D Loom Fitting & AC Health Check by Dans Modz and Cooling
- timemachine16606
- Aug 21
- 15 min read
Updated: 31 minutes ago
Having made it known I was in the market for the new D-Loom, Dan Knowlton contacted me about a new installation service he was starting up along with other work including air conditioning services and DeLorean health-check and remediation. When I received this information I jumped at the chance and we planned for the work to get done whilst I was on my family summer vacation.
As well as
Fitting the D-Loom, testing and providing a report into its effectiveness
there were other jobs I had on my to-do list that I arranged with Dan to tackle. These included:
Fit all new (24) manifold studs and brass nuts (I only had 12 fitted)
Re-gas the air conditioning - it had been approx 3 years
As we got talking, and as work progresses, other jobs were identified. Dan stayed in contact with me as agreed, and was very transparent about these additional jobs so as not to put me under any pressure to accept having them done. My opinion was that why would I not. I trust Dan implicitly and his work is fantastic, so missing the opportunity to get work done was not in question.
Here's the list of everything else that was done whilst I was being thrown about on rides with the kids at Disneyland Paris:
Remove radiator fan assembly, supply and fit spare used working fan motor, refit fan assembly (during the D Loom tests it was discovered that the drivers side fan was woefully under performing, as you will read below, but fortunately Dan had a spare working motor that he was able to swap over)
When dropping off the car off we spotted both the A/C Belt and the Fan Belt were not in the best state so I agreed these should be replaced
Supply and fit new battery isolator and negative cable link (the incumbent isolator was starting to get temperamental and I didn't want it disconnecting mid-journey)
Fit new starter motor terminal shroud, sleeve wires with high temperature sleeving
Drain gearbox oil, remove drive hubs and fit speedy sleeves, new oil seals, o-rings and roll pins, refit hubs and fill with oil, fit new drain and fill plugs
Remove old engine mounts and fit new
Fit new speedo cable support bracket (mine had previously snapped as I found out when fitting the Ultra Drive, the makeshift solution I had fitted using a plastic cable tie had already broken and the cable was hanging free)
Remove fuel pump assembly, rebuild using new boot, clips and cover, refit to car (it was discovered my 3 year old cover had already perished and there was a small fuel leak)
Disconnect non original cable that was wired directly from the rpm relay to the fuel pump. Reinstate original wiring and inertia switch in the circuit.
Fit new Rear Air Deflectors and retaining strips.
Fuse/Relay frame was loose, not attached to tub, drill out broken riv-nut and fit new, fix frame to tub, repair wiring as required, relay banks not attached to frame, reposition correctly and fit to frame
Repair/fit new bearings to both A/C idler pulleys
Reverse the US Daytime Running Light (DRL) UK modification and install switch to enable/disable feature.
Repair leak around the rubber seal of the washer fluid bottle motor
An immense amount of work was undertaken, the following is how it all transpired.
Fitting the D-Loom, testing and providing a report into its effectiveness
So I'm a factory standard kind of person. Well that is in so far as I can keep the car standard in spirit, but only enhancing it where it is either a legal requirement, invisible, reversable or just makes sense. I guess fitting the D-Loom falls into that latter category. As soon as I heard about what Dan Knowlton had created I knew that this just made absolute sense.
So what does the D-Loom do. According to the installation instructions,
"The D-Loom is a Fuse/relay panel. It is mounted in the front of the car next to the brake fluid reservoir, and controls the radiator cooling fans, the fuel pump, and the headlights (optional).
The DeLorean suffers from voltage drop at the front end of the car, this is caused by insufficient wire gauge, bad connections/grounds.
The D-Loom provides a new power distribution point to the front of the DeLorean solving the aforementioned issues and providing much improved reliability and safety.
Heavy gauge positive and negative cables are installed directly from the battery to a new relay/fuse panel in the front end located discreetly next to the brake fluid reservoir.
Installation is relatively simple, with much of it plug and play apart from some tapping into the headlight circuit inside the car- however this is optional as it is an awkward job, but totally reversible and the car can be put back to OEM spec if ever required.
Benefits of the D-Loom include:
Increased voltage/current to cooling fans, headlights, and fuel pump circuits, increased cooling fan speed.
Significantly reduced load on alternator and stabilisation of the electrical system.
Independent relays and circuit breakers for cooling fans, if one fan motor were to fail then you would only lose the one fan, whereas in the stock configuration both fans are fed from the same relay and breaker so if any fault occurred you would lose both fans.
Removal of the “fan fuse links” as now unused.
Eliminates fuse meltdown on affected circuits in OEM fuse board as the OEM wiring is required only to switch relays.
Spare relay and fuse slot for future additions."
