So this has been a long time coming and this is a long post. If you just want pics then go to http://imgur.com/a/jG8eX.
I bought my car in August 2003 from Mike Polzin. It was a project car and I knew it going in. The status of the car when I got it was the following
- Brakes were not functional
- Engine ran but was rough
- A rat nest in the AC blower motor
- A rat nest in the compartment behind the driver seat
- Car was painted red due to a prior accident by the previous owner that Mike got the car from
- It had sat in a barn for over 10 years in Arizona
- Engine compartment cover cracked through all around the latch requiring large fiberglass repair
Fiberglass does not rust, I had a nice soup left for me and the odor of the car was terrible. You could smell it with the doors shut as you walked by. The first thing I did was remove all of the carpet and soak them in a large bucket of odor removal. I also scrubbed every inch of the interior fiberglass many times over. It took months for the smell to die down so that it was only noticeable when the doors were open. I also had to remove the wood behind the driver seat due to it rotting from being urine soaked.
I met Walter Coe who was a Delorean owner before going off the deep end about anti-gravity and selling all of his Deloreans. He helped me get a number of things on the car repaired.
- Overhauled the brake system, new calipers along with new stainless lines
- Replaced the master and slave cylinders due to leaking
- Completely drained and cleaned the fuel tank
- New fuel pump along with new orange fuel lines
- Replaced the coolant bottle with a stainless bottle
- Replaced some of the coolant lines with silicone lines, back before I started seeing anyone else offer them
- Replaced the two rear trailing arm bolts with Walt TABs, a metric version of the Toby TAB, same material that Walt paid to have made
- Cleaned out the deep holes in the middle of the engine block (way under the water pipe) and filled in with high temp silicone
- Replaced the door handles with the new metal ones after the driver one snapped off
- Partially stripped the panels. Walter wanted a painted car so we ended up panel swapping most of the panels. Hood was not swapped due to wanting a grooved hood
- Stripped the hood, Airplane Remover is wonderful stuff. Still needs to be regrained
- Engine cover damage repaired but not smoothed and painted
I also took the wheels to a shop that sand blasted them then baked on a matching powder coat. Around 2006, my work put me on the road for almost a year, besides missing most of my wife's pregnancy, the car sat with no AC system, no carpets in the car, door panels missing, but a working engine and brakes. I live in Florida, our seasons go Summer, Summer, Summer, Spring. There is a narrow window you can drive a Delorean in Florida with no AC without getting heat stroke and I wasn't home during that time. The next 3 years, 2007 to 2010 the car was neglected, but driven randomly to keep the fluids moving, due to now moving into a house, my wife having a child, and my job's "1 year on the road" turned into 4 years of traveling almost every other week when I was suppose to be at a desk doing programming.
At the end of 2010 I landed a job on the other coast of Florida and the car drove beautifully for 3 hours to the apartment we moved into. We didn't move into a house due to not knowing the area and needing time to settle and figure out where we would want to have a house. Apartment complex's do not like you doing work on vehicles in their parking lot so 5096 sat in a garage for 2 years. I moved to a house in March of 2013 and it was very problematic to get the engine running due to being gummed up. I also had not done any work on the car due to the distance to the garage from the apartment itself and no easy way to get relief from the heat of the baking chamber they called a garage.
I have a 370Z on lease, the lease started in May 2012 and is for 3 years. I had a plan then to make the Delorean my daily driver when the lease ended. After moving to the house in March, I started planning around May that I need to start working on the car but I did not know of any shops that I would trust to do any work on the car. I did know that I could do the work myself though as I have all of the documents and am mechanically inclined. I was running out to pick dinner up for the family one night when my daughter wanted to go with me, she likes the 370Z, so of course I delayed leaving so she could tag along. As I pulled out onto one of the main streets I saw a Delorean going the other direction. She did not see it and started questioning my very rapid U turn. I followed it to a gas station and talked to the owner, Randy, who let me know he use to live in the area and now lives in Orlando. He had just picked up the car from his friend Eddie and told me I should get in contact with him.
I got in touch with Eddie which has resulted in me being one of the cars to get his EFI upgrade along with a turbo and exhaust rework at the same time. Eddie's shop is so close to the house I could walk to it and probably hit it with a good golf swing. Of course I would have never ran into Eddie if it wasn't for my daughter delaying me as I would have driven past the road that Randy turned off from and never seen his car. To prep for Eddie taking the car, hopefully Monday if the weather holds, the following has been done.
- Replaced the broken driver side handle and replaced the passenger handle with the new metal ones
- New alternator
- Fuse box removed and new one soldered into place
- New relays
- Bracket for the electronics sand blasted and repainted due to rust
I still need to mount the bracket and get the electronics mounted. When I first got the car it sat under my mom's oak tree, the leaves got into everything. The whole inside edge of the door was filled to the brim, the engine compartment had them everywhere, the trunk had 2" of leaves. Some compressed air and the shop vac took care of them.
I plan on continuing with the pictures and while Eddie has the car, the yellow bin of AC parts should start to look like an actual AC component. My goal is to have 5096 daily driving by the end of 2014. Once Eddie is done the next step will be to get the AC back together and into the car. From there, almost everything I have is cosmetic and visual that I am aware of.
-Samuel
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Originally Posted by Lightning
