Two-halves DeLorean
The restoration project has finally gotten off the ground after a series of delays; and off to a big start: the separation of the body and the frame. This was my first time splitting a DeLorean, so I took plenty of time; I probably invested 10 hours into the body removal portion of the project from start to finish. There was no refrigerant in the A/C system, so that saved me a half hour at least by not having to recycle it. I thoroughly drained all of the fluids as a first step, but I spent quite a while cleaning the floor from the remaining amounts that inevitably drained out during the process.
One of the bigger steps is removing the rear fascia, which is necessary to clear the bumper.
The worst section of the rust; it's nothing too bad. Overall, the frame is in good shape.
A "before" photo of the bottom of the engine. The muffler looks pretty bad. That sounds like a good, albeit overboard, excuse for a State II engine ;) Seeing this just put a new suspension on the list too.
Rear undercarriage... mostly dirty, rusty, and old.
Front stablilizer and suspension: nasty stuff.
A few hours later... body separation or an awful case of "high-nose" syndrome?
Going up! The secret is to take it slow (a couple of inches at a time) and figure out what you've forgotten to disconnect. In my case, that was a piece of the rear wiring harness and the little ground wire that connects to the left top of the intake... and the front wiring, which had to be disconnected from the frame and sent up with the body. Also, don't forget to chock the wheels!
All clear!
The finished product... for this step, of course.
This is definitely a first for me - I've seen plenty of frames and rolling chassis, but never the underside of the fiberglass body. The center section is a differnet color because it's cleaner than the other parts. The few darker spots are where I got a little trigger-happy with the PB Blaster ;) The evaporator-to-accumulator nut was really stuck. Hopefully I didn't destroy the evaporator! That would not be fun to replace...
Now the fascia can be torn-down and re-painted. I'm going to have to figure out what to do about the damage on the left where the car had a run-in with something white at some point in the past. I have another used rear fascia with its own set of problems, so I'll fix both and use whichever one turns out better.
Luckily, the lift goes up far enough for me (6') to walk around underneath it, which is good because there's a whole lot of frame work to do before the body can come back down.
Another "before" shot.