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The DeLorean needs routine maintenance and the occasional, more significant refurbishing. Beyond that there are also a number of customizations and upgrades to improve performance, reliability and functionality.
After discovering two holes in my frame and the difficulty in finding anyone to weld it, I decided to learn oxyacetylene welding myself. I did the research, bought as much safety gear as I could, found an oxyacetylene kit and a gas supplier and went to work. My welds are pretty poor so far, but I'll keep practicing until I'm confident that I won't ruin my frame by patching it.
Read MoreAn oil leak led to my frame being very, very dirty, with a thick coat of oil covering most of the surfaces. It wasn't too hard to clean off; just some plastic scrapers and household cleaner got it back to looking new -- or at least not like the mess it was before.
Read MoreBefore I could installing the 2.8L lower crankcase on the 3.0L engine block, I needed to clean up the mating surfaces. The oil pan gasket was my main concern -- it was firmly bonded to the lower crankcase, and trying to scrape it off with a composite scraper was very slow going. I switched over to bristle discs, which quickly removed the gasket material and left me with clean, slightly grained aluminum -- and a lot of gasket dust.
Read MoreRemoving the lower crankcase from the 3.0L is pretty much identical to that of the 2.8L engine. I still managed to spill a lot of oil, but didn't have any real problems otherwise.
Read MoreThe 3.0L engine's valve and timing covers come apart much the same as those of the 2.8L engine. There are a few differences, like the distributor and a mount for an electrical harness. I had a more significant problem, though: getting the main pulley nut off, which proved to be quite challenging.
Read MoreMy old odd-fire 2.8L engine had recently refurbished cylinder heads and performance cams, neither of which are useful in the even-fire 3.0L engine. Since the engine block itself has a hole in it, i decide to part out the engine. I don't know if the pistons or rods or anything else in there is worth anything, but the performance cams were $600, and refurbished heads are $1500 each. Mine are so low mileage after refurbishing that I'm hoping I can get a reasonable amount of money for them.
Read MoreWhile the new 3.0L engine is the closest thing to a drop-in replacement for the 2.8L that exists, it's not trivial. One of the issues is that the 3.0L won't fit on the stock engine mounts. Since both engines are PRVs, the solution is to swap the lower crankcase (and thus the engine mounts) between the two engines. I already had the engine on a stand, so I had to flip it over, remove the oil pan, oil pump inlet tube, oil baffle and finally the lower crankcase. Everything went smoothly, although the chunk of metal and loose nut sitting at the bottom of the engine were quite odd finds.
Read MoreWith the damaged 2.8L engine removed from the DeLorean, it was time to get a 3.0L to swap in. After failing to find one locally, I bought one on eBay and had it shipped to my house. From there I loaded it onto a rented pickup and brought it to my garage, using my engine hoist to load and unload it. In a snowstorm.
Read MoreWhile I was disconnecting the engine and transmission to pull them from the car, I noticed a small bulge through the epoxy under where the passenger side upper link arm bolts to the frame. It was pretty small, but as I poked at it with my finger, more and more epoxy and then rusted metal flaked off. Finally I had a hole over an inch in diameter. I soon found a similar but smaller hole in the same place on the driver's side.
Read MoreWith the damage to my block, I had to decide if I was going to repair it or swap to a 3.0L engine. Either way, I was going to have to take apart the old 2.8L. The first steps are to remove the valve covers, main pulley, timing cover and optionally the water pump.
Read MoreAfter discovering a hole in the valley on the top of the engine block, I decide I needed to pull the engine. While the basic process is outlined in the Workshop Manual, there are a number of things they just assume you know (since the manual was targeted at mechanics), so it could be a bit unclear what to do at times. Some Google searches found a few engine removals, but no step-by-step instructions.
It took me a couple of months of working for a few hours for one day each week or two to remove the engine and transmission, including various questions to the DMCTalk forums, setting up the tools I'd need, and doing research. In the end I took out the engine and the automatic transmission as a single unit. I've attempting to catalogue my experience as best I could in the hope that it will help others who need to remove theirs.
The question now is what I'm going to do about the engine now that I have it out.
Read MoreMy fuse box has seen better days. Three of the fuses had melted so badly that I had to replace the sockets with inline fuse holders. While waiting to get some money together for the EFI conversion, I finally took the time to replace my fuse box with a new one from Houston that I'd gotten a few months ago. I actually wound up buying two of them -- my dog decided the first one would make a good chew toy. At least this gave me extra terminals for the inevitable mistakes I would make.
Read MoreSome DeLorean owners have reported that the check valve has failed in Houston's fuel pump/sender combo. This can cause starting problems due to loss of fuel pressure. This in turn led to a discussion on DMCTalk about adding an inline check valve. Although I haven't actually started up my car since I installed the new fuel pump, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to install a check valve just to be sure.
Read MoreAfter replacing the fuel pump and cleaning the tank, I needed to replace the fuel filter. In principle, this is simple -- disconnect the hard line, remove the bracket, and take off the banjo bolt. In practice, I had rusted lines that required quite a lot of fiddling to break free.
Read MoreA rather odd design decision on the DeLorean is how it deals with removing water that runs off the windshield. The water rolls down the glass, is funneled towards the center of the window, and drains down a hole and right on top of the fuel pump. This likely contributed significantly to all the water that had collected at the top my my pump.
Using some aluminum stock and weather stripping adhesive, I built a simple deflector based on some discussion on DMCTalk to help redirect the water away from the fuel pump to reduces the chances of such a failure happening again.
Read MoreAfter a hole in the cap covering fuel pump filled the top of it with water and rusted everything within, I decided this would be a good time to upgrade to the Houston's fuel pump/sender combo. The replacement isn't very difficult in principle, but I ran into a couple of issues along the way.
Read MoreI took Dave Swingle's advice and tried starting the car by pushing down slightly on the deflector plate while cranking the engine. Since I didn't have an assistant to crank it for me, I picked up a momentary pushbutton and hooked it up to starter relay socket I'd installed some time ago. This let me start the car and test the mechanical advance, which appeared to be working just fine.
Read MoreWhile attempting to start the car to test the mechanical advance on the distributor (and failing to even get the car started), I discovered that the cold start valve had become clogged. Dave Swingle provided some good diagnostics that helped me make sure that this was true, as this part rarely fails. I've included Dave's tests in this post.
Read MoreAfter limping the DeLorean to the garage, I attempted to diagnose my misfiring issue and replaced the spark plugs and coil -- alas, to no avail.
Read MoreA failing seal from the fuel pump cap and boot is likely what led to water getting into my gas tank. This resulted in extremely poor performance, first limiting me to 3000 RPMs, and soon after to only 1500 RPMs. Repairs included cleaning the injectors, replacing one that was completely dead, testing spark (just to be sure), testing fuel pressures and cleaning the fuel tank and replacing the fuel filter. While clearly there was something wrong with the fuel system, it did not fix my misfiring problems.
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