Location: McCleary WA
Posts: 122
Club(s): (PNDC)
1981 DeLorean w/supercharged Chevy V6 - purchased 1990; built '90-'95; sold 2005; re-purchased 2016; sold again 2017
1957 Dodge D500 Hemi convertible - restoration completed 7/2015; sold 12/2019
1957 Dodge 2-door station wagon, getting 2019 Chrysler drivetrain
2000 Corvette convertible
Location: Orlando, Florida
Posts: 2,734
My VIN: 01643
Club(s): (DCF) (DCO) (DCUK)
It was quite the ordeal to get it hung but totally worth it. One of the best things about it was (as I'm sure you recall) it still had the protective plastic on one side of the stainless. Presumably for the life of the sign it had only ever been displayed one sided so the "back" side never had the plastic removed. That ended up being the side that Cliff put "out" when it was hung so that it shined like new.
One of the unfortunate situations we ran into though was the fluorescent ballasts failed on us. While we had the sign on the ground, we had it up side down so that we could access the panels for changing the bulbs. We replaced all the tubes so theyd be fresh, tested it, and all lit up great. For whatever reason though, after we turned the sign right side up, 2/3 of the sign stopped lighting up. I believe they were oil filled ballasts and for whatever reason didn't want to work after we flipped the sign over. Unfortunately we never tested it after we flippped it, so we didn't find out that 2/3 of the sign didn't work until it was installed and hung 25ft in the air. Cliff later spent a few days replacing the ballasts from a man basket on his forklift.
Location: McCleary WA
Posts: 122
Club(s): (PNDC)
That sign was with a parts inventory I purchased out of Shreveport LA in the late '80's. They shipped the parts to me, but no sign. I waited a while, then contacted them only to find out that in the meantime the dealership had closed its doors. As it happened the parts manager who I had been dealing with had a unique name, so with some pre-Google effort I was able to track him down. He said he would try to track the sign down if I would pay for the shipping. A few weeks later the sign arrived, in its original packaging, and I never did get a shipping bill. I had a commercial sign shop get it working, and regularly had it lighted until I moved in 1998. After that I had it displayed but not lighted as there was no power available.
As for using an extended engine hoist to remove the sign, that is the same way I removed and installed DeLorean doors - from the rear, in a very narrow garage stall with a very valuable restored classic about 3 feet away, again by myself. And I used to adjust torsion bars by myself, too. Fun times...
1981 DeLorean w/supercharged Chevy V6 - purchased 1990; built '90-'95; sold 2005; re-purchased 2016; sold again 2017
1957 Dodge D500 Hemi convertible - restoration completed 7/2015; sold 12/2019
1957 Dodge 2-door station wagon, getting 2019 Chrysler drivetrain
2000 Corvette convertible
Shannon Y
www.ohiodeloreans.com
www.facebook.com/ohiodeloreans
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1st angle drive - 58,027 miles (20 years) -- original
2nd angle drive - 48,489 miles (21 years) -- original from donor
3rd angle drive - 26,572 miles (2 years 3 months) -- DMCH
4th angle drive - 21,988 miles (1 year 11 months) -- DMCH
5th angle drive - 7,137 miles (10 months 2 days) -- DMCH
6th angle drive - OVER 113,704 miles and counting (OVER 13 yr 1 month & counting) -- new Martin Gutkowski unit
over 245K miles