My only question was, how would I get the D-Loom installed. Dan sent me the installation instructions and I read them, realised that I might like to think I could do the job, but since I wanted to ensure it was done right first time, and whilst probably possible, without a lift it was a job too far for me. Only a few weeks later I discovered that Dan was starting up "Dans Mods and Cooling" a service that can fit the D-Loom for you, can do Air Conditioning servicing and re-gassing and also perform a health-check of your DeLorean where there is no obligation to have any of the recommendations done, but the customer can either do them themselves, go out to other businesses to perform the work or can request Dan to undertake any of the recommended work that you might want done. Dan has recently become F-gas qualified to test and repair automotive A/C systems. He prefers to do full R134a retrofits as his opinion is that this is the only way to do it properly. He will carry out repairs testing and re-gassing of all r134a systems but it’s best to contact him to discuss your requirements
This was perfect for me. As mentioned at the start of the blog, I was due to go on vacation with my family in late August 2026 so we arranged for Dan to fit the D-Loom over this period.
The following documents the process.
In preparation the car was raised on the lift and the drivers' side front tyre removed. It was at this point Dan noticed I didn't have rear air deflector plates installed (13).
The front frame ground bolt, which is located behind the drivers' side front wheel on the bottom of the radiator support bracket, needs to be removed.
The frame, bracket and cable lugs should be cleaned with emery cloth or a wire brush, in order to get them really clean, back to bare metal. After being cleaned they should be reassembled, but with the addition of the new (Ground) Link Cable attached.
Now the cabling needs to be routed through the chassis, following the clutch cable. I won't go into detail on this process here but the instruction manual that comes with the D-Loom goes into it step by step. The running of these cables can be seen below.
At the front of the car the end of the loom are worked up into the frunk and connected to the black terminal block. Other wires from the loom should then be identified to run to the fans, fuel pump and via the speedo cable grommet into the cab for the headlights.
The wires above that have been fed into the footwell now need to be connected to the headlight circuit, again, detailed steps are presented in the instruction manual.
Next, in the fuse box area, the fan relay needs to be removed and a connector from the new D-Loom inserted into the BO terminal of the fan relay base.
The final steps are to make the connection of the new D-Loom to the battery. When dropping my car off I had mentioned how my battery cut-off switch was a little tempremental. This was when we agreed for Dan to fit a new, more heavy duty switch that can be fixed down for stability (6).
The D-Loom positive and negative cables need to be worked through the grommets along with the existing battery cables and then attached to the battery. The positive cables are attached to the positive battery post via the supplied fuse connector.
Apart from testing, this is now the job done. The test results from my installation are shown below. You will see that my driver's side radiator fan was faulty. Details of this can be read at (4).
Stock car engine off | Modified car engine off | Stock car engine running | Modified car engine running | |
D/S Radiator cooling Fan Voltage | 6.6 Volts | 11.16 Volts | fan faulty so no test | 12.21 Volts |
D/S Radiator cooling Fan Current | 31 Amps | 11.32 Amps | fan faulty so no test | 13.2 Amps |
D/S Radiator cooling Fan Speed | 984 rpm | 2408 rpm | fan faulty so no test | 2601 rpm |
P/S Radiator cooling Fan Voltage | 7.7Volts(9.58) | 11.02 Volts | 11.5 Volts | 12.37 Volts |
P/S Radiator cooling Fan Current | 7.2 Amps(10.16) | 12.42 Amps | 8.7 amps | 14.5 Amps |
P/S Radiator cooling Fan Speed | 1767 rpm(2168) | 2460 rpm | 2442 Rpm | 2635 rpm |
Fuel Pump Voltage | 9.59 Volts | 12.1 Volts | 11.94 Volts | 13.73 Volts |
Fuel Pump Current | 5.67 Amps | 7.4 Amps | 6.26 Amps | 8.3 Amps |
Main Beam Voltage | 10.5 Volts | 10.21 Volts | 11.4 Volts | 12.4 Volts |
Main Beam Current | 17.5 Amps | 17.8 Amps | 18.2Amps | 19.1 Amps |
Dipped Beam Voltage | 11.4 Volts | 11.74 Volts | 12.9 Volts | 13.78 Volts |
Dipped Beam Current | 8.8 Amps | 8.9 Amps | 9.4 Amps |
One of the most immediate wins I experienced from fitting the D-Loom during the drive back home was that the fuel sender operated differently, or should I say, almost correctly. Rather than either fluctuating between the 12 O'Clock position (past full) to anywhere inbetween, it seems that it read the fuel level accurately. And then what was initially unnverving, but actually as it probably should be, over the course of the 80 mile journey, the guage needle just gradually moved down. In the past I had got used to it erratic nature and kind of knew what each position meant in terms of fuel level, now however I had to regain confidence that the sender was actually telling me the truth, and it appears it was. I will need to take move drives to confirm if it is operating "normally". The reason for this improvement of the fuel sender is because the sender works on resistance to ground. The D-Loom provides a new ground directly from the battery to the chassis ground point under the D-Loom box - see this photo.
