Vin 6624 saying hello!

[Jonathanisaac]

Good evening fellow Delorean lovers!

My name is Jonathan. After many many years of looking I finally managed to find myself in the right place at the right time: I am now the proud owner a 81/Grey/Manual: Vin 6624

Extreme thanks go to Alistair who inspected the car before I was able to view and gave me a thorough report of the car with many many photos. This turned out to be crucial as it gave me great confidence in the car and was able to make a quick decision that was required to secure the car. Thanks Al!

By no means a mint example cosmetically but mechanically seems very good. The frame is fantastic and therefore it seemed a good solid base to justify the blood sweat and tears going forward.

With the car spending it's life in California, the underside is very clean. But as to be expected, the interior has not taken kindly to the sun. The dash, binnacle and seats will need sorting. Will be requesting some of Lee's time imminently!

Other obvious issues include:
The car runs very rich for the first 30 seconds (but quickly starts to behave and purrs happily after this point). Alistair has lent me a CPR/WUR to swap in to troubleshoot.
Fascias (painted solid black).
The occasional small panel dent.
Windscreen surround not painted.

So, without further ado ...photos!

Just settled up and loaded onto the trailer:


MOT prep work (light conversion, new outer tie rods, handbrake adjustment and fog light installation):


Nervous wait just before the MOT slot:



MOT passed and registration complete (+plates):





Many thanks for your time. I will keep you all updated with progress

Hope to make the event in October so I can say hello to you all in person

Cheers for now!
Jonathan

[arranj]

Welcome Jonathan! Now I understand the "fascia problem" - that said though I think it's quite funky - I'm almost sold on the black look!

Are they those clip-on type "go faster" tailpipe adaptors?

Look forward to hopefully seeing you in October.

[A Van]

Hi Jonathan, car is coming on great !

The twin exhausts are welded on tips , look good I think

[Dan 6511]

Those exhausts look right up Mec's street

[Dangermouse]

Stainless windscreen trim looks nice too.

Car was previously painted? Looks like a fantastic job restoring it to stainless. Perhaps that's why the fascias are black?

[Domi]

Car looks very good, congratulation on your purchase
The twin exhausts are almost the same published into an old issue of DeLorean World.

[Admin-bloke]

Welcome, nice to see another D

[Dangermouse]

Found it!

Back when I was looking at buying a car, one of the first ones I saw on ebay in 2008 was this one, albeit painted. But it is clearly the same car, judging by the twin double exhausts.

06624-1.png (317.65 KiB) Viewed 4473 times

tiny pic, sorry

06624-6.png (14.75 KiB) Viewed 4473 times

here is a pdf of the ad I saved.

This may be old news to the OP, or it may give a bit of history to the car.

[jamesrguk]

The charcoal fascia's look pretty sharp, would certainly stand out at a gathering, I'm all up for small cosmetic tweaks, after all I once won an award for car with the most aftermarket stickers on at EuroTec one year.

J

[Jonathanisaac]

Many thanks for the warm welcome and positive comments

I must apologise for my delayed response. I had seen the majority of your posts but due to work being super busy I haven't had a good 5 minutes to be able to formulate a decent reply until now.


The exhaust tips are indeed welded on. They have grown on me quite a bit. Unfortunately the chrome isn't 100% so will have to replace them at some point

Thanks for the upload of the eBay ad PDF Dangermouse . I didn't have this so really nice to have as a part of the history portfolio. I have been finding various hints to the car's previous red existence so wasn't a massive surprise. The paintwork definitely looks very tired in those pictures . Hopefully a bit of a contrast now?

Since my last post I have:
Changed plugs, cap and rotor.
Replaced the gear shift gator for a new one from the club parts store/DMC-Europe (the one with the stainless frame/bracket).
Replaced the light pod and plate surround screws with stainless offerings. New pressed plate also fitted:


The front fascia wasn't quite fitting right on the passenger side (a small finger widths gap ...yuck). After a bit of investigation it seemed that due to urethane shrinkage (at a guess?) the alignment holes on the top edge were no longer at the same pitch as the bolts/collars on the clamping strip. A bit of warmth combined with some muscle and the collars are now in a better place although that said, still not perfect. (Please note the bonnet is unbolted and just resting in this photo ...thus the large gap between the leading edge and the fascia!)


Behind the grill, the paint wasn't particularly well adhered ...a familiar colour was revealed underneath!


I have also swapped out the WUR/CPR that Alistair kindly lent me to figure out the cold starting rich issue. Still some investigation to do in this area so more on that to come.

Hope you are all well?
Cheers,
Jonathan