Driving a DeLorean is always an experience whether it be positive or negative. My trip to and from Woolf Classics near Bristol for some planned work was no exception; there were negatives but in the end everything ended up positive thanks overwhelmingly to Miles Reynolds-Cole.
My car had been sat in my garage since I returned from the last Eurotec club meeting on 6th October. Since then I had only done minor work on the car, mostly to try to get my temperature gauge to read, as documented in the previous post. I had only ran the car to get it up to temperature stationary in the garage. Then the evening before my trip to Bristol I went to my local Esso to fuel-up. As I parked up in the garage I could smell a strong fuel odour. I wasn't too concerned since in the past my car had often given off a temporary fuel smell if I had possibly overfilled just a touch. That night my son (whose bedroom is above the garage) wakes me to let me know he cannot sleep for the smell of fuel coming into his room. Come 5am that following morning I wake to set off for Bristol and as I enter the garage the smell of fuel was so much stronger than I had experienced before. Nonetheless I set off for my appointment at Woolf Classics putting the smell down to possible over-fuelling and being enclosed within the garage overnight.
The journey was longish (140 miles), but that was never an issue in my DeLorean which I always find comfortable to drive. However all but the final 15-30 minutes were in the hours of darkness, which I hate, even more so in the D due to the dazzling headlights of higher, modern cars.
I did have a good run though, arriving at Miles' secret lair in the Bristolian environs just after 8am.
When Miles arrived the smell of fuel was prevalent once more, he opened the workshop and I went to start the car but it wouldn't; after a few attempts we just decided to manually manoeuvre it in to position. Without delay, we jacked up the car and witnessed a load of fuel, that had settled in the frame and between the fuel tank and the plate, pour out onto the floor.
Hoping it wasn't a damaged tank Miles investigated further by removing the plate to inspect the fuel tank, and checking the fuel pump.
With some relief the fuel tank and pump had no signs of being the culprit. The leak was tracked down to coming from the void in the frame where the fuel accumulator is located. Tests proved that the fuel system was holding pressure, so when the fuel pump wasn't running no fuel leaked out; however when the fuel pump operated this forced fuel out of the fuel feed hose, and in quite some volume. It was surprising that I actually made it to Bristol without running out emptying the tank.
In the photo above, Miles shows the fuel feed hose, the outer sheathing has deteriorated but the inner hose had the hole through that leaked as described above.
As luck would have it, I had a spare fuel feed hose in my box of bits that goes everywhere with me in the trunk of my DeLorean, items purchased and then previously never needed, and never returned. It's amazing what you might find in there!
Miles then set about fitting the new hose, a bit of a tight squeeze.
Once this was done we tested the new hose with success, no more leak. Fast forwarding to the end of the day, I emptied my back-up 5 litre can of fuel into the tank and then drove directly to the petrol station to fill up for the return journey. The tank took just shy of 47 litres of E5, and what with the 5 Iitres added from by emergency back-up can, I had used just under 52 of the actual 53 litre capacity (as I'm reliably informed)! This resulted in my outbound journey's fuel efficiency being just 12mpg.
Now that the fuel leak was fixed, the jobs for which I made this trip could get started. It was only about 10.30 so fortunately the leak had not scuppered the plans for the day.
These jobs were the following,
replace the Thermal Vacuum Switch, Vacuum Solenoid and Vacuum Delay Valve. It was understood that the switch had seized based on checks done at the October Eurotec Meet.
check my temperature gauge and the temperature sender, replace if necessary whilst we're in the valley for the first job, for ease of access.
remove the bucket housing the washer fluid motor in order to clean the connectors due to an intermittent washer motor connection.
So first was to get in to the valley. Miles took the necessary steps to deconstruct the air induction system (W-Pipe, Intake Manifold, Mixture control unit etc.).
Shown below, encircled in red, is the location of the Thermal Vacuum Switch, further back encircled in green is the blue/green wire from the temperature sender to the temperature gauge that we'll come to later.
Now with the coolant Y-pipe exposed access to the thermal vacuum switch can be seen more clearly below. Beneath that is the valley where quite a pool of coolant fluid can be identified. Over time I have found the occasional drop of coolant on the garage floor, not necessarily in the location of the vent hose. Coolant was obviously escaping from somewhere.
This older switch was removed and the new one fitted.
Also the new delay valve was exchanged.
The hoses were reattached to the thermal vacuum switch.
Whilst the coolant lake within the valley soaked up into a mass of tissue paper, focus was changed to the temperature gauge. First thing to do was ground the wire from the sender to the gauge to check if it has continuity and would send the needle on the gauge to the 12 o'clock position. It did (well, to about 11:30 anyway). Miles tested resistance from the new sender at room temperature and compared it to the old/fitted one. They both gave a reading of 2.5 kΩ. Next the old sender was removed and the new one installed. The old sender was tested further, this time by placing it in boiled water to check the resistance given off. It did read a lower resistance in line with the data we had for the water's approximate temperature. We knew that the sender should read 1000Ω at 100°F, 100Ω at 220°F, and 50Ω at 260°F. So whether the old sender was faulty or not was still a mystery. Since the new sender had been fitted whilst we were testing the old one, we left it in and reconnected the wire, after extending it since it had been extremely taut as wired until now.
