What have you done to your DeLorean today?

[Kenny_Z]

For a second Farrar I thought you had an arc reactor for an engine

[Farrar]

It stopped raining, so I went out to the garage and fired up the engine. Fuel poured out of the carburetor and down into the intake valley. I stopped the engine.

I decided to cut off the fuel pump and run the engine for a minute to drain the fuel from the carburetor bowl. The starter motor hesitated, like it didn't want to turn. Instead of going "trr, trr, trr, trr," it went "trrt."

I checked the battery -- 11.35 volts. It should start. I kept turning the key and eventually it caught. That was weird.

I couldn't run the engine for very long, because the garage was filling up with exhaust. (I backed the car into the garage last summer. I AM SMRT!)

When I shut the engine off, thick white smoke was coming out of the left tailpipe. It was sinking down slowly, like dry ice subliming. That was also weird.

I took the top off of the carburetor. I suppose the float setting got messed up when I un-stuck the float from the bottom of the bowl.

I adjusted the float to what I think is a ridiculously low level, put the top of the carburetor back on, and ran the fuel pump. Fuel failed to flow out of the carburetor and onto its surroundings.

I decided to turn the car around so I could work on it with the rear end facing out of the garage. This was not very easy with the car not running and no one to help me.

By myself, I got the car out of the garage (hitting the driver door on the garage's door frame in the process -- I had checked vertical, but not horizontal, clearance -- fortunately, the wood is soft and the edge of the door is hard). I was very near to a parking space when someone walked by and offered to help. I graciously accepted, or as graciously as one can be when covered in sweat and gasoline and heaving for breath while one's sides, back, and arms scream "stop whatever it is you think you're doing, because we're not having a good time right now at all and we want you to be very aware of this."

I am now sore outside and inside.

The car is safely (?) in a parking space near my apartment. Currently, it is not raining outside.

The question is: can I run the engine with a quarter-inch of fuel in the intake valley, or should I wait until tomorrow when it has likely evaporated? Or should I go out, dry it out with papertowels, and try again before it starts raining again?

Geez -- all of this just so I can turn the car around and start re-charging the air conditioning! What an ordeal!

[Kenny_Z]

Sounds like your carb needs a rebuild. Can you tell where the fuel is coming from? I have one like that and it is one of the reasons I hate Motorcraft 2100s. I could never get the thing to run right. I wanted a 4 barrel in the Mustang anyway so I didn't try very hard to fix it.

I don't know the risk but I never run engines around puddles of fuel. I've had a car backfire and shoot flames out the carb. If the engine had been a big puddle it would have been a big inferno.

[LordFly]

The question is: can I run the engine with a quarter-inch of fuel in the intake valley, or should I wait until tomorrow when it has likely evaporated? Or should I go out, dry it out with papertowels, and try again before it starts raining again?

I personally would sop up what I could with paper towels and then run it. the intake valley shouldn't reach the ignition point. But keep a fire extinguisher within arms reach anyways, just in case. But that's just me.

[Farrar]

Sounds like your carb needs a rebuild. Can you tell where the fuel is coming from?

I rebuilt it two years ago and haven't used it much since...

Last week when I put the new fuel pump in, I checked out the carburetor. The needle valve and float looked fine. But the float was stuck to the bottom of the bowl. I un-stuck it, and must have messed up the height setting in the process. When I took the top off the carb, I saw the float was all the way at the top and the needle valve wasn't doing squat. I set the float down some, just eyeballing it, and it works fine now with no leaks. So that one was definitely my fault. I don't think well when I'm hot and tired.

My solution to the gasoline spill was to pour a couple of gallons of water down into the intake valley. (No, the engine was not hot.) Once the water coming out the bottom of the engine compartment was rainbow-free, I knew I was good to try again. That was when I fired the engine back up and idled it for about ten minutes, checking everything along the way. The fuel gauge now reads 1/8 of a tank, so I'm going to go get some fresh fuel.

Now I have to see about re-charging the air conditioning out in the parking lot ... or remember to pull the car forwards into the garage this time...

[Hokie]

I took mine on an errand today and got caught in a localized rain shower. YIKES! Water on the frame AND the car was dirtier than its ever been. So, I performed a water and rag wash today for the first time. Looks pretty good. Maybe next time I'll even use soap...

[Farrar]

After putting 2 gallons of fresh fuel in the tank, I did pull the car into the garage forwards. I allowed it to warm up fully, so that I could check the radiator fan function. The fans came on and turned off again.

