Thx again for posting all your progress. Very interesting! I can understand painting it white. But the snakeskin stuff.. cant imagine what he was going for there... to each his own. Looking good! GT
I'm so glad that I stumbled upon this thread. Keep up the good work; I look forward to seeing your progress as well as the end result
very kool! i'd love to retro-mod one, one day....brushed stainless body, full LS engine, upgraded suspension, big brakes, larger wheels similar to factory style, etc
Nice project! I've always liked these cars. And I agree Garnet, a resto-mod on one of these would be very cool. Do you have any pics or info on the regraining process? I need to do the same on the roof of my Brougham.
Just a quick update. He's been busy with a '49 Lincoln the past few days (hydraulic windows!) and hasn't been on the DeLorean as much, but he did manage to get the front bumper cover into the blaster to get it cleaned up. Let's just say he wasn't happy with the corn media. He promised me some new pictures over the weekend. I don't have many details on the regraining process so I'll get him to chime in, since he's now a member here. From what he told me, it takes the proper tool and is definitely a "by hand" thing to do it right. It takes patience and care.
I always thought it might. The car came with a sort "Scotchbright regraining pad" and i guess one was to scrub this back in forth to brush out a scuff and regrain the area to match. How one was to keep parallel to the original grain by hand i thought would be next to impossible. If you're off by a few degrees one would end up with a larger mess. GT
Dont believe everything you hear lol. Blast media, from corn to glass bead, bounced off this thing like supermans chest. Heavy sand might have blown a hole through it, so back to the stripper. It was 10 times worse than the stainless, stuck like glue. after that came the sand paper, and lots of it. Did however solve the ppg paint code mystery - an old singlestage formula that doesnt exist anymore. My paint store neighbor happened to sell ppg in the early 80s and we got a great sample. Will be urethane single stage to emulate the original. Lot of inconsistancies on the cars if u look around now from base clear to flat grey. Was a grey laquer single stage with a tiny bit of flake. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Clean nose was dry fit again with new fasteners, will come back off and go to the booth Image Unavailable, Please Login
Sorry, missed your first post. I'll try to get it. [edit] It's a late '81 build, but the owner would rather not share the VIN.
I've asked, because in the DeLorean community we're trying to locate every DeLorean ever made ; that's why I wanted to know the VIN-number of this white colored DeLorean ... (you could send it through PM if you want)
Ok here is the skinny on all the graining questions. While it is true you can achieve excellent results using all the tools I have on the table in varying order, I spent so much time on 2 fenders its just way not worth it, party because our car had been scuffed pretty good with a da prior to painting. The closest thing to the real 3 inch vonnegut wheel DMC used 30 years ago is a 2 inch wolfhead wheel from G&P machinery out of Indiana. Expensive but the time is worth a lot more to me - I ordered mine today and it will arrive next week. I will do the next panel with it and a final on the whole car when finished for uniformity. My only beef with all the different flapper wheels is the graining stripes you can see on just about every car out there now. If you look close you can even tell how wide a flapper they had. The scotch brite pad and stainless polish (a lot like cutting oil) from home depot will tone the stripes down, time consuming but worth doing. A special thanks to the piece of refrigerator I got from the scrapyard and the the quarter ass end of urethane off a Nissan I think (both pictured). My poor test dummies have been sanded, painted, cut, blasted, and even had rocks thrown at them. And thanks to the DMC forum guys, found an old blog from a few years ago turned me on to G&P. I dont want to reinvent the wheel, just the vonnegut wheel. Cheers! Image Unavailable, Please Login
Neat little cars for sure, but the owner community is nowhere near as pleasant as Ferrari. I do not miss the "What's your VIN?" thing, or Ed Bernstein.
Coming along nicely, well done. Grey or Black interior? Auto or 5spd? I'm just about to bring mine out of winter storage.
It's a 5sp with a grey interior. The carpet is pretty bad due to some water intrusion in the past, but otherwise the interior is really clean. I'll try to get a few more pics around the car. Personally I'm really interested in the results of his tests with the different graining techniques. Simple hand work produced the best result, but was a lot more work.
Each of the pieces for the front nose have been cleaned and refurbished Image Unavailable, Please Login
The hood has been stripped and the first pass was made with an air file using 80 grit. The factory grain is 60 grit which we will use on our graining wheel Image Unavailable, Please Login
The hood is in really good shape except for this one tiny ding in it. I will use a punch with a piece of rag taped to the end and carefully tap from the other side. If you look carefully at this pic you can see the swirl marks from the da paper still left. I sanded our test dummy piece and made the same marks, then took them out nicely with the new wheel Image Unavailable, Please Login
This is the new wheel. it needs to be spun at a lower than normal drill or grinder speed (factory used 1000rpm). an air drill will do nicely Image Unavailable, Please Login
I masked the back side of the hood just in case - didnt want stripper to get on the underside. 3m makes a new duck tape with no residue. 8 bucks for duct tape sucks but it did great on the outer edge and is much tougher than masking tape when it gets wet Image Unavailable, Please Login
The old white overspray will clean up with thinner and then i'll re-glue the weatherstripping which is in really good shape still. Love the gas door cutout still on the back side of the hood of this car. The earlier cars had a door to access fuel filler neck without raising the front hood Image Unavailable, Please Login