Fit all new (24) manifold studs and brass nuts
A couple of years back I visited Dan with a list of items to work on with my car, but this was an item we ran out of time on. So we agreed that this job should also be part of the work to be done this time. The photos below show the progression of the job including clean-up and end result.
The next two images show the reason why I was getting an exhaust leak.
These next two photos reveal that where I was getting the leak, the original stud was just rotating and had to be drilled out and new thread created.
All cleaned up and new studs inserted.
Pipe reattached with stainless studs and brass nuts.
Other side.
The drive home was quite different that I was used to. Due to several of the jobs done on my car, but particularly the engine noise in the cab was deeper/lower resonance, which was much more pleasant and more than likely due to the absence of an exhaust leak.
Re-gas the air conditioning
Dan has a brand new A/C R134a Service and Re-Gassing machine so I also agreed to have my A/C system tested and re-gassed. It was about three years since it was last re-gassed and I thought it was still operating well, however the results of Dan's tests found a minor leak. The photo below shows the dye in the A/C system which has leaked on to this joint near the A/C Accumulator.
Dan recovered 680grams of refrigerant into his new machine, repaired the leak and pressure tested the system before vacuuming and re-gassing and setting up the low pressure switch correctly. I haven't yet measured the A/C temperature, but the journey home got so cold (about 22 degrees outside), that I had to turn the fan down to 1, which I've never done before whilst using A/C.
Remove radiator fan assembly, supply and fit spare used working fan motor, refit fan assembly
When installing the D-Loom Dan takes readings of Volts, Current (Amps) and for the fans RPM. As he began his pre-checks of the fans with the engine off it was apparrent that there was a problem with the drivers' side fan. The readings were,
Stock car engine off | |
D/S Radiator cooling Fan Voltage | 6.6 Volts |
D/S Radiator cooling Fan Current | 31 Amps |
D/S Radiator cooling Fan Speed | 984 rpm |
This video shows the test.
Dan then took the fan unit off and bench tested it (apologies for loss of sound mid way, Sony Music didn't allow the song that was playing on the radio in the background to be used for this duration so YouTube removed it - ironically it was Dead or Alive and You Spin Me Round!)
Fortunately for me, Dan happened to have a spare original fan motor that he was happy to swap for the faulty one. He then re-installed the fans back to the car and retested as per the results in (1) above.
A/C and Fan Belt replacement
As I was dropping the car off, we noticed that my two year old A/C belt and my older Fan belt were fraying from no obvious cause. Dan offered to have these replaced, which I naturally agreed to.
Supply and fit new battery isolator and negative cable link
I also let Dan know, as I dropped the car, that the battery isolator handle was becoming tempremental and sometimes requied a couple of attempts to switch on the power. Not wanting to find it disconnecting whilst travelling we agreed that Dan would source and install a better, more heavy-duty battery isolator switch.
The kind installed had this sturdier switch which is bolted down which you turn 45 degrees to switch on or off.
Fit new starter motor terminal shroud, sleeve wires with high temp sleeving
During the routing and install of the D-Loom it it was noticed that the starter motor terminal shroud was damaged. This was replaced and the wires that sit close to the heat from the engine was covered in high temperature sleeving to avoid any heat related issues.
Drain gearbox oil, remove drive hubs and fit speedy sleeves, new oil seals, o-rings and roll pins, refit hubs and fill with oil, fit new drain and fill plugs
The section title says it all. However the main motive for this procedure was to once and for all make my DeLorean oil leak free. As most, I've always had leaks and tracking them down to the source has been hit or miss. Previously Dan obliged a couple of years ago by replacing the main seal to stop a leak, see this post from 2024. Whilst inspecting the car this time gearbox oil was found leaking, although not to a great extent, from the drivers' side drive hub.
The leak cannot be seen easily from the photo but there was a definite leak.
As the hubs were disassembled the pitting shown below could be seen. This pitting will allow oil to leak through, a common cause of drive hub leaks.
The procedure Dan carried out using a speedy sleeve is just like that in the video here,
Afterwards, new shaft seals and O-Rings were fitted and the hubs reassembled before filling with new gearbox oil. The reassembled hub is shown below.
Remove old engine mounts and fit new
During inspection my engine mounts were found to be dried and deteriorating. Without thinking twice I agreed to having these replaced. The old drivers' side mount is shown below.
The nice new shiny engine mounts are pictured below.
And the following two photos show the new mounts in situ.
Fit new speedo cable support bracket
You may recall if you read my previous blog about fitting my Ultra Drive, that my speedo cable support bracket had snapped off. Dan also fitted a new one for me. Now I have no fear of the new one piece speedo cable rubbing and wearing against the tyre.