Once the engine is warmed up, it has an idle which is mostly smooth with an occasional burble. It's a familiar sound. Now I remember how annoyed I always was when the engine was idling. I hate that burble. It's completely at random and impossible to pin down. Other people listen to it and say "What sound are you talking about? It sounds fine to me." I know I have good ears, but come on, everybody else's can't be bad.

With idle problems I always assume vacuum leak. Nope. I adjusted the idle air screws. Nope. In fact, although it's not a good idea, I can idle the engine at 500RPM -- that tells me my air/fuel mixture is OK and I don't have a vacuum leak. Maybe my engine needs a valve adjustment? Or I'll just get used to the burble. Or I'll go EFI to get rid of it.

Anyway, with the engine running, I decided it was time to finish the a/c charge. But I was unable to get the second can of R-134a into the system, because when I pulled the can tap off of the first can, the O-ring fell out of the tap into, I presume, Narnia. I have this awesome can tap which will screw onto an R-134a can on one side and onto an R-12 charging hose on the other side. I can't remember where I got it. I'm hanging on to it for dear life, because you can't just buy the middle hose for R-134a. My gauge hoses are the same backwards and forwards. The high and low side hoses have adapters, but the charging hose doesn't.

Go to an auto parts store and tell them you need an O-ring for R-12 gauges. It's like an episode of "Candid Camera," except you're not pranking anyone.

Oh, the engine occasionally makes a sort of grinding sound. That's another reason I was twiddling with the air-fuel screws. It didn't seem to do anything about the sound, though.

I'm calling it a night. My garage is right next to an apartment where some nice, old, disabled folks live. I'm not going to run the engine any later than 9pm. Inside the garage, that sucker's loud. In the morning, I'll take the can tap to the hardware store and see if they can come up with an appropriate O-ring for the can tap. Unless Narnia decides to give up the original, that is...

[DeLorean03]

Install Mark Sutton's prototype LED clock - man does it look sweet!



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Pictures of the old clock which stopped keeping time sometime last year.

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Pictures comparing the front and backs of the new and old clock.

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New clock installed! The wiring on the new clock is plentiful. The gauge of it, I would guess, is about 22 gauge. I knew there was no way I'd be able to get a butt connector on it, so Jessica stripped the wires, tied them together, and we soldered them together using resin-free solder. Then we wrapped them in electrical tape. As Overland Man suggested, I utilized the green wire off the old clock to have the new clock's display light up when the ignition switch is engaged, and the black wire obviously for ground. The other two wires were wrapped in electrical tape separately, and then together to keep things "neat and clean."

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Jessica suggesting to me "You kinda need to re-install this, buddy...."

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New clock installed!

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Jessica and I sharing the honor of removing the protective filament on the clock's face.

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Pictures of the new clock !!!

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Picture of nearly everything needed to do this job. Was not too bad at all!

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Happy Jeremiah (:

We also got one of my tail lights to behave again (bad connection at the LED bulb to tail light board), diagnosed a bad interior dome light switch, and re-installed the sliding plastic piece that moves with the gear shifter of the auto trans. All in all, not a bad night working with my wifey .

[Farrar]

For a second Farrar I thought you had an arc reactor for an engine

I did once build a carbon arc light for a school science project using two rods from D-cell batteries...

[DrJeff]

I got the t-panel off using a 1in x 1/8in x 48in aluminium bar with one end sharpened to a chisel point. I found about 1lb of what looks like kitchen & bath clear caulk. I knew that the t-panel had been off before and someone had been messing with torsion bars.

??? Why did no one mention about there being a hard foam spacer under the t-panel ???

The electrical connections all look good, no corrosion, but there's plenty of rust around the walls. I scraped and vacuumed out what I could and exposed the rest to toxic levels of rust converter.

I found the end of the yellow-white wires, other end of which is used inside the doors. The yellow-white wires get to a connector in the roof-box but don't have a corresponding wire out the other side of the connector. I had previously routed the yellow-white wires in the doors into the mirror housings (when I was doing the heated mirrors project). I added connectors and brought the yellow-white wires down to the fuse area. The plan is to add indicators to the mirror housings - just haven't decided how yet (although I did rule out an arrow behind the mirror itself - the D's mirrors are already too small and making what's behind you even less visible due to indicators didn't make sense to me). The existing port (fixed sized opening) out the back of the roof box into the cabin roof is very full with wires!

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Next up... roof separation fix and re-torquing the bars (mine are over torqued by a good measure).