The story of VIN 573 or yet another restoration thread

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You are my Hero!

Ed:

[Domi]

Hi, any update on your car?

[Don Camillo]

Hi Domi,

Unfortunately I did a lot to the car, but it is still not finished. I had a lot of work stuff going on as well, so there was no time for an update on the forum. But right now I am on vacation with a nice internet line. Try to give an update in the next couple of days

Best wishes
Don

[Domi]

Thanks for the news, have a great vacation

[john 05141]

It is truely awesome the way you are restoring the car. As you say you've done a lot of work on the car since, I can't wait to see more; (Honestly I hope again in such detailed manner with pictures as you dis previously)

John

[Morpheus]

Very nice work so far, Don! Having removed all the panels on my first D, I know firsthand how challenging this restoration can be.

[Don Camillo]

Hi folks,

as mentioned before, right now I am on holiday and have some time to post more pictures.

First of all, I have to correct one picture I posted previously wrong.

Here we go:


This was a great find for me as my nickname is Don. Some worker engraved his name in the middle tunnel section of the car DON B. Awesome :-)

After I disassembled much more on VIN 573 than I originally had planed to do a proper “demiceing”, there were plenty of opportunities to upgrade items in several spots.
For example it was quite easy to change the steering bushing after I got some very good tips from Wolfgang from the deloman team.


Here you see the missing steering bushing, which caused a lot of ugly noise during driving. You can access this spot from the trunk side of the car quite easily.


Old and broken bushing vs. new one….


Not much left in the passenger compartment…


Bracket with the hole for the bushing after removing the steering column.


I decided to remove the steering column including the steering wheel and the mounting brackets. For me it was easier that way.


This little 15$ piece made all the trouble.


It is always wise to have a helping hand nearby ;-)

After I changed the bushing the steering felt a lot better and the rattling noises were gone.

In 2010 and 2011 I was for several times in the USA on business trips, so I took the opportunity to buy some specific NOS parts at DMCH and some parts at DMC Northwest. The rest of the parts I ordered directly in Germany via deloman.de.
As I owned a corvette in the past, getting hands on NOS parts was always difficult. But with the DeLorean it is like paradise, as there are still so many NOS parts available.


Here is a fraction of the items I ordered to restore VIN 573.

As nice as it is to get the hands on so many different NOS parts I was sometimes a little disappointed about the quality of some parts. As the parts are 30 years old now and had a lot of “storage history”, some of theme didn’t have the “new” look anymore.


This is for example NOS part 106363 (Engine Cover Stay Assy). I ended up giving the part to a plating shop to do the metal plating again. Pictures of the final result will follow.

As for most of us my budget was limited and I tried to refurbish as many items as possible. In addition it was very important for me to keep as many 500 series parts as possible to keep the car original.
First rule was to “demice” the items (get rid of all debris and smell) then to refurbish the parts to its original appearance.


This was for example the license lamp assembly as I got it out of the car.


After a lot of cleaning and polishing of the plastic it looked much nicer. Left still uncleaned, right one ready to go back onto VIN 573 again.

A lot of the interior parts were covered with the original vinyl fabric. The surface was quite OK, of course there was the smell and the bad feeling about germs. So I cleaned the vinyl with disinfection fluid and soap. After that I upholstered the parts with proper new foam as the old one was vaporized in most cases.


After more than 30 years the original foam on the backside of the vinyl was just dust.


First I cleaned the vinyl, then I used the vacuum cleaner to get rid of the old foam dust. After that I placed a new piece of foam in the proper shape in the pocked of the vinyl/cotton fabric.


Clothespins come handy when reskinning the parts. For an item like this inner door top cover it took me around 8 hours to refurbish one side.


Before and after look: Left side still old with the “dust foam” on the back, right side the part after I was done with it. If you look close you might see the padding. Either you have the money to buy everything new, or you must take your time to refinish the items.

The instrument cluster suffered as well over the last 30 years. First of all the trip-reset was broken like all of them did.


The plastic cover of the instrument cluster was badly scratched…


Houston we have a problem! Luckily there is a replacement available. Thanx Houston :-)


The mice of VIN 573 even got there way up to the cluster. There was a lot of mice debris on the cover and circuit board. A lot of cleaning was necessary.


Speedometer, I decided to keep the original scale….


Behind the speedometer…

http://www.geschwendtner.de/Chriss/Delorean/Refurbishing/instrumentcluster8.jpg[/IMG]
The puzzle of the instrument cluster inner components…


Nice surface after a little cleaning.


Vintage electronics, I like it :-)


After I assembled everything back together, I changed all the bulbs to new ones and checked them before returning the cluster back into the binnacle. Clean again and without any “mice evidence” ;-)


This was the instrument cluster and the binnacle before I removed it from VIN 573. As you can see the cover of the binnacle is slightly different than the production binnacles.
The prototype DeLoreans and the first 100 cars of the 500 series cars got a different binnacle then all the other cars.
As this is a very rare piece on the car I tried to be as accurate as possible on it.

The surface and the stiches were slightly damaged as you might see on the picture above, so there was the need to redo the vinyl skin.

It was time for an other trip to Augsburg to meet the deloman experts. First there were skeptics, that the binnacle of VIN 573 wasn’t authentic. But after a closer look, the deloman team found a prototype binnacle in there own stock, which was made exactly the same like the one found in VIN 573.


So it was actually authentic. To keep it that way, the deloman team made an exact replica. Left you see the prototype binnacle with the prototype instrument cluster on the right side you see the binnacle of VIN 573. The result was amazing. Every stich is now exactly were it was 30 years ago.


Binnacle and instrument cluster together again.


I polished approximately 4 hours on the plastic window to get the scratches out.


More will follow.

Best wishes
Don

[Domi]

I really like thread like your with plenty of informations and pictures!
I'm really impressed of what you did on the plastic, no scratches anymore, amazing!
Can't wait to see what's next?

[OverlandMan]

I like how you reskinned the top section of the door cards. I've got that on my list.

[Shep]

Wow, that tach looks brand new! Must age gracefully. Maybe I've just met a few too many sleazy car salesmen, but I couldn't help looking at the odometer before disassembly and after assembly. It's untouched! Always good to see that (even though it should be expected).


So what's the difference between the 500 series binnacles and the production binnacles? I didn't know there was a difference, and looking at it, I can't figure out what it is.


Great progress! Can't wait to see VIN 573 finished!