1982 Frame Off Restoration

[Stainless]

I don't know if I have the patience or the time for all that.

I certainly didn't have the patience for all that either. I went with what I was comfortable with, which was paint. This time last year, I was in the thick of it with regards to putting everything back together after having to pull out the engine and tranny due to a broken engine mount bolt and decided to make everything look pristine before going back into the car. I documented it all here, if you're curious what my paint and end result turned out like. A year later and it all looks unchanged. It has held up exceptionally well and would highly recommend.

[SupercoolBill]

I certainly didn't have the patience for all that either. I went with what I was comfortable with, which was paint. This time last year, I was in the thick of it with regards to putting everything back together after having to pull out the engine and tranny due to a broken engine mount bolt and decided to make everything look pristine before going back into the car. I documented it all here, if you're curious what my paint and end result turned out like. A year later and it all looks unchanged. It has held up exceptionally well and would highly recommend.

I read your thread. I really wanted to replicate the original plating but painting is looking better all the time.

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[SupercoolBill]

Tried my hand at plating again last weekend and also blasted more parts. I think I figured out my biggest issue. When I was doing multiple parts such as 4 bolts at once, I didn't have my amperage set high enough so the zinc plating was coming out dull. I still struggle with getting the gold color to come out consistent. Also h
I have learned that my DC power generator cannot provide enough amperage for larger parts. 4 maybe 5 amps is the most it will do. I think I will use my plating set up for little parts that I don't want to risk sending out to the platers but everything else is getting sent out. The throttle assembly shown in the pics is beyond the limit of what my DC power source can handle. It looks oksy with the gold but as you can see the zinc didn't come out well.

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[SupercoolBill]

Update,...it's been a while. Christmas has come and gone,...2022 is over.
Most previous posts made it look as though the parts re-plating process is going great. Well the truth is it is not. My success rate is still not that great and my DC power source doesn't seem to put out enough current for larger pieces. By larger I mean the engine compartment latch mechanism for example. It plated but came out dull. Also I am worried about the longevity of the plating since I am not 100% sure that I am doing it right. So I decided to make a list of all of the hardware for the car that needs to be replaced so I could order that stuff. I contacted a small family owned plating company that is about an hour away. They couldn't give me a quote over the phone so I decided to run some errands and swing in to get a quote and drop off the parts. I looked up the price for the larger bolts and decided that it would be more cost effective to have these parts re-plated.

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[SupercoolBill]

Upon arriving at the plating place (nothing more than a two car garage that had been converted into a plating business) I met the owner...an older man (60s?) named Lloyd. He took a quick look at my parts and said "This stuff isn't ready to plate!?"
I said "Yeah it is, I cleaned them myself in my blasting booth." This wasn't starting out too well. He said "Do you think I'm BSing you??" I said,..."Well not exactly but these parts were covered with rust that I blasted off down to bare metal. So how is there zinc on it?"
He was very patient with me and wasn't easily offended. He said "Come here let me show you something"
He took one of my parts (a large bolt) hooked it on some wire, and dropped it down into a tank of muriatic acid. The bolt started foaming up (see picture) He said "See that? That's the zinc coming off. If there wasn't anything on the bolt it wouldn't do that. Let's leave that for a while then come back" I was still skeptical.
A few minutes later we came back and he showed me how it wasn't foaming (off gassing) anymore. He took the bolt out, rinsed it, dipped it back in. He said "See that? No foaming, the zinc is gone now. I will have to do this with all of your parts."

This is a classic example of a teaching moment with someone that is an expert. Everything I had read, watched, etc. Said just to dunk the part in the acid before plating. I had never heard about leaving the part in there until it stopped foaming completely. Honestly I thought if you left it in there too long the acid would start eating through the actual part.

He gave me an price of around $500 to do the parts I brought. This was a lot more than I was expecting but the guy had already volunteered an hour of his time to show me his shop and teach me some stuff about plating, etc.
Also I knew my stuff would come out perfect so I left my parts to be plated.

I still have all the parts off the engine and transmission, hood latches, etc. So I'm probably looking at $1000 total in plating....ugh......

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[SupercoolBill]

I had dropped off some parts at a local guy that does blasting with agressive medis and does powdercosting. I dropped off the rear suspension links to be blasted only (Rubbers still in), the sway bar, and the rear crosslink for blasting and powder coating. I was worried about the connector bar because it was so rusted. It was pitted and flaky.
Sure enough you can see and feel the rust damage to the connector bar. Fortunately because of the location I don't think that anyone will notice that the bar isn't perfect. I figure if it really bothers me that much I could replace it later.

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[SupercoolBill]

The other thing I did was print out the entire Delorean parts manual (260 pages), three hole punched the pages, and put it in a 3-ring binder.
Next I spent a night highlighting every nut, bolt, washer, screw that I needed for the entire car.
I typed up a spreadsheet of what I needed for hardware with part number, description, etc.
I emailed the list to Arron at Delorean Go and asked if he could put all the stuff in my virtual cart. Unfortunately he said that I would have to do it on my end but he gave me some pointers. He said I could type in a whole bunch of part numbers separated by a comma, hit search, and all of those parts would populate. It worked pretty well but still took several hours to get everything in my cart. I added a shifter cable to my order also. I was up to $260 so I held off on buying hardware for the engine, transmission, and interior.

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[SupercoolBill]

In true Delorean Go fashion the parts showed up very quickly.
The best thing about going this route vs. buying bolts from a place that sells hardware (not a Delorean parts vendor) is that every part is bagged and tagged with a Delorean part number. So the wife and I can literally just follow the Delorean parts manual and grab the bags with the correct part numbers when assembling that particular part of the car. Also there are no risk of issues with a bolt not being the right size, shank length, etc.

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[SupercoolBill]

I have misplaced a oil cooler pipe support bracket and the left transmission mount. Both were damaged (stripped threads and lots of rust on bracket and transmission mount bracket broken in half).
My worry is that I may have assumed that I could buy new replacement parts and threw these parts away.
I have looked everywhere and can't find either part. And guess what? Both parts are NLA.

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[SupercoolBill]

I was lucky enough to find someone that had a good used bracket and transmission mounting bracket to sell me. Life is good!!

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