VIN 5510 - Bill's DeLorean Restoration

[CyberBill]

I thought this would be a fun adventure to document my DeLorean project. I found the car, VIN 5510, on Craigslist doing my normal weekly search. It was listed for $19,500 firm, and looked really really great. I contacted the seller, went back and forth, and due to the COVID-19 situation going on, I bought the car without even sitting in it. I got a lot of pictures and videos, and was able to stalk the owner enough to know they were real. On 4/20/2020 we signed the bill of sale, on 5/4/2020 the car was picked up and put in an enclosed trailer and shipped over 3,000 miles from roughly Boston to Seattle. Cost was $1,450 for the trip, and the car arrived on Saturday 5/9/2020 in the morning.

20200509_100032.jpg

She looks beautiful!! I wash her off, blow off some leaves, do a quick drive around the block, and realize that - in addition to the automatic transmission slipping under load - the cars brakes are completely unassisted, which means I have to use both feet to push the brake to stop. I also haven't driven a manual steering car this millennia. Also, this is the first time I have ever touched a Delorean, sat in one, or driven one.

Before moving on, let's take a quick note of the car's current condition. The car's body is great, there is a little ding in the T panel, a small dent in the left rear quarter panel, and a nearly invisible ding on the right front fender flair. Doors hold open, but gas struts may be a bit weak. Driver's side door rubs on the T panel when fully open. All the plastic bits are great, the vinyl decal stripes are good. The 'D' metal insert from the bumper is sitting on the center console.

The interior is decent - lots and lots of little issues, though. Seats need to be recovered, binnacle leather is ripped, steering wheel leather is ripped. Door sliders are rusty, and thus the carpet is rusty. Door cards don't seem to fit well, lots of gaps, the panel on the driver's door with the handle doesn't stay. None of the lights seem to be working on the interior, but that might be me not knowing how they work. All of the seals on the doors are terrible, brittle, and falling apart. The steering wheel shakes around when you steer.

The driver's door-closed sensor is bad, and also falling out. The parking brake sensor is sketchy. Speedometer hits ~22 and stops going higher. Tach seems to be working, oil pressure and gas gauge work. Battery voltage looks good, same with temp.

The gas strut that holds the sunshade is weak on the left side, but still holds fine, and the engine cover latch works well. The engine looks, for it's age, really nice. Fuel lines have all been upgraded to braided stainless steel. There is basically no visible rust anywhere in the engine compartment. The exhaust looks to be new, the asbestos panels have been replaced. The engine starts up perfectly and quickly every single time. Under the car, it's leaking. Definitely leaking red transmission fluid and some kind of black oil from a few inches rear of the transmission fluid, so I think it may be the final drive oil or perhaps the rear main seal.

Under the hood, the rubber gasket looks like it was replaced but didn't quite stick in some areas. Otherwise it looks nice, a few rust spots. Spare tire is there and in good shape. The jack is in the little cubby. Carpet and thin wood panel thing are there and in good condition, though there is evidence is moisture on the wood.

The tires look fine and have some tread left, wheels look good. Suspension feels a little rough and hard, but not terrible. Brake pads and calipers look a bit rusty, along with the rotors where the pads can't rub them clean. I'll need to do a closer inspection on suspension and brakes later.

Phew, that was a lot....

[CyberBill]

[Mostly copied from my "What did you do the DeLorean today?" post]

A few days before the car shipped, the seller had the hood release cable snap. He ordered a new cable but didn't have time to replace it, so that was my first task yesterday [5/9/2020]. He was able to rig up a backup line and put some vice grips on the broken release handle, so I was able to get into the hood. Took about 30 minutes or so to install, which I did record because I couldn't find a video of anyone doing the procedure. I may post that at some point in the future if the footage is good enough. Hardest part was getting the cable to snake over top of all the stuff under the dash, the rest is just a cotter pin and a couple of retaining nuts.

Now back to the brakes... My brake pedal feels soft until it goes a little down, and then is very hard to push. Whether the car is running or not, the pedal doesn't feel different at all. After watching a few hours of YouTube videos and some threads here on the brake system, I felt that the brake booster/servo was likely not functioning. I pulled the vacuum line off of the booster and it has no vacuum. So, effectively I'm running with manual non-assisted brakes, which explains why I need to use both feet to stop.

