Winterizing #10207, need feedback/input/advice.

[DrWin]

So, bear with me if this sounds silly, but I want to winterize my DeLorean and turn it into a year round daily driver, if I can.

For some context, I'm the kind of guy who's been raving about BTTF in general and the DeLorean in particular on/off for the last 30 years. Everyone that knows me knows about my infatuation with owning and driving a DeLorean. And now I finally have one. I've put 8000 miles on it in the 1.5 years I've had it. I've not driven it last winter, so that makes around 4000miles pr. driving season.

In Denmark the road services are very happy with spreading salt around once temperatures get below 3C* in the winter, but due to shifting weather we never know if that is gonna happen at all or will be intermittently the case or a steady 6month brine condition. Which means that I can't drive the DeLorean for fear of rusting it away, basically half the year, give or take. And I can certainly never plan on using it for anything in the winter half of the year.

I'm not happy with this situation, as I would rather be driving my DeLorean year round. I can see a lot of things are available for the car in SS, so I've thought that maybe it would be possible to "convert" everything to stainless and thus mitigate the corrosion issue. But I lack experience and I lack a clear view of what is possible and what is available for this to actually happen.

I'd love to hear from all of you about the technical aspect/feasability of winterizing a DeLorean (basically corrosion proofing it) and would also be very interested to hear from someone who has / is driven / driving the DeLorean in the snow and salt.

So, please advice. I'd love for this to happen, but I dont want to risk destroying a DeLorean in the process.
Opinions wanted. :)


Clarification: I refer to daily driver as "gets driven a lot". I actually drive it 2-3 times pr. week b/c I can walk everywhere in town, incl to/from work.

[dmc4087]

Salt will make a real mess underneath (and probably above too), I'd avoid entirely. Best bet is to let it hibernate

[Helirich]

I suppose if you got a SS frame frame DEloream industry's, you would eliminate a good deal of your corrosion issues. That's quite a job to swap. Even then, there are a lot of things that can't be changed out for SS. A lot of people think aluminum doesn't rust, but in salt it doesn't hold up.

Maybe you could design your garage kind of like a car wash, so you could rinse the car off everytime you get home. I think you would want high pressure water under the car.

When I lived in Pennsylvania, I had a IH Scout that leaked oil. The oil would cover everything underneath. It was a total pain to work on, but it never rusted on those salted roads. Not a good solution for the D.

[dn010]

Don't do it. I drove my D daily for years, including winters, while living in upstate New York. The frame and everything bolted to it turned into garbage. The car was great in the snow, but terrible surviving the salt. Oh, and by the way, I did wash off the underneath with hot water every time I came back home with the car.

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=47554&d=1480514714

[JRNY13]

Don't do it, man. Not worth it. You'll have so much more to look forward to in the spring.

[MrChocky]

I think it's worth doing though (winterizing, not driving in the winter), just to help maintain the car. There's a great deal of hardware that's easy to reach and might be rusty anyway; and you never know,
you might get caught out one time, or have to store the car in less than ideal conditions at some point.

[82DMC12]

That's funny, to most of us, "winterizing" means letting the car hibernate while major maintenance is getting done, totally taking over the garage, before the next driving season haha

[DrWin]

That was a pretty unanimous: Dont' go there man..!
Duly noted. I thought this was actually feasable. Hmm.

[dmcerik]

The expectation may be 12 months of fun Delorean driving. The reality would be a rust nightmare. I'll put my vote in and say "Don't do it."

One other thing to consider is getting dinged or smashed by other drivers who are sliding around. Or driving with snow / fog still on their windshield. Winter brings out the stupid in hasty people.

[Josh]

The expectation may be 12 months of fun Delorean driving. The reality would be a rust nightmare. I'll put my vote in and say "Don't do it."

One other thing to consider is getting dinged or smashed by other drivers who are sliding around. Or driving with snow / fog still on their windshield. Winter brings out the stupid in hasty people.

You took the words out of my mouth. The biggest hazards in winter is not entirely the road conditions, but everyone around you. especially at the start everyone forgets how to drive it seems.

[eseethal]

I would not drive in winter. Same here in Austria! No way! The salt is terrible, it's dangerous and I quite like the anticipation in the spring before I get her out of hibernation! I tried rust proofing the frame or suspension components of lot of other cars, tried various methods, but after 2 or 3 years usually it's rusty.

Eugen