Remove fuel pump assembly, rebuild using new boot, clips and cover, refit to car
Just the couple of weeks prior to having this work done, I started smelling fuel occaisionally in my garage. Prior to me last fixing the leak at my fuel pump in October 2023 (see this post) I would always smell fuel, but since the fix, it became a thing of the past. Now the smell was back, somewhat. When Dan began his inspection prior to fitting the D-Loom he found this.
The newly fittet cover had perished.
A pooling of fuel was evident, it can just be made out in the red circle below.
Not only the thinner top but also the ticker side wall had perished.
Also there was a nick in the wall where the pipe to the tank passes through.
The whole assembly was inspected and rebuilt with new components where necessary and reinstalled. Fuel smell gone once more.
Disconnect non original cable that was wired directly from the rpm relay to the fuel pump. Reinstate original wiring and inertia switch in the circuit.
During the initial restoration back in 2015/16 or at some point prior it would seem that a new cable was wired as described in the section title. I was very happy since no obvious benefit of this could be identified, that Dan reinstated the original wiring per the schematic along with the original inertia switch.
Fit new Rear Air Deflectors and retaining strips.
One item I had on my DGo wish list was the rear air deflectors but never got round to getting them. When Dan raised the car up in preparation for the D-Loom installation he noticed they were missing. This was something that was missing from the car ever since I took possession of it in 2016.
Naturally I took the opportunity and agreed to get them and have Dan install them.
The retaining strips were first prepared and fitted.
Then the air deflectors themselves were installed.
I'm pretty certain that having these installed also aided the quieter sound in the cab as I drove home, along with exhuast leak fixed and all manifold studs perfectly fitted.
Fuse/Relay frame was loose, not attached to tub, drill out broken riv-nut and fit new, fix frame to tub, repair wiring as required, relay banks not attached to frame, reposition correctly and fit to frame
As per the section description, there was so much wrong with my fuse/relay compartment, but I had not known any different. Fortunately Dan's inspection picked this up. With the aforementioned repair the frame is now securely fixed to the tub and the wiring is tidied up along with the relay banks now in the correct position.
Repair/fit new bearings to both A/C idler pulleys
Further inspection of the car identified that both A/C idler pulleys were running rough, with a lot of vibration, down to worn bearings.
Dan sourced new bearing and fitted them to the pulleys aftwer which they ran smoothly as they should.
Reverse the US Daytime Running Light (DRL) UK modification and install switch to enable/disable feature.
One job I asked Dan to help out with was my desire to reverse my cars UK mod to disable the Daytime Running Lights (DRLs) and to install a switch so I can ordinarily drive in the UK per UK rules, but if at a show, meet or whenever, I could switch the DRL function on.
I had attempted this a year ago, however I could not make head nor tail of the wiring of the mod that was done, so I left it alone. Now, with Dan's electrical knowledge he took this challenge on.
Initially, the switch was installed for ease at the front of the car in the recess where the grill was removed from. This was just a temporary measure to help testing. The required function was as follows,
Switch Off
Side Lights or Main/Dipped beams off - DRL (indicator lights) off
Side Lights or Main/Dipped beams off - DRL (indicator lights) off - Indicators/hazards flash on and off
Side Lights or Main/Dipped beams on - DRL (indicator lights) off
Side Lights or Main/Dipped beams on - DRL (indicator lights) off - Indicators/hazards flash on and off
Switch On
Side Lights or Main/Dipped beams off - DRL (indicator lights) off
Side Lights or Main/Dipped beams off - DRL (indicator lights) off - Indicators/hazards flash on and off
Side Lights or Main/Dipped beams on - DRL (indicator lights) solid on
Side Lights or Main/Dipped beams on - DRL (indicator lights) solid on - Indicators/hazards flash/alternate from solid on to bright and repeat until indicators/hazards are cancelled.
The following video demonstrates this functionality whilst testing.
This is obviously a nice to have for me, and the opportunity lent itself to getting this solution imstalled. I've always liked the look of the cars in photos with the DRLs on but wanted to remain road legal in the UK. Now I have the best of both worlds.
Following the successfull testing Dan ran cable to the cab and wired up the switch which is temporarily in position between the binnacle and the centre console awaiting for me to confirm and fix in a more permanent position.
Repair leak around the rubber seal of the washer fluid bottle motor
The final job was to investigate drips coming from the windscreen wash fluid tub, via the drain holes. This was identified once the car was up on the lift.
I had replaced the washer fluid pump a little while back and all had seemed well, however once the tub was removed there was a leak coming from the pumps' grommet area.
The pump unit was removed and a little nick in the hole of the bottle was found and it was surmised that this was the cause of the leak.
A marine sealant which doesn't go off was used around the join of the grommet and the hole an then it was all reassembled.
So much work was undertaken for which I'm extremely grateful.
Next stop for 16606 will be the September Tech meet in Peterborough over the weekend from 25th thru' 27th September.
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