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In October of 2002, my dad’s 1982 Delorean returned
back home to
Michigan after a ten year hiatus over in Seattle, Washington
where my father had moved out to. In its first five years
out in Seattle it sat outside of my dad’s house exposed
to the elements. During the time it sat in front of my dad’s
house a kid from the neighborhood |
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a rock at it cracking the louver and a beehive was established underneath
the car one year.
Over the next five years it sat in a garage spot
in my dad’s new house in the beautiful city of Edmonds, Washington.
The only time the car would see any sort of use was during the summer
when I would make my yearly trips out there and start it up and
drive it around everyday just for the hell of it.
Even before the ten years of the car sitting out in Seattle, it sat
here in Michigan for approximately six or seven years with practically
no usage. Mechanical upkeep during this period of time was virtually
non-existent with the exception of oil changes every now and then.
Eventually the lack of care, exposure to the elements, and time caught
up to the car. The return to Michigan would mark the first step for the
car towards its revival. |
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| Work on the Delorean began in January 2003. We first began by |
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ordering a major tune up kit from PJ
Grady’s, a well known east coast Delorean shop. The kit consisted
of all your major gaskets, filters, plugs, wires, belts, and oxygen
sensor just to name a few things. When the car was put up on stands
and we were able to get under it to get a good idea on exactly what
we were dealing with, we discovered other things that had to be
addressed.
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The coolant lines were next major area that had to be addressed.
With the years of the car sitting idle, the rubber hoses
of the coolant system had been victimized by rubber rot.
Many small leaks were apparent in numerous areas of the
system. The fuel lines off the distributor were also showing
signs of rubber rot so we opted to replace all of those
as well. An order for a coolant hose kit and all the |
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fuel lines was then put in to Delorean Motor Company of Texas.
Unfortunately for us, along the way
we had run into a few problems. Some were self inflicted
and other not. Dave has a rocker arm cover and a pulley to his
name of mishaps. To my name I have a radiator due to a cheap
a#@ rubber nipple. Aaron has a handful of grounds to his
name. Some of the other irritating problems we ran into
were the threading that snapped off of the old oxygen sensor,
attempting to take out the plugs that required a special square
head tool that we did not have, and putting in the new oil pan
gasket.
On average, we spent one night a week
working on the car. At times we had to skip a week since we had
to wait for parts or we had other obligations to fill. When
we finally had the car back together in May, there was a slight
sense of doubt that the car would not fire up for us. Did
we put the rocker arms back together correctly? Did we put
the rocker arms back in correctly? These were just some
of the questions we had in our minds at that time.
However, that night in May when the
car was ready to be brought back to life we silence the doubters.
After a good amount of cranking, the Delorean fired up for us.
With the engine roaring and in good running order it had acknowledged
our efforts as a job well done and that was when the hand shakes
and pats on the shoulders were given to one another. After
years of being neglected, the Delorean had finally gotten the
attention it needed and deserved.
The team of the Delorean Project would
like to thank Warren Wallingford of Delorean Motor Company of
Texas, Rob and Debbie Grady of PJ Grady in West Sayville, New
York, and John Hervey of Special T Auto in Forney, Texas. The
help and guidance from these people was pivotal during the course
of the project and for this we are forever grateful.
*Click on the name of the person to read their summary*
[Dave] [Jon] [Aaron]
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©2003, Goospeed Designs, Inc. All
Rights Reserved. [ Disclamer
]
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Its been nearly 20 years since the Delorean sports car first
graced the showroom floors. In its first year they sold
like hotcakes and people were paying premium prices just to
get one. The future of John Delorean's car company looked
bright... |
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| Very bright
indeed until scandles, drugs and |
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framing
came into play.
Before his days of gull wing doors and stainless
steel bodies, John Delorean worked at General Motors. There,
he helped develop the GTO and became known as the "Father of the Muscle
Car Generation". Then in 1972, he was made vice president in charge of all GM's American car
and truck operations and was considered to be the leading candidate to be GM's next president.
However in 1993 at the height of his career at General Motors, John Delorean quit
his $650,000 a year job. His reasoning was because he claimed GM lost its integrity, built
unsafe cars and also because their products lacked style and quality.
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With the belief that it was possible |
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to build a car with a useful life, be economical to operate and be safe to drive without
sparing performance and handling, John Delorean founded
the Delorean Motor Company in 1975 just to do so. To take
on this task John had top engineers from Lotus to help.
In the beginning, John intended to have many new standard
features such as air bags. However the only ideas that made
it were the stainless steel body, fiberglass under body,
gullwing doors and the rear engine mount.
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