Pictures – Page 3 – Eds Delorean

New Trunk Board

Posted on June 26, 2016October 21, 2023 by Eddie

My original carpet was looking ratty, and my car was also missing the board below the carpet. I decided to make a new board that would replace the carpet. It also needs cutouts for the strut bar that I use in the trunk. I traced a friend’s trunk board:

Then, I cut it out with a jigsaw. I cleaned up the cuts with a rotary tool, and roughed up the surface with some sandpaper:

Next I coated it with Duplicolor Undercoating. The undercoating didn’t spray evenly, and I got some globs in random places. I ended up purposely making more globs, trying to even it out and complete the look:

Not bad for the cost.

Item	Vendor	Quantity	Unit Cost	Cost	Shipping	Tax	Total
Duplicolor Undercoating	Meijer	1	$ 4.99	$ 4.99	0	$ 0.42	$ 5.41
Fiber Board	Menards						On Hand

2016 Oil Change

Posted on March 23, 2016October 21, 2023 by Eddie

It’s been about 3 years and over 2000 miles since my last oil change. It’s time.

Mileage: 33,900

Costs:

7 Quarts Castrol 20w50: On Hand
Bosch Oil Filter: On Hand
Crush Washer: On Hand

Latch Maintenance, Modification

Posted on February 13, 2016October 21, 2023 by Eddie

I previously had adjusted my latches, performed the “wedgectomy,” and lubricated them generously with white lithium grease:

https://16908.info/?p=2422

Once again, the latches jammed. Removing the top door panel, and removing the latch rods with your bare hands while trapped in the car isn’t fun. I then found this post on DMCTalk:

http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?12682-door-latch-adjustment-problem&p=182992&viewfull=1#post182992

…which basically means my lithium grease and any other previously used lubricants could have gummed up the latches. So once again, I decided to remove all the latches. I cleaned and degreased them with brake cleaner, my air compressor with a blow gun, and dozens of paper towels. Before re-installing them, I chose to change the “lock linkages” in each door to “lock linkage.” I eliminated the lock linkage on the front of each door. Having two latches means they must be in sync for both opening and unlocking. One lock obviously means there is nothing to sync, which is much easier to setup and maintain. Some people have successfully disconnected their front locks, so the door only locks on the rear latches. The only danger is you might drive over a bump, and the lock might engage. Once engaged, and with no way to unlock the front latch, this will really make getting out of the car a challenge. So I came up with this modification:

This is the latch, and the arm, that moves back and forth between lock and unlock. Simply drill a small hole in the latch, and wrap some wire around the arm and the latch to secure it. The wire won’t interfere with the latch.

The reverse side of the latch. You can see the wire doesn’t interfere

Presto! The latch should never lock, but can easily be converted back to a locking latch.

You can now remove the lock rod that goes to the forward latch. I had to cut and retained half of my lock rod since it is needed for my aftermarket door lock actuators:

This time around, I lubricated the latches with WD-40. Once reinstalled, I then performed the Door Lock and Latch Adjustment process. After that, comes testing everything! Test the exterior door handles, interior door handles, exterior locks, interior locks, and in my case, remote locks and remote door launchers. Be sure to test it with the door’s plastic membrane in place to see if it interferes with anything.

In my case, everything is working correctly. Time to reinstall the door panels again. Hopefully they’ll stay installed for many years to come.

New Braided Stainless Fuel Hoses

Posted on November 21, 2015October 21, 2023 by Eddie

I wanted to update the engine’s fuel hoses to the more modern, safer braided stainless hoses.

Tools Used:
Inch Pounds Torque Wrench – I used this one: http://www.amazon.com/TEKTON-24320-4-Inch-Torque-20-200-Inch/dp/B00C5ZL2EG/
Open-end metric wrenches
Metric socket set
Vice
Utility Light
Grease
Berryman B12 Chemtool or other solvent cleaner
Nitrile gloves
shop rags/paper towels

Here’s the steps I came up with:

