I love this car but life is throwing some challenges my way in the form of my wife's cancer returning, she is going to have to quit work and treat. Combine that with me trying to build a BMW race car and there just isn't enough time and money for a fun cruiser collector car.
I'm offering the car up here as a pre-public sale notification. The car is in storage at our other house and I can't get the car out for a photo session for a week or two. When I can I'll take it out and update pics. At that time I'll begin listing it publicly and nationally, but I wanted to give DMC Talk a crack at it first because I've had such great interactions with people here and I'd like it to go to a good home. The prior owner approached me about buying the car back at $45k, but he ultimately decided to buy a car for significantly more from DMCH.
I bought it in December 2017 and immediately spent $8,500 with Josh at DPI making it a perfect cruising car:
New clutch w/new pressure plate, clutch disc, throw out bearing, pilot bearing, and rear main seal.
New shift linkages and cross gate cable assembly.
New chrome hardened axles flanges w/seals.
Converted to R-134 from R-12, including new compressor and all lines, pulley system/belt, evaporator, orifice tube, accumulator, front air distribution housing, and lower pressure switch.
I also installed ceramic window tint so the AC system doesn't have to work as hard in the summer, it works great.
Earlier in 2019 I drove the car from Pittsburgh to Coastal NC and it did well. In 2018 I drove it from Pittsburgh to Kentucky and back, again, did very well. I wouldn't hesitate to get in it today and drive it anywhere in the country. The car is not perfect but I bought a really nice example of a DMC and then improved on it so it's a very high quality car as it sits. It gets compliments from other DMC owners for how clean it is. Prior owner did a really great restoration on it, there are some pics in the link showing some of the work. Prior owner epoxy'd the frame and I had Josh at DPI look over it and he didn't find any weak points worth fixing, I'll get pics when I can.
Known issues:
There is a small coolant leak when you run the heater and then park the car. It loses a few ounces from a loose hose somewhere. I boroscoped the VOD and it's not getting in there so I haven't made it an urgent priority.
Distributor corrosion, needs replaced. Car is difficult to start if its in a very high humidity area, like rain. I can see that the distributor is old and needs replaced, I just haven't gotten into it yet. I started just driving it on nice days and haven't prioritized that fix.
Rear bumper cover near the DELOREAN inserts is scuffed, you can see it in one of the first pics on the link above. Some numbnuts kid wasn't paying attention at a red light and rolled his Ford Focus into the bumper at walking speed and left a scuff mark.
Happy to take questions here or you can contact me at dodint at gmail, or text to 412-453-6093. I know this ad isn't very specific, again it's just a pre-sale notification for this group. Let me know what you want to know.
Car is in Pittsburgh, PA. I have a tow vehicle and open trailer and can work with you on meeting or delivering to a reasonable distance. Thanks!
Brought the car out to do a pro photo shoot, currently prepping it for sale on Bring A Trailer.
If anyone is interested and wants to avoid the buyers fee the auction probably won't go live for another two weeks or so, I'll have more pictures up in a few days when the photographer is done.
The eBay listing is live, it's a fixed price listing with the Make Offer capability. Right now it is listed at $42k and my auto-reject offer amount is set below that. If the thread topic could be edited to reflect that $42k that would be ideal; I don't see that I can edit it.
Here is a link to the photo gallery, with something like 150+ professional photos as well as undercarriage/frame shots. Some quick candids of the service records are in there: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ur6nioa31...mpIzvk3Ja?dl=0
Someone here message me asking about the two concerns listed in the initial post above. I drove the car about 65 miles on January 13th to take the pictures. Before I left I took the frame shots, and while it was on the lift I tightened down every coolant line I could reach to see if I could get that weeping issue to stop. It did not leak anything on that day, but I haven't driven it enough to tell you 100% for sure that the weeping is fixed. Again, it only happens when you run the heater and then shut the car off which is how I forgot to get it checked out over the summer or when it was up at DPI.
As for the distributor cap condensation issue I power washed the engine bay and it fired right up afterwards and drove the 65 miles. Not a huge concern right now but the new owner would want to look into that as a preventative maintenance item.
Video of it cold starting the day of the photo shoot, had been sitting in the garage under a cover for 2 months prior:
