New Ashtray!

I got my new ashtray in the mail today, so I installed it. Took about a minute and a half to finish, and I love it! It will look especially awesome once I have the black interior installed!



The original ashtray.







Side-by-side comparison.




All done! I am going to keep the original just in case I later decide I don't like this as much as I thought, but I seriously doubt that will happen.

I mentioned earlier that my wheels looked terrible up close and needed refinished. Here is what I was talking about:





Since they will need to be refinished anyway, I have decided that I want to change them to the dark gray. I posted on the DMCTalk forums that I needed a dark gray center cap if anyone had one so I could color match it. I got a reply from James at DMCH that he thought he could find one if I needed it. He wrote me back this morning that he had found a brand new one still in the bag, so I bought it from him. That should be here in the next few days, and I can get started on this project! I will share the paint codes once I know them.

I apparently didn't check the glove box very well when I bought the car, because I found a surprise in there tonight.







Darn, not really Huey Lewis! Oh well, the 80's CD has some good songs on it! I wonder if the previous owner realized that he left it in the car when he sold it.

I did also re-brush the hood, but it was getting dark, so I'll have to see it in the sun to see if I got all the scratches out. It looked really bad, but I didn't get a good before shot. This is the best shot I have that shows how it looked:




Like I said, I'll see tomorrow if I actually made much of a difference. Tomorrow I will also be painting the back trim and HOPEFULLY installing my 3rd brake light. But at the very least painting! I would love to get my side stripe put on too, but I may not have time for that. We'll see.





So not a really productive day today, but at least I got a few things done. Tomorrow should have some more visible improvements. Oh, and of course I have to post a pic of the car itself from today!

It looks a little bit better every day! :)


~Lyndsey

Finally figured it out

Since my dad and I replaced the front suspension there has been a rattling coming from the passenger front wheel area. We checked it a number of times, but couldn't ever find anything loose. I started thinking maybe it was just that the shocks were bad. Then when the brake issue happened in the same area earlier this month, I knew something was up. We fixed the loose brake line, which fixed the leaking brakes, but the rattling was getting quite a bit worse. I finally decided to look everything over myself. I figured out that the bottom bolt holding the brake caliper on was missing, and it was just hanging from the top bolt. Maybe it was there before and finally just fell out, I'm not sure. So I bought a new bolt, and now the rattle is FINALLY gone, and I don't have to worry about the brake line shaking loose anymore.







Took a close look at my wheels today, and they are definitely going to need to be redone. The finish is just flaking off. :( Oh well, sounds like a good excuse to have them done in the dark gray! And yes, I used the DeLorean jack to work on it today. I figured it wouldn't hurt anything, and now I know how it works in case I need to use it on the side of the road someday (hopefully not).





I just thought this was a good picture with the sun reflecting.


I tried the trick of jumping the low pressure switch for the A/C compressor while the wheel was off, and it turns out that my compressor doesn't engage. Oh well, at least now I know I have to buy a new compressor, so I can just order it along with the new hoses this week. It is getting WAY too hot to drive a DeLorean without A/C.

And my side stripes were finally sent yesterday, so I should have them by my next days off. Hopefully by this time next week, my car will finally have the black side stripe! Yay!

I also just found out that the later build DeLoreans had a different ashtray. I never really liked the look of the original ashtray, but didn't think about it too much since I didn't think there was anything to replace it with. When I saw a picture of the later style for the first time last night I fell in love with it!

It was for sale for a good price, so I bought it and will be changing that out as well! So I have a few projects coming up in the next few weeks!

~Lyndsey

Gas Mileage

26 MPG! That's almost as good as my Beetle, and of course my DeLorean is WAAAAAAAY more fun to drive. :)

A little progress

Well, my side stripe kit didn't come in today like I was hoping. :( It should be here tomorrow. Oh well, I guess it will have to wait until my next weekend.

Got the brakes fixed today! Turns out the connector on the passenger side wheel was loose (!), and had leaked all the fluid out. Tightened it up, and it's good to go! That took about five minutes, and since I was in the mood to work on it at that point, I worked on some other projects that needed to get done. I tried to get the louvers adjusted better, but FAILED MISERABLY. After fighting with them for an hour, I finally got them back to where they were before I messed with them. That really sucked! I'll deal with that another day.

Since getting my A/C working is pretty much top of my priority list right now, my dad and I worked on it a bit. We had taken the belt off a while back because we kept having to change out the alternator belt every few days (that's a story for another time), so we put that back on and went to test it. Then I remembered that my mode switch didn't work and was stuck in vent mode, so we couldn't test the system. I had purchased a mode switch rebuild kit about a month or so ago, but hadn't had the time to actually rebuild it. So you guessed it, we rebuilt it. It took about twenty minutes to figure out how to get it out with instructions, so it wasn't bad. It took about 2 minutes to actually rebuild it, and about ten minutes to put everything back together. We went to try it, and nothing happened. The fan wouldn't turn on at all. Odd, it worked before we took it apart. So back apart it came. It took me about half an hour of looking and searching before I found what was wrong; one of the three wires wasn't connected to the mode switch. My dad had put it in, so I don't know if he forgot or if it slipped off while he was putting it back in. Anyway, I plugged the wire back in and it instantly came to life. This was about midnight, so it was hard to tell if the A/C was working since it was so cool out. I was exhausted, so I just put the car back together and called it a night. I will do more troubleshooting next weekend. But at least I now have a rebuilt mode switch! I'm now one step closer to having functioning A/C, and I am able to drive the car again!!! Not a bad day. :)


~Lyndsey

P.S. I didn't think to take any pictures while I was working, so I just took some pictures of my car once I was done. I thought it looked pretty good other than being dirty from working on it!

Side stripes ordered!

So I finally just ordered a reproduction black side stripe kit for my DeLorean! Hopefully they will be here by this time next week so I can get them installed and be one step closer to my dream DeLorean. As I have said before, my dream D is a 5 speed, black interior and black side stripe. I have always loved the way the black stripes look on these cars, especially with the black interiors. Even though I currently have a gray interior, I have decided for certain that I am going to change it to a black interior as soon as I am able to afford it. It will cost around $3000 to change the interior, so it will probably be a while for that. I also used to want a gas flap hood as well, but the more I think about it I think I actually like the plain grooved hood better, so I'm just going to leave that the way it is. I am still uncertain about whether or not I want to switch to the dark gray wheels, too. I love the way they look, but I haven't decided for sure if I want them on mine. I think I'll need to see a set in real life before I make a final decision on that, but I'm definitely leaning toward dark gray at the moment. Anyway, I will definitely post some pictures during and after the side stripe install next week.

~Lyndsey

Brake issue

I've had my first problem with my DeLorean since I got it running again. Yesterday on the way to work, I noticed that the brakes were feeling *really* soft. Almost scary soft. This morning I checked the pedal, and it pretty much went to the floor. So I got a ride home from work and will be driving my VW until it's fixed. :( I checked the fluid, and it was pretty much empty! I put an entire bottle of brake fluid in it so I definitely have a new leak, not a progressive one. It is leaking from my passenger side front wheel area, but I couldn't really tell where exactly laying in the parking lot at work. The last few times I've driven it I heard a rattling coming from that area, but couldn't figure out what it was, so it could be related. We put new stainless braided brake hoses on when we rebuilt the front end, so hopefully it's not the hose. I'm guessing something came loose, or the hard line is having problems. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that I can get it home okay without having to have it towed, but I'm going to wait until 3:00 am when there aren't any other cars on the road, just in case. It kind of sucks, the drive home from work today would have put me over 48,000 miles. Oh well.