15 Jul 2020, 15:47
Blimey, has it really been over 2yrs since I updated this thread?
Well, a lot has changed here. The garage got finished (6 car capacity), and the new mancave was built on the
back of it.
After seeing the amount of work that Marek has had to do on his car for the L7X conversion, we decided not to
go that route, and a few months ago sold the donor Peugeot 406 to a friend who is building a Citroen Xantia Activa
and wanted the engine and gearbox for it.
Back end of last year, we'd even started toying with the idea of an electric conversion on the DeLorean, and got
chatting to a guy at the NEC about Jaguar iPace motors. However, having looked into it further, we soon realised
we'd be looking at a cost of between £10k-£20k, which is considerably more then we have available to spend on the car.
My beloved old 1989 Cavalier is finally going off for her bodywork resto on 1st August, so this will leave space in the garage
to start stripping the DeLorean down and see what we are dealing with. As the car is nose-in at the moment, we need to
pull her out, was all the dust and crap off, then get her back in with her engine bay at the entrance to the mancave,
so that we can pull the engine out and put it on a pallet. We can then see how bad the chassis rot in the rear box section
is and work out if its something we can fix ourselves, or something that needs to be done by a specialist.
We've quite a list of work to do, and much as I'm not a massive fan of automatic DeLorean's, my worsening arthritis means
that I simply wont have the physical strength to operate the clutch on a manual DeLorean in the future. This means that
one of the jobs will be fitting an automatic gearbox to the car. However, as many of you will know, an automatic gearbox
will not drop into a manual frame, so that will mean modifying the chassis somehow. We are also once again looking at
engine options, anything from a 2.9 V6 from an Espace to an Alpine A610 engine - however both will need ECU, looms, etc
and its scarily expensive once you start looking into it.
I've had the usual 'put an LS V8 in it' comments. No thank you. I don't intend to butcher the car more then necessary, plus
the adaptor plate for the LS is over £2000, and that's on top of £10,000 for an LS motor and all the other costs.
Another upgrade we will be looking at is power steering, and finding a compact electronic PAS system that will fit in the limited
space available.
So, hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to update this thread a bit further once we've got her in position in the garage and start
the strip down.
All being well, Flopsy will ride again in time for her 40th Birthday in July 2021.
Well, a lot has changed here. The garage got finished (6 car capacity), and the new mancave was built on the
back of it.
After seeing the amount of work that Marek has had to do on his car for the L7X conversion, we decided not to
go that route, and a few months ago sold the donor Peugeot 406 to a friend who is building a Citroen Xantia Activa
and wanted the engine and gearbox for it.
Back end of last year, we'd even started toying with the idea of an electric conversion on the DeLorean, and got
chatting to a guy at the NEC about Jaguar iPace motors. However, having looked into it further, we soon realised
we'd be looking at a cost of between £10k-£20k, which is considerably more then we have available to spend on the car.
My beloved old 1989 Cavalier is finally going off for her bodywork resto on 1st August, so this will leave space in the garage
to start stripping the DeLorean down and see what we are dealing with. As the car is nose-in at the moment, we need to
pull her out, was all the dust and crap off, then get her back in with her engine bay at the entrance to the mancave,
so that we can pull the engine out and put it on a pallet. We can then see how bad the chassis rot in the rear box section
is and work out if its something we can fix ourselves, or something that needs to be done by a specialist.
We've quite a list of work to do, and much as I'm not a massive fan of automatic DeLorean's, my worsening arthritis means
that I simply wont have the physical strength to operate the clutch on a manual DeLorean in the future. This means that
one of the jobs will be fitting an automatic gearbox to the car. However, as many of you will know, an automatic gearbox
will not drop into a manual frame, so that will mean modifying the chassis somehow. We are also once again looking at
engine options, anything from a 2.9 V6 from an Espace to an Alpine A610 engine - however both will need ECU, looms, etc
and its scarily expensive once you start looking into it.
I've had the usual 'put an LS V8 in it' comments. No thank you. I don't intend to butcher the car more then necessary, plus
the adaptor plate for the LS is over £2000, and that's on top of £10,000 for an LS motor and all the other costs.
Another upgrade we will be looking at is power steering, and finding a compact electronic PAS system that will fit in the limited
space available.
So, hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to update this thread a bit further once we've got her in position in the garage and start
the strip down.
All being well, Flopsy will ride again in time for her 40th Birthday in July 2021.