VIN 4365 Project

[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.

IMG_20210624_191540648.jpg

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.