Get “En-light-ened”
by Chris Miles, VIN: 16409 As I’ve been helping more and more DeLorean owners with their cars, I’ve been hearing reports of their cars just dying. They’re either driving on the road and lose power, or they’re unable to re-start the car after a short stop. The first thing people tend to think is that they have a bad battery or alternator, but that isn’t always the case. As a pretty technically-skilled DeLorean owner, I’ve made myself intimately familiar with the instrument cluster and related electrical components. Unlike modern cars, the DeLorean has a finite number of warning lights. The two most important warning lights are the oil pressure light and battery light. The oil pressure light comes on when the engine is running and has low oil pressure – which means you should pull over immediately and shut the car off right away. The battery light is just as important as the oil pressure light. However, many owners never pay attention to whether the battery bulb lights up at all. The bulb is supposed to illuminate – and stay on – when you switch the ignition to position 2, but it will then turn off when you start the engine. (NOTE: if you have a DMC Houston alternator, the light may just flash in position 2.) If the battery light remains on after starting, that indicates you have a charging issue. However, if your battery light does not illuminate at all in ignition position 2, you’re probably going to have an issue with the charging circuit – or – the battery bulb is simply burnt out. I’ve helped a few owners diagnose their battery issues, so I want to stress that you should check your battery light the next time you start your DeLorean. So, what if you don’t see the battery light illuminate in ignition position 2? That means the alternator will not charge the battery. Eventually, the lights and engine will completely drain the battery. Sometimes this happens while you’re driving and there’s not enough power to spark the spark plugs and your engine will just die – but most often, there’s just not enough amps to start the car again. Again, it could just be that your battery bulb is burnt out (or, when you upgraded the binnacle lights to LEDs, you replaced the incandescent bulb with an LED instead of a new incandescent, and that’s bad – keep reading.) But, it could mean that you need to check your alternator wiring. Most DeLoreans now have a Motorola or some type of GM alternator. Both have a single wire that connects to the battery bulb circuit. The DeLorean battery light wire that connects to the alternator is brown with a yellow stripe. If you have a solid brown wire connected to your alternator, you’ll probably have an issue with charging the battery. The original Ducellier alternators used both the brown and brown/yellow stripe wires. The modern GM style alternators use a Dorman 85854 or 85118 oval connector – in which only one wire connects to the brown/yellow striped wire on DeLorean wiring harness. (see photo for my installation.). Having a functional battery light is also important, because it’s a warning that your water pump may not be spinning, since the alternator belt turns the water pump too. So, if you lose that belt, the alternator quits spinning and the battery light will illuminate – which also means you should immediately pull over and turn the car off, because you may end up overheating. And finally, a note on upgrading the light bulbs in the binnacle to LED. It’s fairly well known that the “battery” bulb must remain incandescent. The battery light circuit is designed to check for the resistance of an incandescent bulb. LED bulbs have less resistance than normal bulbs, so the circuit won’t work properly, and the bulb will not illuminate – which also means you will likely have charging issues. So, when upgrading your binnacle lights to LEDs, DO replace the original battery light bulb with a NEW incandescent bulb. Now you should be “en-light-ened” about this quirk of the DeLorean.
