At long last, all of my parts have arrived. Some of them seem to have come on a slow boat from China, but my wire is U.S.-made. My project to tackle the rear lights can now begin.
I'm starting by making new taillight boards, using templates provided by Anders Bergman in Stockholm to the DeLorean Restoration Projects group on Facebook. (Isn't the internet amazing?) Bergman made the diagrams and then sent them to be laser cut by a local shop, but I'm using them instead as a template for cutting by hand, in part because the sockets I am using have a different footprint than the ones he used. I've printed the templates out and taped them to the plastic for cutting and drilling. The plastic I am using is plain Delrin, which has good heat and weather resistance, and it is the same thickness as the stock taillight boards.
cutting.jpg
(I will not cut the "DMC" into the board. In my opinion, that's just silly.)
I will use 14 AWG wire (overkill for LEDs, but why not) and re-wire the circuit from the fuse box rearward: this will be a good opportunity to relocate the brake light fuse from underneath the dashboard to the unused #18 position in the fuse box—something evidently already done on later VIN vehicles.