Work in a well ventilated area. If I’m working in my garage, I keep the door open, with a fan pushing air out the door.
Take the fire extinguisher out of your Delorean (you should have one), and keep it nearby.
Disconnect the battery.
Remove the air cleaner.
Remove any plug wires that are easily accessible, and label their cylinder number with tape. Take pictures or make notes on how they are routed.
Lift up on the clips that hold the injectors in place. Be careful not to bend them. There are three prongs on each clip.
Label all hoses you remove, and take pictures, or make notes on how they are routed.
Remove the hoses:
1. One at a time, remove the banjo bolts on the fuel distributer, warm up regulator, and cold start valve.
2. Use paper towels or rags to soak up any gas. Dispose of the rags properly.
3. Attempt to dump out any gas in the lines into a clean glass container. You can choose to re-use the gas if you like.
4. Once the hose is off, screw the banjo bolt back in a few threads so it doesn’t get lost.
5. Throw out the old copper washers, or put them in a container clearly marked “Used Washers.” We’ll find a use for them later.
6. Clamp a 10 mm wrench in a vice, put the injector in the wrench, and use a socket to take the banjo bolt out of the injector.
7. Set aside the injector banjo bolts.
8. You will need to remove the “pipe of agony” to get to the #4 injector. I was determined to leave the pipe in place, and skip the agony, but after unsuccessfully trying to manipulate the injector out, I gave in. Here’s what I did:
  1. Disconnect the elbow from the idle speed motor.
  2. Slide out the pipe with the rubber elbow still attached
Clean the injectors if desired (see below)
Replace the old hoses and washers with the new hoses, and new washers. Don’t re-use the old washers!
Leave the banjo bolts loose in case a hose needs to be re-routed. You can torque the banjo bolts later.
Lay your plug wires in place.
Check to make sure the pipe of agony will fit with your hoses and plug wires.
1. My #4 Cylinder plug wire and fuel hose are routed under the pipe
2. My #5 and #6 Cylinder plug wires are over the pipe
3. My #6 Cylinder hose runs over the pipe, while my #5 Cylinder hose runs under the pipe
Make sure the engine cover will close with the hoses coming off the fuel distributer, running to the warm up regulator.
Now torque the banjo bolts. For this, I used my new inch-pound torque wrench:
1. M8 Banjo bolts: 7-9 foot lbs., or 84-108 inch lbs.
2. M10, Banjo bolts: 9-11 foot lbs., or 108-132 inch lbs.
3. I first started with the bare minimum torque setting, then re-torqued them to a value approximately in the middle of the range.
Reinstall the “Pipe of Agony” or in my case, the “Pipe of Ease.” Finding the spot to reinstall the pipe is tricky. For me, it slid right in with ease on the first try. Here’s how I did it:
1. Grease up the end of the pipe. I used a pea size amount of synthetic brake grease, which will hold up to the engine’s heat very well.
2. Bend over the engine compartment, with the top of your head near the firewall, and your left eye near the warm up regulator. You should be able to barely spot where the pipe goes into the air meter housing. There’s a brass ring, or keeper that the pipe slides into.
3. Some people put a small flashlight in the air meter housing, which aides finding the spot to insert the pipe because light shines out the air meter housing hole. I didn’t need it.
4. Shove it in. The rubber hose lined up with the idle speed motor, and I could see the end of the pipe in the air meter housing:
Reinstall the air cleaner.
Reconnect the battery.
Attempt to start the car. You will need to let the pump prime for a bit, and give it some gas during startup.
While the car is running, check for leaks.
Put the fire extinguisher back in the car.

Pictures
Before:

After:

Cleaning the injectors
I wouldn’t recommend my injector cleaning process to anyone, since there are much more professional setups available. Still, I wanted to clean the injectors as best I could. The Delorean’s CIS injectors don’t have any plastic parts, and can be safely cleaned with solvents. I got a can of Berryman’s B12 Chemtool, and soaked the injectors in a jar for a few days, occasionally swishing them around, and trying to dump out any crud. I brought the pressure in my air compressor down to 80 psi, butted them up to a blow gun, and verified the injectors open and close with air pressure. In the future, I might build a hose attachment that’s screws into the injector and attaches to a compressor, so solvent can be blown through the injector for cleaning and testing. For this I might utilize some old, re-used copper washers.

I ripped apart an injector seal, and broke an injector clip when trying to bend it back into shape. I thought about trying to source them from a Volvo dealer, but ended getting them shipped from DMC Midwest.

