VIN 5510 - Bill's DeLorean Restoration

[CyberBill]

It's been a very productive and fruitful two weeks!

First - the TIG welder got the parts back, and they look excellent! Most of the repairs were very minor, and the total was $120. He wasn't able to do the machining on the exhaust as I was hoping, but I was able to flatten them myself with an orbital sander and 80 grit paper. Still LOTS of pitting and stuff, but the areas where the exhaust should seal look good to me. The entire exhaust is now fully disassembled, the last part was getting the O2 sensor removed, which required me to cut it off so I could use an impact wrench on it and I have a new one incoming from DGO. The exhaust is going to be painted in VHT paint and the crossover pipe will be wrapped in some fiberglass wrap material to cut down on heat since the heat shields are missing.

Second - Zinc plating! The items are all returned, and they are AWESOME! Oh man, they look so good, it's incredible. With these items back in my possession, there are about a dozen things I can get installed. Here's a very short video:

https://youtu.be/ig57n0Ih9dk

Third - Powder coating! They are currently all at a powder coating place and the ETA is the 9th. Cost estimate was $350, which is 1/3rd the price of the other places I found. The other places wanted $400 just to powder coat the brake calipers!

Fourth - I've received loads of parts. The biggest order was from Toby at DPNW, which included all the replacement bearings, bushings, and ball joints that are on the car, a new dipstick tube, a full set of stub axle nuts, auto transmission cooler pipes, pivot bolts, and inconel trailing arm bolts (Toby TABs, except he doesn't make them anymore), and new heater tubes. I put in a couple of orders through DGO for some pipe clips, performance air intake (no way I'm using a soggy piece of cardboard as an air intake), some fuel lines, fuel filter, air filter, a new set of struts all around, lambda sensor, and a tiny stupid friction spring for the parking brake caliper that costs $10 - which is $9 more than it should cost. From Amazon, I picked up all of the parts to put together a vibration dampened lower steering column. Quite expensive, if you ask me, but the parts sure do look and feel a lot nicer.

Fifth - I've actually started putting things together! The frame now has the fuel tank installed, the closing plate, most of the brake and fuel hard lines, the steering rack, the gear selector and shift linkage, motor mounts, heater core hard lines, and I also tossed the front coil overs on. Here's a longer video showing the current status of 5510:

https://youtu.be/ooAghBC1Rb8

Purchases

• TIG welding repair - $120
• Zinc plating - MetalTech - $355
• Bearings, Bushings, etc - DPNW - $1,092
• Intake, filters, struts - DGO - $350
• Lower steering column - Amazon - $275
• VHT exhaust primer, paint, and wrap - Amazon - $75

[Michael]

Wow! That's to be too pretty to cover up with a body.

[CyberBill]

I was really hoping to get a lot more done over this past week, since I took the week off to work on the car. But unfortunately I didn't get my powder coating order back and those parts make up most of the suspension and brakes. ETA is now 10/21. It's funny, though - I thought I didn't do that much, and then I went and started writing down the list of what I did, and it's a TON of stuff over the past two weeks!!

Here's a short list:

Fuel accumulator, filter, and fuel lines - these are now fully installed! I only need the final hoses to the engine.
Heater core silicone hoses - Heater core lines are complete and ready to attach to the engine and heater core.
Cooling pipes & silicone hoses - These are run from the radiator to the engine compartment, going to hook up to the engine before tightening everything.
Radiator is temporarily installed (to align the cooling pipes) - Mounts are being powder coated, once they are back I'll install permanently with new bushings.
Lower steering column is built and installed - It looks like a work of art!! Beautiful!!
Lower control arms and stabilizing arms are installed, but not torqued down.
Transmission mounts are installed on the frame.
Exhaust is now primed, painted, and the manifolds are installed on the engine. O2/lambda sensor is installed on the crossover pipe.
Parking brake calipers are built and ready to be installed once I have the main brake calipers.

I've got a bit of a story with the transmission. I've got two - one is the original with ~67k miles and sometimes slips and leaks and needs to be rebuilt. The other has like ~25k miles if memory serves me, and was meant to replace the other one while it was being rebuilt. Unfortunately, the replacement trans is missing the shift cable and it looks like it would be quite a bit of work to swap them, and I'm on kind of a tight deadline. So instead, I'm going to use the original for the time being and swap them once we've moved to our new house with the shop. This week I refinished the transmission oil dipstick tube and vacuum lines for the transmission, and I chased the M7 threads. The M10 threads will get chased tonight, and if all goes well that will mean the trans is ready to mount back onto the engine.

