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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.
I snapped off my automatic transmission's dipstick tube when reinstalling the engine and transmission into the car. Replacing it isn't too bad, and only requires a couple of bolts once you've raised the car and drained the transmission. Well, except for the fact that I stripped the bolt hole that holds the tube to the transmission thus requiring that I repair it first.
Read MoreMy automatic transmission always seems to leak, so I decided that while I was reinstalling the engine and transmission in the car that it would be a good time to replace the old-style cork gasket with a new silicone one from DeLorean Performance Industries.
Read MoreWhile removing my engine, I noticed some surface rust. I soon found that a few points weren't just surface rust -- chipping away reveled a large hole on each side of the frame under the lower link arms. There was also rust inside some of the frame members, but the holes were what really concerned me. That meant welding clean metal over them, treating the metal, painting with POR-15, priming, and finally painting with a final coat of grey.
Read MoreI didn't want to take the engine back out of the car once I got it in there, so before I went any further I decided to make sure the engine compression was good. This meant mating the engine and transmission so that I could use the starter to turn the engine, and learning how to use my previously-purchased but never before needed compression test kit.
Read MoreI kept forgetting to turn off my headlights when I left the DeLorean. While there is a factory buzzer to let you know this (and that you're seatbelt isn't on), it's so annoying that most owners disconnect it as my car's previous owner had -- I've never even heard it myself. I decided that a better solution was to modify the headlight switch wiring to work more like many modern cars, and have them switch with the ignition. This mod is rather simple, requiring only that you add a new relay to the center console.
Read MoreGiven the oil/coolant mix I was dealing with earlier, plus the age of the engine in general, I decided to swap out the water pump. I didn't realize just how little of the water pump is the pump itself -- the thermostat housing and back of pump need to be swapped with those from the 3.0L. Of course I stripped some of the bolts trying to remove the old hardware, but I eventually got everything assembled onto the new pump.
Read MoreThe rear main seal keeps all the oil from leaking out the back of the engine around the crankshaft. It's very hard to get to unless you already have the engine out of the car, and even then an engine stand can be in the way. Overall, I found the process easier than I had feared, with the most trouble being taking the engine off the stand so I could get access to it.
Read MoreInstalling the timing and valve covers is fairly straight forward. I wound up ruining my front main seal while trying to tap it in just a bit further, and had to replace it as well. The gaskets went on without much trouble with some Right Stuff, and I was able to reuse a lot of my stainless steel hardware from the 2.8L engine on the 3.0L covers. I also replaced the oil filter cap, but I still need to find an oil vapor separator to replace the one I broke when transporting the engine.
Read MoreMy 3.0L engine had a bad core plug on the back of the right hand head that needed to be replaced. They forgot to mention this when they sold it to me, but they were good enough to mark it on the tag and circle the bad plug itself in blue marker. I wound up having to tilt the plug out by hitting it with a punch and a four pond hammer to get enough force. Finding a new plug wound up being the tricky bit.
Read MoreFlipping the engine over repeatedly caused the timing chains to slip off of the crank, so I finally had to bite the bullet and retime the engine. This was actually pretty simple, and I replaced the chains and tensioners while I was at it, although I also wound up replacing the oil pump in the process when I broke a bolt over-tightening its sprocket.
Read MoreThe gaskets on the valve covers need to be cleaned off before they can be reinstalled. One of them came off easily, but the other broke apart and needed to be tediously removed. This time I tried Permatex Gasket Remover on the remnants, which worked much better than I'd expected. It was also able to clean the blackened inside of the valve covers back to their original aluminum surfaces.
Read MoreMounting the cylinder heads requires that they first be clean and straight. A tap is used to re-cut and clean the threads for the head bolts before the gasket is placed and the heads and rocker arms are applied. With the 3.0L engine, you also have to be careful not to lose any of the tappets in the end of the rocker arm fingers. Then you just need to torque down the bolts, and you're all set.
Read MoreWith the lower crankcase re-assembled, I flipped the engine over and removed the intake manifold to find oil in the coolant passages. I had assumed the engine had been drained before it was shipped to me, but it seems this was not the case -- flipping the engine had caused the oil and coolant to mixed into a gunk that filled the coolant jacket. I had to remove the heads and thoroughly clean them before I could move forward with putting the engine back in the car..
Read MoreNow that my 3.0L engine was right side up again, I thought this was a good time to take apart the top and see what was under there. I removed the fuel rails and harness, intake manifold, water pump and "Y" pipe to expose the valley.
Read MoreWith my newly-arrived gasket kit, I was ready to install the 2.8L lower crankcase onto the 3.0L engine, followed by the oil baffle, oil inlet assembly and oil pan. Besides some trouble flipping over the engine and forgetting to install the baffle and inlet before putting on the pan, this went off without a hitch.
Read MoreNow that I'm well on the way to replacing the 2.8L engine with a 3.0L engine and have stripped the old block to sell any usable parts on eBay, I decided to take a look at the hole that started this whole process. It was pretty easy to see with the pistons out of the way, and the adjacent wall was clearly beginning to fail as well.
Read MoreI pulled the crank, pistons and liners from the old 2.8L engine to sell on eBay. I also did this wrong -- you're supposed to remove the pistons and liners as a single unit. I removed the pistons first, and later removed the liners. This would have been alright if I'd actually labeled which liners go with which pistons, but I didn't. I also had a bit of trouble getting the main pulley nut off the crank once it was no longer in the block.
Read MoreAfter 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.
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