Once the air induction system was back together we would then set about running the engine to temperature and set the new temperature sender. For now though it was back to the valley.
Miles noticed how the valley heater water return pipe was quite rusted, so I was given the option to replace it, which I more than happily agreed to. The coolant Y-pipe was removed and a new return pipe fitted.
From here I neglected taking any more photos. At this point everything was rebuilt so that we could start the engine to test the work that had been done.
We replaced lost coolant and started the engine. It wasn't long before noticing a lot of coolant dripping from the cleaned up valley onto the floor. We switched off the engine and from checking around noticed that quite a few jubilee clips around the coolant pipes were not at their tightest. Miles managed to "juggle" the air induction system to get to the more difficult to reach connections and managed to tighten the clips some more. Next Miles took his pressure tester and applied pressure to the system via the coolant tank. This process identified a couple more clips that needed tightening. Once pressure was held the coolant was topped up again and the engine ran to test the work done.
The thermal vacuum switch and vacuum solenoid were working as they should. Success!
Once the engine should have been up to running temperature it was clear the temperature gauge wasn't working. The needle occasionally moved from the 6 o'clock position by just about a millimetre but no great movement. This was however a minor improvement, since with the old temperature sender the needle didn't move at all. I mentioned to Miles how when I had replaced the LEDs and replaced the temperature gauge decal I had to remove the needle. I had tried my best to be careful and to mark the position of the needle before removal so I could line it up when refitting it. We agreed it could have been possible therefore that the gauge had moved whilst the needle was off and therefore when I refitted it, it had gone on in the wrong position. It was decided therefore that I would remove the needle when we were certain the car was up to temperature, but noting when the fans came on, and then I refitted the needle a touch over the mid-marker between the 100ºF and 220°F.
And it seems this was part of the issue. With the needle refitted like this, it now seemed to be reading correctly, and as the engine cooled, it also reduced back down the gauge. Sitting in my garage two days later, with the key in the ignition at position 2 it was resting as shown below.
The penultimate job was relatively simple. It was to remove the bucket around the washer fluid tank so I could clean the connectors from the pump motor since it was operating intermittently. The issue with the bucket however was that many screws were damaged and actually only two screws were holding it on.
Miles managed to remove the bucket, spray contact cleaner and then the motor came back to life. The bucket was then refitted with the two original screws and a further all important third screw into a hole that previously didn't have one.
To wrap up the day we also fitted a newer, better LED into the front left side-marker along with a new gasket. I had originally changed to LEDs in the side-markers some years back but the effect showed up the individual cells of light within the bulb, whereas the newer ones give off a more whole beam of light, much like incandescent bulbs. I liked this effect so took bulbs and gaskets for the remainder three side-markers to replace at home.
It was now getting dark and I was ready to set off for the nearest ESSO petrol station (2 miles away) to refuel for the journey home. I added the five litres of fuel I keep as a back up in the trunk (as mentioned above) and set off back along the dark country lanes. After a mile I was due to take a turning which was closed, so I had to re-route which added a further 2.5miles to the journey. Fortunately I made it to the ESSO on fumes which was good enough for me. I then added the further 47 litres of E5 as I have mentioned before heading home.
It was a relief, after a long day, to get on the motorway, first the M32 from where I joined the M4. However this was not the last problem of the day. As I joined the M4 the following video shows what happened.
Yep, my headlights gave out on me. What to do? I didn't know if it was just my headlights (the low beam light on my instrument cluster also went) or my side lights also. I didn't know if it affected just the headlights or if the tail lights had also gone. I found that my high beams worked, so reluctantly put them on since without motorway lighting it got very dark. I thought I would rather suffer the wrath of other drivers than not see where I was going. And continuing was also an option I felt I had to take, I didn't want to pull on to the hard shoulder if I had no lights, so I decided to proceed a further 10 miles to Leigh Delamere services.
Once there I checked the no. 14 fuse, gave the binnacle a whack but no headlights. I had confirmed the side lights and tail lights worked. I hated to do it but after a long day doing magic to my car I had to call Miles to get advice. As well as rechecking the fuses, resulting in nothing, Miles, without hesitation said he'd jump in his car and travel the 20 miles to me. An hour after first arriving at the services, Miles arrived and it wasn't long before his troubleshooting identified the problem. There was a relay, which as I understood it was wired in a non-standard way, through which the headlights ran. The wire had become disconnected from the relay and just required Miles to plug it back in. In the end such a simple fix but one that needed experience to know that something was different, and to go investigate that. Thanks again Miles!
I could now get on with the further 120 miles to home.
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