Here is a video from about a week ago, that covers some of the info here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfPpzU47J1c

Purchases:

• Fuel line 'olives' and swivel nuts, parking brake pieces, roof box repair kit - $116 - DGO
• Stainless bleed adapter, air box oil breather hose, fuel supply & return hoses, radiator mount bushings - $200 - DGO
• Stainless rivnuts & bolts kits - $32 - Amazon
• Stainless cable clamps - $26 - Amazon
• Mobil 1 10W-40 (10qt) - $77 - Amazon
• M5, M6, and M8 bolts and washers, for hose clamps and the closing plate - $25 - BoltDepot
• M7 and M10 bolts and washers, for catalytic converter and engine mounts, plus bolt organizer boxes - $57 - BoltDepot

Tools:

• Tap & Die sets to cover everything M5 and up.
• Fuel pressure tester kit
• Stubby wrench kit
• Cooling system pressure tester/filler

[CyberBill]

A week later, and some more progress! It really feels like its coming together and starting to look like a complete frame! Big news is that the powder coating came in! 90% of the parts look great, except the rear hub carriers... and the powder coating took twice as long as expected... and they tried to charge me double... and they didn't clean up the parts or remove the silicone inserts or high temp tape so they took a lot of cleaning up... but they're HERE!

Let me first by back tracking on my last update about the transmission. I misunderstood how the shift cable attaches on the inside of the transmission, and I thought I was looking at one thing when it was really another. It turns out that you can simply put the transmission in park, then twist the cable and it will unscrew a tube from over a bolt inside the trans. It then pulls right out, and is easy to swap. Took me all of 5 minutes! So I'm back to using the ~26k mile transmission. It also had some damage on the torque converter bell housing, and that was repaired (welded) a few weeks go, so I replaced the bell housing on the transmission and I'm now back in business! The only thing I'm waiting for now is the 6 bolts that attach the mount brackets to the trans, and I'll be able to mount the engine and transmission together and get them in the frame.

Since my powder coating stuff is in, that means I could build the brakes... so I did that! They look really bad ass, if you ask me. Here's a little video showing them o
https://youtu.be/Dso822F5qZ4

Other than that, my focus has been on the suspension components. I used the shop press to put wheel bearings in the front and rear. I pressed the bushings into the upper suspension links, and then found out that I totally ordered the wrong number of bushings! I missed ordering bushings for the front upper control arms and for the lower link (same as the upper links). But that's OK, because I was able to get everything installed on the passenger side mocked up and make sure it lines up and everything. Glad I did, too, because it took about 5 tries to get right!

Here's the current status of the project:
https://youtu.be/YTWTwALtfbk

I'm still having issues with the coolant tubes under the fuel tank... Just can't get them positioned how I want. And the front bearings don't slip on the spindle like they are supposed to. And I'm still waiting for the coil over brackets in the rear, and the trailing arm support brackets. But I really do think here in a couple of weeks I'll be ready to drop the body back down!!

Purchases

• Powder coating services - $400 - Thermo Tech Coatings
• Rear suspension bushings, Upper control arm bushings, Trailing arm shims, misc parts - $141 - DGO

[Michael]

That is going to be one nice chassis!

[Rich_NYS]

I'm really liking this thread, I'll be doing much of the same work to 4519 starting next month.

Lookin' good Bill!

[Victor]

That is going to be one nice chassis!

Indeed!! That is like a brand new chassis! The basic fondation to build on 👍🏼🔧

[CyberBill]

I've hit a huge milestone today- the engine and transmission are back in the frame!!

This past week I've made a lot of progress all around. I got the bushings for the rear suspension lower link, and they went in without a hitch. I also got new bushings for the front upper control arms, and those were slightly more tricky - but still I got them in and got the UCAs installed. I also was able to get the front end reinforcing brackets and sway bar MOSTLY installed (still fighting it a bit because there isn't enough weight on the car). I pressed the front hubs onto the spindles, and installed the brake calipers, plus all the brake lines, so at this point the front suspension and brakes are pretty much complete other than brake pads and the bolts needing to be all torqued down.

On the rear, the suspension links are all installed, as well as the hub carriers, hubs, and rotors. Trailing arms are installed. I installed the brake caliper and brake lines on the passenger side, but then realized I need to file down the parking brake pads before I can install them, so that'll be on the short list.

Since getting the suspension mostly hooked up, I started working on the transmission. The torque converter wouldn't go on, and after getting some help on Facebook, I found out that the oil pump rod was bent slightly, and had caused some mushrooming on the oil pump sprocket. Took about 3 hours, but eventually I was able to get the torque converter installed and then get the transmission (and torque converter) mounted up to the engine. Once attached, there are 3 plates that need to be installed - the transmission protection plate on the bottom, the inspection plate on the driver's side, and the starter on the passenger side. They all bolted up without issue.

The engine and transmission were then dropped into the frame mounts, which was pretty straight forward. Actually a lot easier since the bumper section of the frame is removable on the DPI frame.

I've got two videos - first is the engine prior to installing into the frame:

https://youtu.be/8TPu2GjkfjE

And then after installing it, which also shows many of the other items installed over the last week:

https://youtu.be/938Z3JPC2SQ

[NorthEastJBD]

This post it great!

Mine will never look this nice.

Excellent job.

[EngineerGuY]

Amazing updates! This build is epic Bill. Looking forward to more pictures and updates!