My Delorean stops running

[Morpheus]

Fred,

Have you checked your fusebox yet? I'd be willing to bet that fuse 7 is a mess.

[Iceguy]

Heres a pic of my fuse box. ( Pic 1 ) There was no fuse in #15 main beam. I looked at # 7 & it looked good. I traded it with another fuse and still shutting off. I am wondering about the modules. ( Pic 2 ) There is one missing - and it has jumpers connecting it across to another. And last - I was looking under the dash on the drivers side and found the box on the right ( in pic 3 ) was unplugged. I replugged it in. I was looking on line and don't see what they are. ----- I just tried starting my car - now will not start. Unplugged this box.

[Iceguy]

Also - if the battery was going bad - would it cause this ?

[Jonathan]

Hi Iceguy (is your name Fred?),

A couple observations from your pictures.

Check the fuse box schematic out for starters.

Fuse Box Schematic.jpg

The one in your second (sorry, mixed your picture order around originally) picture on the top row of five sockets with the brown jumper wire looks like #30 on the schematic, which is for the A/C panel illumination. You don't normally see a jumper wire there. It would normally be a relay.

The one in the bottom left hand corner is #27, the fan fail relay socket. It is the one most often having the pair of inline 20 Amp fuses wired to it. Hard to say what yours are connected to at the moment, but at least the left most connection in the #27 socket looks open.

Here is a picture I took recently of my fuse and relay area to give you some perspective.

IMG_3388.jpg

In your first picture, that inline fuse holder is extra. Not sure why it is there, but it probably accounting for at least one of your missing fuses in the box. Again, consult the schematic for which size fuses should be in each position and what they connect to.

If you were to look at your fuse and relay area and assume that underneath the sockets it is still connected as originally designed, there would be a number of things on your car not doing anything or at least not what they are supposed to. Conclusion is that some or many wires underneath the fuse box and relay sockets have been switcheroo'd for some reason.

My suggestion would be to take a step back in order to let you and your car take a big step forward and put the majority of your wiring back the way it was supposed to be. Years ago guys didn't have access to the knowledge or expertise or parts to keep the cars going the way they were intended. Now all of us have that information so you can put your car back the way it was supposed to be. This will likely give you the best chance to eliminate future problems as well as solve the issue you're having with your car shutting off after 3 minutes.

The third picture is the windshield wiper delay module and the buzzer. It was either unplugged because someone didn't care much for the buzzer, or didn't understand how the wiper delay works. Plug it back in. If an annoying buzzer ensues, unplug it again or disconnect your door plunger. If not, you probably just got your wipers working.

That bracket by the way snaps into a clever spot up in on the side of the pedals assembly. Next to impossible to see it in your car by putting your head up in there, but Dave S took a good picture of it one day that I can share here.

wiper delay bracket.jpg

[Iceguy]

I just had my car running. It ran 40 min. Drove it up & back the street twice. Put it back in the garage, moved my truck back in front of the garage, started the Delorean again - started right up --- then quit after 2 min. This thing is making me crazy.

[Iceguy]

I noticed that I have 2 Inertia switches. One mounted in the right of the pic - thats unplugged, another to the left - that is plugged in. Looks to me like this has been an issue in the past. Is there a way to ~jump~ this box. I'm thinking if there is a way to hook up around this switch, so that the fuel pump would not be cut off and just keep running, I might have found my problem. I also replugged in the buzzer. It makes no noise, but the seatbelt light on the dash now comes on. Also as far as my fuse box / electrical goes - My power locks & mirrors do not work. So I can only guess to what has changed & rigged up.

[Jonathan]

If the inertia switch on the right is unplugged, it would be fine staying where it is (functionally anyway). It was relocated to the left as per this safety recall:

http://dmcnews.com/bulletins/SC-06-7.82.pdf

You can see the white paint mark on it indicating it was done. I don't know if the switch itself was changed internally at all or if it was just the location. This was never done on my car so I don't really know much about it (maybe I should though!!)

The inertia switch plunger on the top you see there will pop up if you are upside down, which would of course be popping down if you know what I mean. Check your switch plunger to see if something doesn't seem right about it. It might be popped up, but that wouldn't explain why the car starts at times, but shuts down after a few minutes as I'm assuming no one is under there playing with the plunger.

Another owner mentioned to me at one point about why his power door locks wouldn't lock when they were supposed to. We realized it was because he had popped the plunger up while it was stored as kind of a built in extra security anti-theft feature. If the door lock module on your car is plugged in (mine is not), that inertia switch when cutting off the fuel pump was also supposed to unlock the doors. So by popping the plunger he inadvertantly forced his doors unlocked and couldn't lock them again until we realized the connection.

You mention your door locks (and mirrors) don't work. There could be something going on in common with your fuel pump wiring and door locks and the inertia switch. The more we learn here the more I want to emphasize the importance of perhaps biting the bullet on the next bit of time you own your car and the hopes of driving it, and really consider doing some serious rework to put your wiring back the way it should be. I don't doubt this will not be the last new electrical thing we find until then.

One other note, with that inertia switch, there was an apparent way you could whack the car from the wheel well or panel outside that would rattle the inertia switch enough to unlock the doors. Not exactly very car thief proof Another decent reason to unplug your door lock module.

I don't know for certain about jumping the inertia switch to test things. It could be as simple as shorting two wires together. Maybe someone else can chime in about that?

[Iceguy]

I have done a relay update. The fans are back working as normal ( thanx Brandon ). Previous owner had them so they come on as soon as the car was started. Now have all new relays and it seems to be running good. Had it running 30 min, took a little test drive down the street - all seems good. Turned it off I let it cool off for a while & restarted fine. Ran another 25 min. Fingers crossed - hope I have found my problem.