Day 4 of Delorean Ownership and Delorean Won't Start!

[leepoffaith]

I just wanted to say THANK you to everyone for their suggestions. First thing was I had the battery recharged at Advanced auto parts since I don't have a battery charger (on the Christmas list!). While that was charging I checked all my electrical connections in the engine compartment and I found a corroded connection on the ignition coil and a loose connection on the ignition resistor. I cleaned the coil and secured the resistor connection. I got back home with the charged battery, popped it in and she started right up! I'm thinking I might have bumped the wire on the resistor when I was tracing the lines for the WUR so I think that might have been it. Meanwhile I traced the rest of the ground wires and everything seems to be secured pretty well. Thank you very much for all of your suggestions. I was planning on running through most, if not all of them if my first step didn't work.

~Lee

[DMC5180]

Lee,

Glad you got it going. Just an FYI, the white two wire connector on the back wall harness with Black and Red wires is a radio noise filter. It is the little black cylinder taped to the wire harness. It is unused on your car, mine too, but on some cars there is a mating connector coming out of the engine wire harness that powers the vacuum solenoid. It was a rolling production change to delete it. That Harness never got revised to remove the filter. While the engine harness did get the revision.


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[leepoffaith]

- On the oil pressure sensor, try to determine if it's leaking around the outer seal or around the inner core. The outer seal is a crush washer that I found needed 28 ft/lbs to crush a new seal properly and seal. If it is the inner core try tightening the nuts on the sender electrical spade connector. If that doesn't work you'll need a new sender or you can take it apart and replace the oring seals. I think that PJ Grady offers a rebuilt one.

So I looked at this more closely and it definitely is the small middle washer that seals the bolt that the sensor wire clamps to. It just spins when I try and tighten it. Is there any way to replace/tighten the center bolt on these? I think the washer actually might be just fine, but it just needs to be tightened. Thanks!

~Lee

[DMC-81]

So I looked at this more closely and it definitely is the small middle washer that seals the bolt that the sensor wire clamps to. It just spins when I try and tighten it. Is there any way to replace/tighten the center bolt on these? I think the washer actually might be just fine, but it just needs to be tightened. Thanks!

~Lee

Sure, you can tighten it up some. Be careful as its only a small shaft. Here are a couple pictures to illustrate:

This is an OEM Oil Pressure Sender-light ( 102462 ) with the electrical connector disassembled and the second nut loosened. Notice how the sender cylinder is spring loaded and is moving away from the hub. (You don't want to completely remove this nut as the sender will fall apart in the engine.)


Here it is with the electrical connector disassembled, and the second nut tightened all the way. When tightening,after the threaded shaft spins, you can carefully grab the shaft with pliers ( without damaging the threads) while snugging up the nut a little bit more. By the way, the nut is 7 mm.


When you are finished, you can install the electrical spade connector, shaker washer, and nut:

[leepoffaith]

Sure, you can tighten it up some. Be careful as its only a small shaft. Here are a couple pictures to illustrate:

Thank you very much for all these great pictures! That explains why it was spinning. I"ll try grabbing the end gently with a long nose pliers and use a very small 7mm wrench to tighten the nut. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes!

~Lee

[David T]

Tightening it up usually won't stop the leaking. I take it all apart, wipe the parts down with alcohol, and reassemble with small dabs of silicone sealer on the sealing washers. Or you can just get a new one, they aren't expensive. The wire going to the sender is usually all burnt up. Either splice in a piece of high temp wire or cover the burnt up wire with a fire sleeve.

[DMC-81]

Thank you very much for all these great pictures! That explains why it was spinning. I"ll try grabbing the end gently with a long nose pliers and use a very small 7mm wrench to tighten the nut. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes!

~Lee

You're welcome.

Tightening it up usually won't stop the leaking. I take it all apart, wipe the parts down with alcohol, and reassemble with small dabs of silicone sealer on the sealing washers. Or you can just get a new one, they aren't expensive. The wire going to the sender is usually all burnt up. Either splice in a piece of high temp wire or cover the burnt up wire with a fire sleeve.

Well, it stopped mine from leaking. This is the logical first step to try. If it doesn't work, then removing the sender is required to repair or replace ( see post #8 ). This requires a new crush washer.

Also, I don't recommend using just any silicone to repair anything engine related. Using proper oil rated o-rings is ideal, but if you want to try a FIP gasket, you will want to find a product that is rated for engine oils...for example, Permatex gray RTV gasket maker.

[David T]

You are right, you can't use just any silicone sealer. It must say "Sensor Safe" or you run the risk of fouling your O2 sensor. While tightening it up will slow the leak down considerably, it will still be moist. There is a LOT of pressure on that switch. I reuse the large crush washer, again, with a dab of silicone and really tighten it up tight.

[DMC5180]

These are New O-rings I installed on my switch assembly. The originals were completely hard and square profiled and had lost all resilience to effectively seal.




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