First proper drive of Vin 522

[Chris P]

What a morning! Im still buzzing from my first proper drive of my car, after its 10 years rusting away on the beach at Barmouth, in Wales.

( I don't count the little potter down to my MOT place, where lots of things weren't properly finished.)

We have been working hard for the last couple of weeks to get to this stage. I have fixed the g/box oil leak by fitting an SKF sleeve on one of the drive shafts. It was so badly rust pitted it chewed up oil seals...now fully sorted. The door pins are all re-fitted and working OK. The cooling system is working fine with its new water pipes and pump.

But the best improvement is thanks to Rich, who again, generously came around yesterday tea time, after a local car show and worked his Magic.

I now have a coil that keeps cool and a ballast resister that gets hot! (as it should) thanks to Rich correcting some dodgy wiring. He also found and repaired a dead wire and tweaked the mixture. The tick over and running is now fine.

As its a UK car, it had been de-catted and tweaked years ago, but I'm truly amazed by its performance!

I set off early this morning and shot up the A38, I soon got into my rhythm and gave the early morning commuters and lorry drivers the "silver streak" treatment! As my angle drive is still seized up, I don't know how fast I was going, but lets just say I wasn't hanging about! It should have bedded in the new discs and pads a treat.

I never fail to be impressed at the way you are treated by other drivers....they see this (especially with my new daytime running lights) low unidentified car suddenly pop into their rear view mirror......and let you past, then they try and get behind you to get a better look.....not for long though as I'm soon off up the road.

Its really put the fun back into driving and I hope to see some off you over the weekend at our annual Rally.

After three years of "being a builder" and not driving a DeLorean.....the magic is back..........on to the future!!

[Dangermouse]

Glad to hear it is running well, Chris.

[DMCNI]

Well done Chris and good luck with the car!!

Great to see it back on the roads....

[Guinney1971]

nice one Chris, I've still not sorted my speedo out (lower cable on mine I think), but
according to my GPS, when I'm doing a shade over 3,000 rpm in 5th I'm doing 70mph,
so hopefully that will act as a guide for you

Well done to RichH for stepping up to the mark once again

[Chris P]

Well after having just returned from our little trip to our summer event , I am happy to report that apart from my "listing" problem, the car went fine. Even with two heavy weight persons on board! Over 500 miles all told with no problems at all. The fuel gauge even started working again!

It was Barrie Wills first long run in a DeLorean for over 30 years and he was very impressed with the comfort of the ride. ( if not the fast driving)

Over the next few weeks I will be ripping it apart again and improving some of the rushed jobs.....wipers...trim,....suspension....speedo gearbox....door pins etc.

I can't think of any other car that could have survived for so long, stuck outside....near the beach in ( not so sunny) Wales.

We had the engine running within a few hours of work, thanks to its sealed system of fuel injection. It has used no water or oil so far.

Good old reliable PRV.

[Guinney1971]

glad its serving you so well Chris after such a long lay up

[Chris P]

I had 2 new front tyres fitted this morning due to slight signs of perishing of the "new" ones fitted just before its 10 year lay up. I had already replaced the rears for the same reason some weeks ago. Seems a shame to scrap them, but there you go.

[Chris P]

Having just got my speedo working ( by stripping down and repairing the angle drive) i can actually see how fast I'm going. ( Checked with GPS)

I was a little surprised this morning, when giving it a bit of stick up a deserted duel carriage way, that as I was changing up from 3rd to 4th, I was doing 85 MPH!

It certainly does SHIFT. The only thing obviously different from stock, is being a UK car, no CAT, 140 MPH speedo and the silencer is my old ex display one with all the guts chopped out.

Our book researches have shown up a few early test cars that had engines tweaked to Euro-spec, but I just don't know. I suppose i'll have to do a proper 0-60 run and see what that shows up. Maybe is just the extra noise from the exhaust that makes it feel quicker....or maybe its just me getting old!

[Starglider]

It is certaintly an interesting car! I'd like to take a closer look if we're both at a future event, I'm sure there were more details beyond what I spotted.

[stunned_monkey]

Nigel Mills’ (AXI 1699? – I forget) has a euro spec engine and gearbox. This amounts to:

No cats or lambda system.
Larger intake venturi
Non-lambda metering head
013 ignition distributor

- all the above are common to the European Volvo and Renault K-Jet engines although the latter were only ever 2664cc. I don’t know for certain that Nigel’s isn’t a 2664.

3-branch manifolds, almost certainly from an Alpine A310
3.88:1 final drive. Easily identifiable by 90mph being 4000rpm whereas on a standard car it is 3500rpm

[Chris P]

AXI 1697 is Nigel's car ....yes that car was a fully British Homologated car. its was prepared during receivership ready for a car show ( I forget which one) then the liquidators moved in and it never made it. I seem to remember the crossover pipe had been removed, the exhaust manifolds fitted the other way around and kind of bodged into the silencer.

It was previously registered as SOA 82Y by the Patrick collection near B/Ham, who had it on display for many years. (It was sold to them by Gerry Castle and Roger Jarman who had done a deal with the receiver) ...All covered in our new book.

[stunned_monkey]

...Forgot to mention higher compression pistons too.

The exhaust manifolds are not delorean/volvo ones spun round but are cast with a central exit. As I said, almost certainly Alpine A310. The silencer is a proper twin in/twin out job. It may be a modified standard one but I don't think so. It lookes "meant to be". I don't know if it has the DMC-12 stamp on it