Memo 040881 Product Evaluation Summary - CRBrown

[DMCH James]

I wonder if this was the impetus behind those stickers that DMCH sells for the unfinished area that shows between the rear quarter and door cards inside. I don't know if those were OEM or a new idea.

The door finisher stickers were a factory item installed on many of the later cars. They also had parts numbers for the other interior colors (gray, burgundy, blue, tan, etc) which is why we also now produce them in gray as well as the original black.

James

[Tillsy]

Interesting that they were already aware of some of these issues early on, some got sorted but a shame many didn't - even easy and important ones like the riveted top door seals...

[DMCH James]

Interesting that they were already aware of some of these issues early on, some got sorted but a shame many didn't - even easy and important ones like the riveted top door seals...

I think they did do a lot of the easy and important ones. Roof seals shouldn't have gone bad anytime in the first several years that the car was in use. There are lots of things in the files here for parts that got engineered in late 1981 and early-mid 1982 that just never made it to production. Some of them got to the "trial run" stage where they were fitted to anywhere from 10-50 cars to test feasibility. Things like the fixing bolts for the trailing arm shields in the battery and cubby compartment - they were engineered to be replaced with the metal strips commonly used today.

http://store.delorean.com/p-10405-de...trip-pair.aspx

Note the "U.E." on the stock disposal instructions for the Big Head Bolt SP10589 - that means "Until Exhausted" - they weren't going to switch until they had used up all the old parts.

[StainlessSteelDream]

Note the "U.E." on the stock disposal instructions for the Big Head Bolt SP10589 - that means "Until Exhausted" - they weren't going to switch until they had used up all the old parts.

Some of these did make it "into the wild"... my 1983 has these from day one, but it would have been a Kapac assembled car I guess so they might have used whatever they had closest at hand.

[DMCH James]

Some of these did make it "into the wild"... my 1983 has these from day one, but it would have been a Kapac assembled car I guess so they might have used whatever they had closest at hand.

Couple of things here - there were no Kapac assembled cars. Your car was almost assuredly VIN 12106, built in Feb/Mar of 1982 by DMCL. It was later given a new VIN by Consolidated International by adding 5000 to the existing VIN. The 20XXX were the partially assembled cars on the assembly line when the line shut completely in May 1982. These were completed at the direction of Consolidated in very late 1982, reportedly by bringing back managers to complete them.

While it's possible that they were in production at the time your car was built, the absence of any "Received Inventory" in the files and no "Initial Sample Record" on hand, coupled with the fact that DMCL went into receivership shortly after this Engineering Change was approved, in my opinion make it *more* likely that your car happened to be one of the "10 off car sets" supplied for evaluation. Perhaps Nick might be able to shed some light on it from his files.

Any other 17XXX owner care to check their cars and report back?

James

[Shep]

I wonder if this was the impetus behind those stickers that DMCH sells for the unfinished area that shows between the rear quarter and door cards inside. I don't know if those were OEM or a new idea.

Could you elaborate on that? I looked on mine and can't figure out what you're talking about. By "door card", do you mean the VIN plate on the door sill? I didn't see any unfinished areas there

[Dangermouse]

Shep, the door cards are the two large pieces of interior door trim that are held on by "fir trees"

So called, I think, because the first ones used were actually made from pressed card.

[DMCH James]

Could you elaborate on that? I looked on mine and can't figure out what you're talking about. By "door card", do you mean the VIN plate on the door sill? I didn't see any unfinished areas there

The gap between the door panel and the rear trim panel - normally in this gap you could see the bare stainless of the inner door. This "door finisher" show in the photo below helps to obscure that area.

[Patrick C]

Couple of things here - there were no Kapac assembled cars.

I've heard this too, but one of our Cincinnati owners who has been in this game for a long time has told me that he personally witnessed Jerry Rhine (sp?) building a DeLorean from the ground up more than once. I asked if they were half-completed cars from DMCL, and he said that no, Jerry was building up from the bare frame when he stopped in to visit. Since this owner lived in Columbus at the time, he stopped in frequently to see Jerry and eventually bought his car from him (an early '81). I may be wrong, but the number I heard was that Jerry built 5-6 cars from parts while working for KAPAC.

[DMCH James]

I've heard this too, but one of our Cincinnati owners who has been in this game for a long time has told me that he personally witnessed Jerry Rhine (sp?) building a DeLorean from the ground up more than once. I asked if they were half-completed cars from DMCL, and he said that no, Jerry was building up from the bare frame when he stopped in to visit. I may be wrong, but the number I heard was that Jerry built 5-6 cars from parts while working for KAPAC.

Marvin Katz (the "Ka" in Kapac) says that no cars were built as they had no way to title them since there were no MSO documents. When we bought everything in 1997 there were two partially assembled cars - one a rolling frame/underbody and one just a rolling frame. Whoever put them together didn't know what they were doing as they had installed manual transmissions in automatic frames. We corrected the rolling frame/underbody and made it driveable without doors/other panels and took it to DCS 2000 in Cleveland.