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Big +1 on the endorsement of the MTL Redline oil. My trans was in stellar shape and shifted/ran very nicely, and the MTL made it even better. Worth every penny!
I love that pic of your car at the construction site. What ever happened with that project anyway?
ive driven by that area again and a year later its still the same, sad.
April 11 2011
I filled the gas tank the previous day and saw fuel on garage floor under the front of the car the next, it seems it leaked out while I had the rear raised up. I discovered the fuel pump cover boot had torn, this could have been bad if I hadnt caught it sooner. a New boot from DMCH solved it quickly.
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Idle system and ign Interference Woes:
While the new Idle ECU restored my ISC system I still had a interference issue at low rpm and idle which made it very hard for the idle system to do its job. It was like some kind of radio interference between the distributor and the IGN ECU. I had previously cleaned all the electrical connections in the ignition system but that did no good. I was sure that either the distributor signal wire or impulse coil was damaged however the signal wire was NLA from DMC or Volvo and finding a good used one was very hard. Every expert I spoke with about a possible impulse coil problem dismissed it as they either work perfectly or they dont at all. It seemed again my car was determined to become the exception. The engine was now missing worse than ever and had to be fixed
CLick and open in a new tab to view video:
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One theory was that the high voltage wires were making the static, so to try to fix this my new friend Jon came over (in his newly acquired D #2100) and helped put dielectric grease on all of the plugs and wires which isnt a easy job to get to the distributor( had to remove the fuel distributor again). Also changed out the coil to dizzy wire as is had these low quality resistor ends on it. But unfortunately it didnt help. On to the next idea!
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Your tach is moving faster than the engine RPM is changing. So I think your on the right track in that the ignition is causing a fault. Are you running the stock coil? Is your coil capacitor bad or not connected? I don't think the high tension wires would cause that problem. Think it's in the primary.
You are on the right track Dave, Now remember that post was about April '11, ive since fixed the problem, I wont spoil it for those following along. But the repair is coming up.
April 27 2011
I got a good deal on some good used Eibach shocks from a DMC owner in Canada, installed the rears today which only took 1/2 an hour, the rears have an adjustable perch for the spring so I lowered the rear down 1 cm more. One of the fronts that came were blown ( I knew this before the sale) so they would have to be rebuilt before I could mount them. The rears feel a bit stiffer than the originals but not horribly. Overall it was a good improvement.
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April 29th
I removed the muffler for a bit of polishing and repair. The factory muffler is Stainless but it still corrodes a bit, nothing an hour with a wire bursh cant cure! I also noticed a few of the plug welds had began to crack so I took the muffler to my old shop and TIG welded them up as well
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June 26
I was back to working on the Honda z600 more than the Dmc for a while but I still made time for my DMC
I stepped up and finally shelled out the $56 for new parking brake pads, even though I only needed ONE of the 4 but now I have a reasonably working parking brake system, not enough for handbrake turns but it will hold on a hill at least.
Then I assembled my 3.0L PRV to help clean up the garage, its still going to be a while before this engine is ready to install. I had more immediate issues on the horizon as I was being forced to move out of the house I had been at for 2 years.
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July 13 2011
New engine mounts were one of the earliest things I had ever ordered for my car and finally I received them after being on back order so long. The originals had just about full collapsed, the oil pan was rubbing on the crossmember in one spot. To change out the engine mounts without pulling the engine was a real pain but I was able to do it with a floor jack and alot of cursing. My car was due for a Smog test as well so I had to reinstall my other catalytic converter, this was good as I found there was no way of removing the engine mount with the Cat in place. This whole job was by far one of my least favorite to perform.
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August 23 2011
All settled in my new house, its pretty nice. Has a nicer garage that has insulation and even has a sink though its a little smaller than my old garage.
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The big day came and I took the car to the smog shop after retarding the ignition back to stock specs and honing in the CO adjustment, I had a small issue getting the idle to stay in range long enough but she passed smog no problem, in fact all the emissions were below average! what a huge relief.
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You may also notice in that last pic I have installed a rear electric antennae which the later cars had and now I can actually get most radio stations! What a concept right? I think it helps the 80's look to it fullest. The antennae was a gift from my friend Jon
September 18 2011
I was determined to repair my glitchy tach signal so I decided the only thing left to try was start replacing the ignition components one by one until the problem was gone. Unable to find good used harness online or at local recycling yards my options were to pay hundreds of dollars for a new distributor from a delorean part vendor or wait until a PRV powered Volvo 260 or 760 showed up at a local junkyard. Finally one did in the Stockton, Ca Pick N pull which had 2 volvo 260's with what I needed.
The car I pulled the parts from had just under 35k Miles! That's crazy low mileage for an old Volvo.tThe car was intact and not smashed but the oil was pretty bad so maybe they never changed the oil and thats was did it in.
I grabbed the distributor, harness, ignition ECU (and a rear view mirror for my Toyota) for $95 which is about $600 less than what the DMC vendors would charge.
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I decided it would be easier to just swap out the whole distributor than to try and change out the impulse coil. I've read the volvo dizzy has a steeper advance curve that the DMC one but I cant tell the difference from the seat of my pants and I havent dynoed the car yet. I also swapped the ECUs first but this didnt change anything.
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I started off with the intact engine and removed the fuel injection system and intake piping. The job was 2hrs long, i've taken these parts off too many times and hope I wont for a while longer.
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You can see the dist on the forward left of the engine buried under alot of hoses.
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DMC vs volvo. I had to swap the vacuum diaphrams as they are different but otherwise it was a simple swap. New dizzy in place.
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Finally I had a success with this long lasting issue, the tachometer was now rock solid, This allowed the Idle speed ECU to finally receive a clean signal and be able to do its job of maintaining the engine at 750rpm. Happy days! Now I don't know if the impulse coil was the problem or if it was the wire, Not really caring now that its repaired.
This thread continues to amaze! Very few people would be able to put this kind of work into a DeLorean and get it into a smooth running machine like you have.
Really nice job and a lot of pictures to explain, thanks for sharing :thumbup2:
Thanks!!!
Jan 3rd 2012
Months have fallen off the calendar before I resumed work on the car. After being out of work almost 9 months I got a new job working on Mobility Vans, Not my ideal job but it was helping pay bills. Unfortunately it was also wearing me out something fierce and was in no mood to work on my cars. By January I was no longer just content with how well the car was running so I began working on small projects to get me moving again.
About a year after finishing the passenger side I decided to refinish the driver side upper door jamb.
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Scraped, cut and brushed away the junk and old silicone up there, no rust luckily considering how bad the frame was.
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Masked off the stainless and applied new sealant and paint.
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Jan 7 2012
I went for a 50 mile cruise yesterday south along the Sacramento River, it was nice and relaxing, however drives like that really remind you of the rattles and noises the car makes and how badly it pulls to the left.
A neat old auto shop in Walnut Grove, ca.
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Later that night I began the work to repair the know bad rattle. There is a seam at the base of the rear firewall that had began to split and was making a banging noise when the body twisted. I found this after alot of searching. After removing the surrounding insulation I then removed the main wiring harness bulkhead. Ive never removed this panel before and it was alot easier than I expected. Now I had the room to clean the area and grind into it with a rotary tool to remove the old glue.
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I even managed to not break any of the fragile old connectors
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also had a small separation on the driver side
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Got out the epoxy glues, $32 worth there, I only used 3 oz. of it and 2 strips of cloth. after a through cleaning I was time to apply the epoxy
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Action shot of me!
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After the glue was set, I also placed 3 stainless screws in the pinch seam in the engine bay to help hold it in place.
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