I only dropped one copper washer… however it fell near some spent copper washers, and I couldn’t tell the new one from the old ones. I opted to just replace it with some spares I had.

Costs:

Item	Vendor	Quantity	Unit Cost	Cost	Shipping	Tax	Total
Fuel Injection Lines Braided SS (9 pcs), Black	DMC Midwest	1	$ 229.83	$ 229.83	$ –	$ 17.81	$ 247.64
Injector Clip	DMC Midwest	1	$ 4.99	$ 4.99	$ –	$ 0.39	$ 5.38
Injector Seal	DMC Midwest	1	$ 3.13	$ 3.13	$ –	$ 0.24	$ 3.37
Inch Pound Torque Wrench	Amazon.com	1	$ 36.72	$ 36.72	$ –	$ –	$ 36.72
							$ 293.11

Body & Frame Separation (Not My Car)

Posted on June 27, 2015October 21, 2023 by Eddie

This blog is dedicated to my Delorean, VIN 16908, however this post will be slightly different. One of the guys I know through my car club bought a Delorean that had sat for many years. The frame was rusted, the panels had some minor damage, and the car basically need a lot of attention. He planned to separate the body and frame. I jumped at the chance of helping! About a week before at the DMC Midwest Open House event, we recruited another local member.

The car as it is:

The car’s owner also does some very cool stop motion animation with this guy:

We started with this checklist:

…and made our way through it:

The bolts in the engine bay had to be cut off with a reciprocating saw The seat belt bolts, the interior bolts, and the shock tower bolts came right out.
A corroded brake line wouldn’t disconnect from the brake master cylinder, so it needed to be cut.

Around 3:10, we’re ready to try raising the body, so we set up the Max Jax lift:

The owners car has a manual transmission, so we had to locate the clutch line. Access to disconnecting the line was terrible, so we opted to cut it. The clutch line looked to be the original failure prone plastic lines, which would have needed replacement anyway.

Me, happy:

After disconnecting some more grounds from the front wiring harness, we finally got everything up free:

It’s raining on the rusty frame. At this point, it’s not much of a concern:

The owner built the very sturdy moveable platform for the body to sit on:

Luckily, the owner has a two car garage, and both garage bays are available:

We started around 9:15am. With about a 30 minute break for lunch, and after some delays in setting up the lift, we finished around 4:30pm.

Me, again, sweaty, tired, wet from the rain, dirty, happy:

The owner is currently planning an electric engine conversion. The PRV engine will be put up for sale. The gas flap hood is also for sale.

2015 DMC Midwest Open House

Posted on June 21, 2015October 21, 2023 by Eddie

I attended the DMC Midwest Open House. I never get tired of seeing their awesome facility, and meeting up with the fellow delorean owners. I also share my pictures with the Delorean Midwest Connection’s face book page:

Chris N repairing and re-graining the 2015 raffle car:

New Front Wheel Bearings

Posted on February 24, 2015October 21, 2023 by Eddie

At DCS 2014 in Dayton, OH, my front right wheel bearing started making groaning noises at high speeds.

I had to rent a puller set and spindle nut socket set from Advance Auto Parts (fully refundable).
Getting the spindle nuts off was easy. I used a breaker bar, and simply lowered the car near the floor, with the weight of the car pressing on the breaker bar:

Next, I use a pick tool to remove D Washer:

Then used a puller to pull off the bearing, hub and rotor:

The bearings came apart during removal, which is normal:

Then, unbolt the rotor from the hubs, and separate them. Sorry, no pictures.

Removing the old bearings and pressing the new bearings into the hubs was going to be a challenge. Instead of having my new bearings shipped, I visited the DMC Midwest shop with the hubs. I purchased the new bearings, and they were able to press them into my hubs.

DMC Midwest suggested I should have blasted and painted the hubs while the bearings were out. Well I didn’t have time for that, so instead I taped them up, and painted them with the new bearings in place:

I also wire brushed off the undercoating from the brake dust shields, and painted them with rustoleum metallic paint, then a coat of Krylon Metals Gold paint:

Doing this job in the winter time helps. My car is left in a cold garage, while I left the rotor and hub in my warm house. Installation is easier with the cold spindle slightly contracted. Mounted, spindle nut installed, and torqued:

I’ve driven a few hundred miles on them in 2015, and the groaning noises are gone.

