BTTF Time Machine Build Questions - Ask Me Anything

[Mark D]

Mark,

Thanks for your accurate description that no BTTF Delorean is Truely "screen accurate" because each A, B, C car was slightly different. And that most Time Machines look new.

I was very impressed with the work done on the A car restoration, but as you know, even this car is not restored to "exactly" how it was used in the movie. (e.g. numbered months.)

One question, I pose to people about the "screen accurate" car. Did the movie give the illusion that the BTTF Delorean was a hot rod engine? Clearly, the exhaust tone was NOT a PRV engine.
So should a "screen accurate" car have a hot rod engine? The "Delorean" in BTTF III was a hot rod engine -albeit a VW- BUT is was not a PRV. So exactly what is a "screen accurate" Time Machine?

What really bothers me with this situation is that there are certain Time Machine owners, who rent their car, and who are going around "bad mouthing" other people's time machines- claiming that theirs is the only "screen accurate" car, making them huge amounts of money and not sharing this benefit with other D owners who had the dedication to do this conversion.

After all these years, since 1995, when I negotiated with Universal Studios to get the permission for people to build Time Machines, without getting sued, now I hear of serious infighting amongst different Time Machine owners. I negotiated this permission for everyone to share, NOT FOR CERTAIN people to hoard.

As for the copies of the invoices for parts, these came from Kevin Pike, way back in the early 1990s, when I was researching and obtaining parts to build the first Time Machine - hot rod- Delorean.

As you know, 2 years ago, I also developed the wheel conversion parts for this car to make it look like a BTTF III car, and reproduced the parts for the Pepsi box, using my 3D printer, and old radio tubes and electronics from the 1950s.

I share this cars with people who come to Delorean Weekend to inspire them to maintain and upgrade their Delorean to "Live the Dream."

Over the years, I have admired all the work you did to develop Time Machine parts, especially with all the LED and PLC components that exist today. I was limited by TTL logic back in the 90s.

My Current "Dream Delorean" project is another attempt to share my experience with other D owners to update their cars. As JZD said to me back in Cleveland when studying my full size power windows. "You a damn good engineer. If I had had more people like you, I would still be in business."

I always remember him saying this to me, and continue to try to live up to his expectations.

I try not to get into the screen accuracy debates anymore, but you're right that it's something that is open for interpretation depending on which version (A, B, or C) a person is building. Some people interpret screen accuracy as literally what you see on the screen (including special effects & sounds) and some interpret it more along the lines of how accurate something is to the physical prop as it was constructed and not necessarily including some of the movie magic effects. I think the line is blurred somewhere between the two personally.

The infighting seems to have quieted down some in the BTTF builders community... I hope it can continue on a path where people are more freely able to share information without all the issues we've experienced in the past. The point of this thread was to try and share whatever I could while the restoration was still fresh in my memory.

It's pretty epic that you got the nod of approval from John Z on your roll down windows. I remember being just a kid and seeing pics of your car and thinking how awesome it was that you were able to re-engineer them the way you did.

It's also a cool story to hear about how Kevin Pike hooked you up with some of the old invoices for parts from the build. Is that something you'd be willing to share photos or scans of? At this point the collective community has figured out nearly every part on the car, but it would be really cool to see some of that old historical info.

[drewguillory]

Any info on the various "elbow" connectors?
(3 on the rear driver side, 1 on top of the VSR, 2 on the oxygen bottle box, several on flux capacitor)

[Mark D]

The elbows are "Cannon" brand military spec connectors w/ 90 deg shell. There are two different sizes, PN's 3108B20 AND 3108B32. Some come with a green coating while others have a silver coating. It's also an option to buy all green and sand blast or chemically strip off the coating to reveal the raw silver color underneath.


In total you'll need:

(Size 32's)
2 silver/unplated for bailout bottle box
1 green plated for Flux Capacitor

(Size 20's)
3 green for DS pontoon
1 silver/unplated for VSR
1 silver/unplated for Flux Capacitor

Chances are you'll find lots of parts under those PN's but they'll be Amphenol brand connectors and not Cannon. They're all made to the same mill spec under the same PN but only the Cannon brand connectors are correct. The only exception to this is the C-car flux capacitor which uses a size 32 amphenol connector on the side instead of the Cannon style.

A few more notes about the PN's... What I have listed above are the base part numbers, but when searching you'll need the -tabulation at the end which specifies numbers of pins, and if it's a plug or a socket. Since the connectors don't actually connect into anything meaningful on the car plug/socket style and pins do not matter.

So for example the PN you'd want to search for might look like 3108B20-16S. The PN breaks down as:

3108B (Connector series, 90 deg right angle plug)
20 (AN size)
16 (number of pins)
S (Socket)

You'll also need the plastic dust caps that would normally protect the pins/sockets. To mount the parts to the car typically production used a screw to mount the dust cap, and simply inserted the plug into the dust cap. There wasn't much else holding the parts in place besides the friction between the plug and dust cap, so they tended to fall off and go missing pretty easily. For replica cars you can secure them better by disassembling the connector, drilling through the internal socket to mount with a nut and bolt, and then reassembling the connector around the socket. Essentially you're adding a stud to the connector that you can secure with a nut to whatever it's getting attached to.

Each plug is made up of about a dozen smaller pieces. In some cases you may only be able to find a seller with the correct shell and you'll have to source the strain relief at the top part of the connector and the dust cap separately. Here's an exploded view of a size 20 connector for reference:



The connectors can be crazy expensive, and the few sources that were found back in the day with lots of parts in stock were quickly depleted. Your best source for searching now are websites that allow NSN searches for military/aerospace parts. Every great once in a while real ones will pop up on ebay. Or you can find someone who's selling castings.

