The Restoration of #1768

[Delorean Industries]

I would have sent you another pair. That Wurth crap is worse than GM factory gray. Takes a jack hammer to get it apart.... I know it sucks that some gaskets such as trans matting surfaces are one time use....

[vwdmc16]

Ive had great luck with the Wurth Grey RTV, I use it all the time on the BMW engines, never had them overly bond aluminum together, yes they require some effort to seperate but not too much that it becomes serviceable. I do think I will need to go back into the trans again in the future, still having 5th gear pop out of gear on me occasionally during decel, thinking the 5th gear fork may be bent.

[DMC5180]

The 5 gear is all under the back cover. That's not major surgery like you just did. That's just removing the back cover while the transmission stays in the car.


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[vwdmc16]

True, I might be able to change the fork in car.

[Delorean Industries]

Want us to send over another pair of gaskets?

[vwdmc16]

That would be fantastic Josh, thank you!

[vwdmc16]

Now with the trans and engine mechanically sorted, I did some further tuning with the AFRs. Using my Innovate LM1 wideband dataloger I was able to moniter the fuel ratio during cruise and WOT.



The car was running a little lean, high 13's at full throttle, tuning the CO adjustment screw little by little I was able to get down to 12.8 at WOT and still hold 14.7 at cruise and idle. Perfect! but there was still no notable power increase, oh well, it was running very well and started better than ever.

While checking Craigslist regularly for Delorean items I found an ad for Delorean panels. They were painted a dark blue and looked a bit worn. The seller was a motorcycle guy and just wanted them gone, he was asking $600 for all four fenders plus T panel, lower engine lid and what appeared to be some Ford 5.0 parts that neither of us wanted. I set up a time and went to see them an hour and half away from Sacramento. Most of the panels had damage repair that was visible on the back side. But they werent thrashed and Im always looking for some stainless to practice repairs on. $300 later I piled them in my truck and headed home hoping it was worth it.




Soon began to strip them with aircraft paint stripper and a paint scraper. T panel first, showed no damage from the back side but it did have some light wrinkling and ripples.







Next the LFF, it had some dent puller holes welded up (stainless Tig welding atleast!) near the dents on the trailing edge where it meets up with the door, plus some other repairable dents on the leading edge. Overall pretty rough. Next I started the RR quarter, the only panel left with no visible damage on the backside. After another 2 hours of chemical stripping and scraping, then acetone to clean it up it looked like I had one undamaged panel, NICE! It wasnt even that badly sanded for the primer! Ill get to the other panels soon but they will be ugly ones too. More wall art! I just need a rear Fascia and a driver door to have a complete set of extra panels!









This November Rob Grady and Chris Nicholson came to my area to service the NCDMC , I quickly jumped on the list to have some body work done by the best stainless guys there is! When my day came I trailered my car over to Wrench Works in Vacaville. My plans was to have the car regrained after 3 hours of dent repairs as I wasnt planning on dumping alot of money into the car after the engine and trans job became more expensive than planned.





Chris gave his once over and gave his thoughts on the damage, The car was quite bad, every panel needed hours of work, especially the doors but I didnt want to change out doors since they operated so well. He was confident that everything else could be fixed on the car even the gas flap hood could be saved.


"There there you poor beat little car, Im here to fix you up"

[vwdmc16]

Rob Grady and I went over the large estimate to determine the best option for me, To repair the entire car was going to be 28.5 hrs of Nicholson hammering and flap sanding, regain included. That exceeded the purchase cost of the car for me and out of my budget!






I decided the worst damage had to be dealt with so the LFF and hood were priority #1. I still cant believe the results! He did all this without removing the LFF and by drilling just tiny holes under the trunk rubber seal to push that long dent out, you open the trunk and you cant even tell!

BEFORE


AFTER!





Next the passenger door dent on the b pillar was next as that was the ugliest part of the car, it was a very strange dent that someone had attempted to repair before. I had written that off to be repaired only by cutting the metal skin off and welding on a donor piece that I had, But somehow Chris was able to make that damage vanish! it still makes me speechless!


BEFORE


AFTER



In the end I decided to alot more than 3hrs of repairs, (the hood was than much alone and well worth it) and repair everything but the Drivers door. My plan is to replace that door next year with a good used one since that is cheaper than fixing this one that has bad glass and seals anyway. I could have posted pages of before and afters on my car alone, but here is another, this one on the LR quarter


BEFORE


AFTER




If you are on Facebook you can see this video of my hood being repaired, incredible work Mr. Nicholson! thanks so much,


https://www.facebook.com/jordanlivin...0139129808294/

[Lwanmtr]

Definately alotta work..and looking good

[sdg3205]

I asked Chris if he was going to be in the PNW any time soon. I'm sure if he spent a week in Seattle at DMCNW he could make a fortune tweaking the dents out of our cars. Hell I'd drive down there to get mine done in a heart beat.