Welp. I "rescued" my 2nd Delorean today.....help me formulate a game plan?

[Mark D]

Hey! What's Phase 2?!

[andyo]

Its a mysterious mystery.

[rjd2]

Lol, I'm pretty sure I'll be selling one of them, once this car is done. Gonna be tough to decide which. A little update...

1-oil and coolant drained. never smelled 30 year old oil. now i have.

2-started blowing apart fuel delivery system. never smelled 30 year old gas. now i have (smells like varnish).

3-found a stowaway. see pic.

4-carpet tips-thanks folks. i've done 3 days now of vinegar spray, baking soda, and fans. it still stinks. think i'm gonna need to pull the seats and then the carpet.

5-installed new struts/supports all around today, so i can now work safely. 3rd time doing this job in X years, I can do this in probably 15 minutes now lol.

6-HELP: so I was super careful to not apply brake pedal force, cause I was trying to avoid seizing the calipers to the rotors. i got all the calipers removed from the rotors, applied brake to push out the pistons, and.....nothing. the reservoir has fluid in it, but the pedal doesnt move. i am guessing either the booster or the MC or both are seized. is there any way to apply brake pressure, short of replacing them? the good news is that I ordered both, and have them in hand. the bad news is that my plan of having the calipers rebuilt and rotors turned is now thrown into question. i'm pondering just buying the full kit from DMC TX with rotors and calipers. my local guy will rebuild them if the pistons are mostly out. my concern is if I have him throw a bunch of hours at caliper rebuild, I could get close to the cost of just new calipers. thoughts there? my goal is to stay under 10k on parts/outsourced labor, and I currently have about 3k wiggle room, so I could swing the extra 500-700 or whatever it will be.

7-suspension: the control arms look like shit, so while i'm this far, i am going to pull them to blast/paint. i may not replace the bushings, but if I do end up selling this car and keeping my other, I want the suspension to look nice. (entertaining a fancy color, would deep purple control arms be over the top????)

[David T]

Replace the master cylinder. To rebuild the calipers you take them off the car and use compressed air to try to remove the pistons. Could take a lot of "persuasion" to get them loose. Most vendors have a core exchange program so you have to see which way is your best option. Sometimes the bleeder screws break off and you have to drill them out. To pretty them up you have to bead blast and paint or plate them. A lot of work and time. Replace the brake hoses, be careful not to damage the hard lines. Figure on replacing the clutch master and slave cylinders too. Flush the brake and clutch lines out with alcohol before putting in new brake fluid. Flush the fuel lines too. You basically have to rebuild all of the systems on the car after 30 years of sitting, especially systems that have fluids in them.

[rjd2]

Thanks David, that tip about flushing the hard brake lines with alcohol is great! I'll even blow them out with compressed air afterwards. Yes, anything with fluids is getting rebuilt. All rubber is being replaced.

So I am down to the intake manifold, and am ready to send out the fuel delivery parts for rebuild/testing. It hit me this morning that I need to pick how far I'm going this time. I would much rather disassemble/reassemble the top end of the engine once. I am replacing the spark plugs and having the injectors tested. How far should I go here? Water pump now? the front of engine coolant hoses had mounds of white coolant dust when i pulled them, they were bone dry. Also, I checked out the seat removal and found it was fairly straight forward, so I pulled the seats to clean the carpets. The car now smells closer to something that won't give you catastrophic emphysema.


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[David T]

You should do the "Master Water Pump Kit" that many vendors put together. It includes a water pump, all of the gaskets, hoses, seals, and belts you will need to do the top job. Include the bearings for the 2 idler pulleys and vacuum hoses.