If you have any other questions or need clarification on anything let me know.

[drewguillory]

Awesome, this helps a lot. Thanks Mark.

[cpistocco]

Hello
I was wondering if anyone out there would be able to provide measurements/ dimensions (maybe CAD) for a set of screen-accurate exhaust vents, and engine cover. I intend to use 1/8 inch aluminum. I stumbled on some cad designs by Mr Weaver, but I don't think his are screen accurate ( Exhaust vents do not seem to drop below rear bumper cover). Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Charlie

[mluder]

Hello
I was wondering if anyone out there would be able to provide measurements/ dimensions (maybe CAD) for a set of screen-accurate exhaust vents, and engine cover. I intend to use 1/8 inch aluminum. I stumbled on some cad designs by Mr Weaver, but I don't think his are screen accurate ( Exhaust vents do not seem to drop below rear bumper cover). Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Charlie

Gary's drawings are what I used to make mine. The original vents were built with the lower portion removable because it actually hooks under the upper lip on the rear fascia. If it were all one piece you wouldn't be able to lift the engine cover. At any rate the parts are there in his drawings.

Sort of like this but the real one hooks under - not just a diagonal cut. See the seam?
timemachine25n-1-web.jpg

Here's a better example...
103_3257.jpg

And here's one where the bottom has been removed to open the cover.
bttf-027.jpg



Somewhere I have a diagram identifying. I'll see if I can find it. Might be tomorrow because I think it's at work.

Cheers
Steve

[Mark D]

The parts highlighted in red are the vent side pieces in Weaver's layout that extend downward over the tail lights. They're not form fit to the fascia like on the A car but they're close enough for most people.



On the A car the side pieces of the vents were originally form fit over the fascia and tight up against the tail lights to give the illusion that the fascia and tail lights were actually notched out and the vents were sticking through the fascia. In real life the form fit pieces had to be removed every time production wanted to access the engine during filming. After filming wrapped on Part III the transportation garage at Universal Hollywood modified the vents to notch out that bottom piece (similar to how Weaver has designed them) so the lower part of the vents stand off from the tail lights and will clear the fascia when the engine cover is opened.

[cpistocco]

The parts highlighted in red are the vent side pieces in Weaver's layout that extend downward over the tail lights. They're not form fit to the fascia like on the A car but they're close enough for most people.



On the A car the side pieces of the vents were originally form fit over the fascia and tight up against the tail lights to give the illusion that the fascia and tail lights were actually notched out and the vents were sticking through the fascia. In real life the form fit pieces had to be removed every time production wanted to access the engine during filming. After filming wrapped on Part III the transportation garage at Universal Hollywood modified the vents to notch out that bottom piece (similar to how Weaver has designed them) so the lower part of the vents stand off from the tail lights and will clear the fascia when the engine cover is opened.

Very Interesting...
Thanks for the info. There is just one thing that I don't understand....
Why not design everything as one piece.....leaving out notch allows you to clear bumper cover either way. Why do it in 2 pieces?
Do you follow what I am saying?

[Mark D]

Very Interesting...
Thanks for the info. There is just one thing that I don't understand....
Why not design everything as one piece.....leaving out notch allows you to clear bumper cover either way. Why do it in 2 pieces?
Do you follow what I am saying?

Yeah I get what you're saying. In this case it would have made sense to just design the side plates as one large piece since there is no reason to ever remove the lower section of the vents once assembled. I haven't gone through these CAD's in detail at all, but on the A car each of the four total side plates are slightly different to account for different holes that were drilled and to account for the curvature of the rear fascia. If you were to modify the side plates to combine the lower sections with the main upper sections to make them one piece you'd want to be sure to use the correct lower section with the correct upper section. In this CAD layout the lower sections might actually all the be the same, I'm not sure.

Other things in this CAD don't exactly match the screen used car but in terms of the final look when it's completely built it would be better than trying to start over from scratch. I don't think Weaver comes on this board anymore so if you have questions about his layout you'd be better off contacting him on his BTTFParts facebook page.

[mluder]

I used Gary's CAD for min but then modified the bottom pieces to fit around the fascia. Because mine are from gator board I chose to permanently attach them to the main part of the vents. It works for me because I typically have to remove the vents completely to transport the whole thing. I don't drive with it in place so engine access is not an issue for me.
Louvers.jpg

BTW - if you are planning on having the engine cover cut our of metal too, make sure you don't forget the little wedges that weld to the edges to create a lip that sits over the ridge in the pontoon - just like the factory cover does.

Here's a more detailed pic of the reactor. Everything here is found at the home center. Note, I didn't worry too much that the plumbing hoses weren't exactly correct. My "oil separators" are empty engine coolant bottles I painted. The cross over tube fittings are PVC plumbing that I shaped on a bet sander, my alum hoses are too big, the hubcap is not screen accurate but was close enough, the reactor top is another hubcap piece, the heat sink fins around the reactor I fabricated from plywood.
Reactor.jpg

I have since got the correct hubcap and the Pioneer speaker grille that goes on the tachyon generator (both from E-bay)
Hubcap.jpg

A close turbine for the top (from a friend) and the rubber mat used for the vent joint and on the tachyon gen (Amazon)
Turbine.jpg

The correct heat sinks (direct from supplier)
Sinks.jpg

I have found one oil separator (working on finding another) and have the correct aluminum hoses on order.

Let me know if you need any more help.
Cheers
Steven