On the engine I found the vacuum line that splits into a T, and I took that apart and verified that when the car is running there is a very nice suction pressure there (and when it is not connected the car runs terribly). I hooked up the T, connected the end that goes to the vacuum tank, and verified that I still had good suction. This pretty much tells me that there is something wrong on the vacuum line that runs from the engine to the booster. I hooked up my air compressor to the line at the booster, used vice grips to close the line near the engine, and pumped some air into it - which did not hold. I set the air compressor to like 20-30 psi, and then started trying to hear and feel for air leaking. A quick walk around pointed me to the rear right - I took off the rear right wheel, jacked up the car, and crawled under. Unfortunately, it isn't good news. The line seems to be leaking all of the air from the hard line, somewhere above the frame on the passenger side, just above the transmission, near where the trailing arms attach. I don't think there is any way I can get to it without dropping the frame.

For a temporary fix, I ran to Lowes' and for $25 picked up 3/8", 20' coiled copper tube. I had to cut the hoses off the ends of the hardline, since they were so corroded that they wouldn't move. I run the tube under the car, zip tying it along the way, roughly following the original path - but now under the frame rather than on top of it. I used hose clamps on each end to connect it to the rubber vacuum lines. The whole process probably took me 1 1/2 - 2 hours. The vacuum is holding perfectly, and the brakes actually work now!! I don't have to sue both feet to stop from 10 miles per hour!!

[Domi]

Congratulation on your purchase
Can't wait to see more picture of it

[cdrusn]

It might seem like a monumental task to take care of all these issues but for the price you paid I would say you will come out ahead and with a lot
of new working parts and interior when you are done. You didn't say whether you checked the fluid level in the transmission but given the leaked fluid
you saw under the car that could be the problem and you won't have to rebuild the transmission just the seals. It's a fairly easy job to pick up the body
from the frame to put a real fix in for the brake vacuum line. While the body is up I would also replace the a/c hoses.

[CyberBill]

It might seem like a monumental task to take care of all these issues but for the price you paid I would say you will come out ahead and with a lot
of new working parts and interior when you are done. You didn't say whether you checked the fluid level in the transmission but given the leaked fluid
you saw under the car that could be the problem and you won't have to rebuild the transmission just the seals. It's a fairly easy job to pick up the body
from the frame to put a real fix in for the brake vacuum line. While the body is up I would also replace the a/c hoses.

I didn't check the transmission fluid - probably should have... The transmission was slipping for the previous owner, and he redid the fluid and replaced the filter. Honestly on the drive I did on Saturday - about 10 miles - I only had it slip once as I was going up a hill. Basically anytime I give it a lot of throttle or there is extra load, the transmission slips.

When you say 'pretty easy to pick up the body from the frame'... How easy? I have skimmed through the process a bit, looks like I have to disconnect all the wiring in the back, take the bumpers off (just rear?), and probably disconnect the brakes and steering up front... The process of raising the frame up looks pretty straight forward once everything is disconnected. But yes - I will absolutely do a real fix for the brake line ASAP.

Do you suggest that I replace any other hoses or anything that are otherwise inaccessible? I'd rather do it once and be done!

[CyberBill]

One thing I want to do with my build log here is keep very good track of every dollar spent on the car... So, today I spent a whole lot money. lol

I was able to get the car's title changed over, get it registered, and get license plates. That cost me $2,453! Most of that was the use tax (sales tax) - in WA it is pretty expensive. I decided if I was going to spend money today, might as well buy some stuff!!

Since I've got the replacement transmission sitting here, I cleaned it up and took off the bell housing because it was cracked in shipment. After closer inspection, I decided not to weld it because the broken piece wasn't near any threads, and there is already a casted-in hole (inspection hole?). I wish I would have realized that prior to taking the housing off the transmission, because now I have to replace the seal and a bunch of transmission fluid and diff fluid spilled out. Most of the purchases are transmission related:

First, my Amazon order, $260

• High temp gasket material (the original gasket isn't available individually, and the kit is $150+)
• High temp RTV gasket maker
• 10mm Square male drain plug socket
• Socket set that includes 10mm square female drive
• O-ring kit
• Stainless steel hose clamp kit
• 4 quarts of Red Line MT-90 (final drive oil) - enough for 2 changes
• 3 gallons of Castrol Dexron III (auto transmission fluid) - enough for 2 changes

