Month: August 2007

Friday August 17^th, I drove the D to work. Around 1:00pm, I left work to go run an errand. Little did I know, I wouldn’t return until over 4 hours later.

On this particular day, I was driving the tollway fairly confident – speeding. While driving to my errand, I felt the car sputter a little. Is this the transmission? Great more problems. While pulling into my destination, I felt the gas go flat, and the brake pedal stiffen up. The car stalled. Lovely. I restarted it, drove it around the parking lot, and parked it. Later, after leaving, I drove down a narrow curved road with no shoulder, and it stalled again. I couldn’t get it started, so I tried pushing it up the road. I could only imagine what people were thinking as they drove past a young male trying to push and steer his DeLorean up a road. I couldn’t do it, so I tried starting again. It fired, so I drove it up the road, made another turn onto a busy street, where it stalled again. I managed to get off the road, so I could pull over to see what was up.

I didn’t panic this time. I called work to let them know I was not going to make it back to the office. Then I called Ken K, where he had me make sure the electrical connections were secure. When checking the ignition coil, I noticed it was hot. Ken said it should only be warm, and not hot. Well the coil looked original, and Ken said this might be the cause of my problems. The good news is that I’m in the city that I grew up in, and live not too far away. I used my toolkit to un-mount the coil, and walked to the local auto parts store. Now it’s almost 80 degrees, and I’m in business casual. By the time I got to the local auto parts store I was drenched in sweat. The store – I’ll call it Shmautosone – the clerk couldn’t find DeLorean in their database, and looked at me like I was crazy. The part number on the coil was barely visible, but I couldn’t read it. So I left Shmautosone, and had my brother come pick me up.

I visited another auto parts store – I’ll call it Schmadvance Puto Aarts – and they found a cross reference, but would have to order it. I decided against this part in favor of a part offered by one of the DeLorean vendors. So I returned to the D, reinstalled the old coil, and the car fired up. I drove it around the neighborhood before it could get too warm. I left it to cool again, and later drove about 2 miles to my parent’s house. On Sunday morning, I drove it about 5 miles to my house.

So the D runs good when the engine is cold. Ken K said if it’s the coil, it would work again when it cooled off. So I ordered a new one:

Can you guess which coil it the old coil? Even if the coil isn’t the problem, I’d still rather have a new coil for any performance improvements, and to improve aesthetics.

I installed the coil last night, and drove around the neighborhood for about 25 minutes. The engine was definitely warmed up, and there were no problems. And the coil was hot <shrugs>. Now I know some people reading this can point out I don’t know what I’m doing, or they would do things differently, or they would use a different coil, or they would use a different supplier, or I paid too much, etc. So what? I liked the idea of using a new exact replacement Bosch coil, and not 25 year old NOS. Besides, I’m young, and I’m learning.

Note to self: Get a Voltmeter/Ohmmeter, and learn how to use it.

Costs:

Stock Bosch Ignition Coil – $59.95 plus shipping at SpecialTAuto.com