The Restoration of #1768

[Lwanmtr]

The engine always looks like its on the floor when I see pics of them like that. Hope it fires up all nice for ya.

[vwdmc16]

Time for another update. Car is all together and driving but the rebuild isnt really done as I have some significant issues still. Lets go back where we left off.


Rear main before and after:







Engine ready to be connected to trans.




Newly blasted and clear powdercoated coolant pipes.





Dropped in and trans looking fine in its new clean home. coated fuel filter holds the new filter. Painted exhaust looks nice too. I did have a bit of a fight with the new DPI stainless clutch hose, the flare fitting at the master cylinder had a imperfect flare that would leak, I had to tighten the hell out of it to get the buble flare faces to mate fully. Then I had the same issue with the fittings at the transmission end. 2 hours or messing with that and I had a clutch again.







Finally all back together. Primed the fuel system after cranking for about 30 seconds to get good oil pressure and she started up nicely! Went back over all the connections and tightened up some fuel and coolant leaks. Held the revs at 2k for about 20 minutes to break in the cams, cooling system held the temp cool and steady.

After another full inspection for leaks or issues I took her around the block without the rear fascia, clutch felt great, trans shifted better than ever. However the car really lacked power, felt like maybe 60 to 70 hp max, something wasnt right. went over the timing and fuel CO adjustment, checked the plugs, nothing was out of order but the car had no kick to it, throttle response was lazy and dull.


GRRRR! so frustrating. Well I took it back into to my shop to dig in more, thats when I noticed a large amount of oil leaking from the bellhousing area after my 20 mile drive. WTF! I was certain the rear main was bad, and I was so careful about it too. Well no two ways about it, the trans must come out.





To make it easier, I whipped up this quick adaptor tool for the trans jack.

[Lwanmtr]

Ouch..hope you get it sorted.

[vwdmc16]

The heavy oil leakage was a light grey color so I was thinking engine oil as my RedLine trans fluid was well, Red. Bottom of trans and engine mounts were soaked. Removed the like new belhousing protection plate, what a pain. Not sure that is going back on...





Got the trans out and the inner bellhouse is soaked too, but no big leak from the rear main!







Hard to see in pictures but the bottom of the engine at the oil pan level was all wet, the engine mount area too. lots of oil on the engine side of the flywheel.




But where did it come from? Not the oil pan, that wouldnt explain the oil in the bellhousing, Look how dry this rear main is. its doing great!




I concluded the oil had to be trans fluid, It was still full (of red fluid) so where is it leaking? So I decided to reassemble and go drive again for a short distance to get a better idea where it starts from. A quick 3 mile drive around the business park at my shop later and I put the car back on the rack, still dry! This was puzzling, it would not leak at idle or after a short drive, just long ones where it all gets hot. It had to be the input main shaft seal leaking when the trans got hot, the oil must be turning dark as its being flung through the clutch disk on its way to coat the bellhousing. Ugh that was a new clutch too.I knew the trans would have to come out and apart again.....


Since I had no parts to fix it I drove home, inspected it again to find the same huge oil mess again. And yes I know I didnt paint the bottom of my frame cradle, still planning on welding a 1/8" plate to cap over all that beat up metal so I can actually put some jack stands under it without smashing it up.

[jawn101]

Bummer about the leak, still. Any chance it's clutch fluid? I guess you said it still felt tight though.

Still amazed how good it looks. Are you still going to be able to get it into town for next weekend?

[vwdmc16]

Yes, I was sure it was not clutch/brake fluid since I also had that leak too. My rebuilt Slave cylinder is not entirely sealed. Still leaking a bit today, put it on the list...

Ill update more when I have time on my main computer but yes the trans leak has been fixed and the car will be going to see Grady and Nicholson this sunday. Driven if it passes smog, trailered if not.

[opethmike]

Off-topc; do you still have your Esprit? How is that doing?

[vwdmc16]

Ive never owned an Esprit.

[opethmike]

Ive never owned an Esprit.

Had you confused with someone then, sorry.

[vwdmc16]

Determined to get the refreshed trans sorted I ordered a new input shaft seal and output shaft roll pins. After a few days it arrived and I trailered the car back to my shop as to prevent more oil leakage and pulled the trans. It was a quick job all told, only about 3.5 hrs to remove the trans and old input shaft seal, then install the much tighter and more pliable new one in its place, re assemble the trans again with the Wurth Flange adhesive and using Wurth super Grey RTV on the bellhousing and tail cone flanges since the new DPI gaskets were now destroyed.

Pulling the old lip seal off the input shaft was not an issue but installing the fresh new seal without damaging it as I slipped it over the new and thicker than stock input coupler was going to be hard. I briefly thought about pulling the new coupler back off the main shaft but its pretty much a press fit where as the original coupler is not, so this wasnt really an option that wouldn't damage the key components to the trans, so my clever Idea was to roll a sleeve of clear plastic sheeting over the input shaft and coupler to funnel the new lip seal over the sharp corner of the coupler and its roll pin hole. It was the same idea of slipping that plastic sleeve over a cylinder head valve stem when installing new valve stem seals.





The offending seal on the left that I know I should have replaced in the first place....





All back together and installed that night. Since then Im glad to report that the trans oil is staying inside as it should. However I do have clutch fluid seepage still after a long drive. time for a new clutch slave.





With one major issue fixed I turned back to my more worrisome fault, the low engine power. Another compression test was in order using a different gauge. Results were still disappointing: 90psi on the 4-6 cylinders and just 65psi on the 1-3 cylinders.

I decided to remove the muffler to gain access to the crank pulley to turn the engine over manually and investigate closer. With the spark plugs out and a light shining down into the cylinder you can just see the intake valve on the peak of its opening stroke. As I turned the engine over by hand I saw the piston was also rising back up as the intake valve was closing, this is not correct at all! how can the engine build compression if the intake is still open while the piston is on the compression stroke? The cam timing has to be retarded. So off came the timing cover while keeping the valve covers on.







As I stated before I had a really difficult time getting the cam timing set when assembling the engine, nothing quite lined up as the manual stated in its strange method. I found that I could remove the chain tensioner and the guide to give me just enough slack to allow me to slip the chain over one tooth at a time on the cam gear, Reinstall the guide and tensioner and move to the other chain. After a bit of experimenting I found the 1-3 bank could be advanced one tooth but the 4-6 bank could not without having piston to valve interference. It seems that the right hand cam was off one tooth the whole time. Before reinstalling the timing cover I performed another compression test with the engine spinning by starter.







BAM even compression on all 6 cylinders! Now strangely it was still just 95psi where a healthy engine should be at 140-160psi. Long story short I later found that even this, the second compression gauge I used was reading about 35% lower than actual. A third and know calibrated gauge later found that my engine makes 145psi which isnt bad for a stock compression engine that isnt fully broken in ( still wishing I sprung for high compression pistons..... So I put the cover back on and reinstalled the muffler, went for a drive; the engine had more power but if im honest, still didnt feel anywhere as peppy and strong as I was hoping, It actually didnt feel as strong as the engine was before the rebuild....with stock cams......and unported heads...... then again it's been what, nearly a year since I drove this car or any other Delorean. More tuning was in order but a trip to the dyno will be what really tells the power that it puts out, then the DMCH exhaust will go back on and hopefully wake it up. But I need to smog before that...more about that adventure next time.


Here is a quick video of the engine running without the timing cover, yes it made a bit of a mess.

https://youtu.be/GGVjJth9eeg