And then my DeLorean Go order, $854

• Delrin Steering Column Bushing
• Upgraded M10 driveshaft bolts
• Automatic Transmission Filter
• Automatic Transmission gasket & rebuild kit
• Crush washers for drain bolts

This purchase list is enough for me to install the replacement transmission, rebuild the existing transmission out of the car, and reinstall it. That will leave me with a perfectly good and matched engine/transmission, and another transmission I can sell. Hoping that I didn't forget anything! Also.. probably going to have to pull the trigger on a 3d printer soon, so I can make all the tools to disassemble the transmission fully.

Aside from these items, 5510 is currently residing at Delorean Service Northwest for a full technical inspection. So far it looks like the hose leading to the fuel accumulator has split (pretty common, from what I can gather), the brakes look bad, and its idling higher than it should.

[Rich_NYS]

Awesome, great to see you rollin'!

Sent from my LGL164VL using Tapatalk

[CyberBill]

Cross-post from the daily thread:

Had a pretty fun day today - this is the first time I've driven the DeLorean on a highway!

I visited a place called Stew's Garage in Kirkland, WA (Totem Lake). This is a shop space where you can rent a bay, complete with a full suite of tools and a car lift. For roughly $100 I rented a bay for two hours, and it was AMAZING!! With the car up on the 4-post lift I could easily torque down all of the suspension components, which was the plan. I also poked around to try and figure out where the transmission is leaking from (In short - everywhere). It was nice to be able to have all the high quality tools available, and I surely got more done in 2 hours than I could do in a full day at home.

On the way to the garage I took only back roads, it's about 10 miles away or so, and it did really well. I was pretty nervous, since the farthest drive since the rebuild has been around the block!! On the drive home I was much more confident, and took the highway. Got it up to about 70 with no major issues.

As far as I can tell, there seems to be a small exhaust leak when I give it some gas. I can also hear a slight squealing at higher RPMs. The gas gauge is definitely not right. Temperature gauge seems low (fans come on, though). I got a little bit of smoke on the way home, but this is probably the exhaust paint & wrap, and it stopped. The steering wheel isn't centered - and the car needs an alignment. And lastly, the automatic is just... Ooof, especially as far as power is concerned. It will trigger the kick down switch and max out at about 3krpm, but going up steep hills takes a lot. It's begging for that EV conversion.

[CyberBill]

It's been a while since I did a video, so this one catches up on the last few weeks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G84Sbmb12GQ

Since my last text update I have fixed the heater core pipes and then installed the lines so the heater core is working, and I get heat in the cabin. I also cleaned up all the windows and removed stickers and stuff like that, so the view is MUCH better now. Lastly, I went to a local alignment shop recommended by Toby and they made sure the toe in the front and rear was correct.

The car is now loaded up on a trailer and heading to our new home in Ellensburg. I didn't feel comfortable driving up through Snoqualmie Pass, and was able to get it transported for $275, so I thought that was pretty reasonable.

Once in it's new home, 5510 is going to be sitting for a few months. I have some other projects I need to take care of (moving into the new house, cleaning out and selling the current house, renovating the foyer, launching an updated website for my business) and the weather is going to be pretty snowy anyway. Once I'm ready to get back to work, I've got a bit of a list going, but I really need to determine which path I'm going to go down... One option is that I can rebuild the original auto transmission and put it back in the car, which will let me really drive around without worrying and hopefully resolve the issues with having low power, and will probably increase how much I'll get when I go to sell the engine and both transmissions. The other option is to sell them just as they are, leaks and all, and jump straight into the EV conversion. I guess I have a few months to think about it!!

Purchases:

• Stainless bumper studs, stainless air-deflector retaining strips, throttle stop, LEDs for doors and side markers - $146 - DGO

[CyberBill]

The DeLorean made its way to Ellensburg just fine, though it's dirty again and needs another wash!!

https://youtu.be/CyQv-nypDYc

Also, I realized that I didn't mention the cost of some services that I paid for:

• Stew's Garage - 2 hours - $94
• Omni Brake & Alignment - $193