you buy all from SuperbrightLEDs (which I did). But this is not my point in this post.

I recommend to enforce your taillight sockets for your bulbs like it is described in the lower part of the first blog I mentioned. I had to pick them up on a vacation trip to the US, because they could not source these kind of screws in Canada, and it was totally worth it. You get those screws and nuts in nearly every Radio Shack or you can order them and it is a very cheap update. Old taillight sockets have sometimes loose sockets or bad connections. These little screws will take care of that and they will hold your heavier LEDs (once you decide to do this upgrade) in place very well.

Just an idea.

[88KPH]

First spend $300 on a nice socket/drive/allen-key set and torch. Only one way to learn.