Costs:

Item	Vendor	Quantity	Unit Cost	Cost
Wheel Bearing	DMC Midwest	2	$ 19.94	$ 39.88
Press in Wheel Bearings	DMC Midwest	1		Withheld
Bulldog Adhesion Promoter				On Hand
Rustoleum Primer				On Hand
Rustoleum Metallic Paint				On Hand
Krylon Metals (Gold) Paint				On Hand

Shermer, Illinois Photo Shoot

Posted on January 4, 2015October 21, 2023 by Eddie

If you’re a fan of 1980s John Hughes films like Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, and The Breakfast Club, you might know they are all set in the fictitious town of Shermer, IL.

Most of the filming for these movies was done in the northern Chicago suburbs. I had always wanted to see some of these locations, and shoot some “then and now” pictures. On the morning of Sunday, September 28th, 2014, I packed up the Delorean with my camera, tripod, and set my GPS for Shermer… or rather Des Plaines, IL. I’m just now getting a chance to post the picures.

My first stop was the former Maine North High School. The school opened in 1970, but was closed only a few years later, and later repurposed as an Illinois State Police Headquarters. The empty school was a prime candidate for filming every scene in The Breakfast Club, and a few scenes in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Here’s Molly Ringwald’s Character arriving for detention:

Here’s how it looks today.

Here’s Judd Nelson’s character arriving for detention:

And here’s me, trying my best to re-create the same picture:

Now I’ll skip ahead to the end of the movie when everyone leaves. This picture is great because you can just barely see all the main characters, and John Hughes playing the dad of Brian (Anthony Michael Hall):

Here’s my version (just a cropped version from an earlier pic):

Here’s Emilio and Ally:

And the same setting in 2014:

Molly and Judd:

Same area as before, just a different angle:

Here’s a cool shot from the entrance, and you can see the red house behind Judd Nelson when he arrives:

That’s really all I could shoot here. I wasn’t going to try and get inside the building. A few months later, a friend sent me a link to this New York Times article, where the author, and John Hughes’s son go into the building:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/travel/the-teen-streets-of-john-hughess-chicago.html

Next, I wanted to see the High School where Ferris Bueller picks up his girlfriend in the Ferrari. This is Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, IL, which is also where John Hughes himself went to High School:

Sloan getting picked up:

Ferris Waiting:

The Delorean and I aren’t nearly as exciting, but here we are. It took a long time to position the car in the same parking lines:

I tried to line this picture up perfectly:

…but I just couldn’t do it with the lens I brought. It actually worked better with my cell phone:

Ferris, Sloan, and Cameron driving away:

The Delorean:

Well, that’s everything I shot in the limited time I had. I hope to travel out there again in the future, reshoot some pictures that didn’t turn out as well, and possibly visit some new locations. Thanks for viewing!

Painted License Plate Bezel

Posted on June 28, 2014October 21, 2023 by Eddie

My bezel was flat and dull looking:

Painting with SEM Trim Black Gloss:

Painted:

I also painted the screws with some Rustoleum Black Spray paint.

Costs:

Item	Vendor	Quantity	Unit Cost	Cost	Shipping	Tax	Total
SMM-39063 SEM Paint, Trim, Gloss Black, Aerosol, 12 oz.	Summit Racing	1	$11.97	$11.97	On Hand	$0.00	$11.97
Rustoleum Black Spray Paint	On Hand	1	On Hand	On Hand

Auto Shifter Plate

Posted on June 28, 2014October 21, 2023 by Eddie

I purchased this new in 2012, and only just now installed it. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing, it helps keep everything in place. My plastic shifter plate was warped after many years in the sun, and this metal plate reinforces the plastic, keeping it flat.

Before:

After:

I think it works well with the new steering wheel:

Costs:

Item	Vendor	Quantity	Unit Cost	Cost	Shipping	Tax	Total
Auto Trans Plate	DMOCO.com	1	$ 59.95	$ 59.95	$ 7.50	$ –	$ 67.45
Trim Screws with finish washers	Ace Hardware	2	$ 0.57	$ 1.23	$ –	$ 0.09	$ 1.23
						Total:	$ 68.68