DeLorean LED Headlights
by Dave Tavres (DMC #10515) DMC #10515 now has LED headlights… and for A LOT less than you may have heard! I’m a huge fan of Toby Peterson’s Wings-A-Light LED Headlight Kit, but it’s out of my price range at the moment. The biggest reason I like Toby’s LED headlights, as that they LOOK stock (when not turned on.) That is, the GLASS just looks… ‘right.’ There are no weird silver bubbles or yellow squares where the SMD (surface mounted device) LEDs are… Toby’s have the right pattern in the glass and they conceal the LED bulbs perfectly. I’m also sure that with Toby’s background as a Boeing engineer, his system is fantastic. Again though, more than I can afford at the moment. Then Kevin Krinn mentioned this thread on DMCTalk.org to me. Whoever “DeLorean03” is, thanks to them for the tip… the single biggest tip, which is – the glass housings! The 4×6 inch glass pattern looks very much like the “original” glass (that is, the headlights that were on my car when I bought it – which likely were 30+ years old, since my car sat for 27 years.) While I’m not a nutcase about the car being original, I’m a bit crazy about the headlights. Those ‘bubble’ LED headlights just make the iconic front of the DeLorean look… weird. I don’t like it. That’s why I liked these glass housings (listed as “GS Power’s Chrome OEM style 4 x 6 inch Glass Lens H4 HID LED Halogen High Low Beam Headlight Lamp Conversion Replacement Kit (2 pc) | Lights Not Included” – along with the fact that they are just *$20* per pair! Yes… not on sale, not with a coupon… $20. They fit perfectly when I installed them, with no issues at all. The only note I have about the housings, is that they are missing the three ‘nipples’ found on most headlights, which are used by headlight alignment tools. Of course, the glass alone won’t get you headlights. You need to buy LED headlight bulbs. The glass is designed for the “H4″ bulb pattern, which is easily found online. I ordered the “LIGHTENING DARK Super Bright H4 LED Headlight Bulbs,CREE Chips Hi/Low Conversion Kit,6,000K Cool White – 10,000 Lumens, Adjustable Beam” bulbs, which were just $50 for two! Again, they installed and worked perfectly! They are ‘long’, but they fit in the headlight buckets just fine. The light output is listed at 6,000K so they are very ‘white’, but that seems to be common when I drive down the road these days and see newer cars with LED headlights. Of course, the ‘white’ light does NOT fit the stock DeLorean – but I don’t care. I’m more interested in ‘seeing’ while driving, rather than what the car looks like while driving. And honestly, only super-purists will be upset that the output of the headlights isn’t stock. Oh, and there’s a slight possibility you’ll need to do a serious headlight adjustment. I didn’t move the adjustment screws during installation, but when I first took the car out that night, the headlights were lighting up the tree-tops on my street. Lastly, I ONLY installed the two ‘low-beam’ headlights. Partly because this was a cheap test, and partly because I just don’t use the high-beams. HOWEVER, you DO need to buy the adapters for the install, or these LED bulbs will run on the ‘high beam’ setting by default. Thanks to Chris Miles for pointing out the fix, and Justin Trabue for the photo of the wiring fix. The DMCTalk thread does talk about a wiring change, but it’s a bit confusing… basically, you need to switch the socket wires to make these bulbs run as low-beams. Another side note… each LED has a heat-sync and a fan… so if your headlights are on while you’re standing there, you can just barely hear the fan through the fascia. So, all-in, it was $70. Not bad for a ‘cheap’ conversion that puts out a LOT more light. I’ve now driven the freeway and side roads several times at night, and other than adjusting them up a bit more, I’m very happy with the outcome. Todd’s installation of the same glass [su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgJACoJo1zU” width=”800″ rel=”no” modestbranding=”yes” https=”yes” playsinline=”yes”]
Bar Keepers Friend Soft Cleanser
Tried, and true… the liquid Bar Keepers Friend soft cleanser does a great job finishing the stainless. You can also use the powered stuff, but the premixed bottles make the already work-intensive process a bit easier. Only work on “small-ish” areas at one time, as the liquid often dries faster than you want, which means more work to clean it off. If you start one the right (or left) half of the hood, always work WITH the grain (obviously,) by either wetting the surface, then squirting on a healthy amount of BKF, and giving it a good, deep clean. You can also squirt it right onto a wet cloth and work one area at the time, between wash-downs. Keep in mind – after you do a good cleaning with the BKF, you’ll still want to wash the car afterwards, and/or use some stainless steel cleaner to bring out the final shine. It’s quite amazing how much better the stainless looks after BKF.