Delorean DMC-12 build
Hi Guys – I’ve been meaning to do this for a while – and seeing as I’ll be at the gathering this weekend I though now a good time to do it.
So I bought the car in September 2018 with one owner from new and 5,600 miles on the clock. The car was in immaculate condition on the underside, but a bit rough around the edges on the bodywork – very dented and leaky. There were actually over 200 dents...!
My main intension for the car was to:
· Lower it
· Make my own wheels
· Keep it 100% returnable to stock
So, what has been done to the car? Essentially 3 main things – body restoration, air-ride and wheels. I didn’t want to touch the design of the car, as I’m sure you’ll all agree, it doesn’t need any visual mods – it was as cool as it could come straight out of the factory (bar ride height).
1) Body
I did a panel beating course last year and really wanted to do it myself, but with stainless, you can’t really prime and fill... you have to get it perfect... unless you would paint it (no!). So I took it to PJ Grady in Essex. Chris at PJ Grady thinks that it was in a hail storm at some point as there were so many “golf ball” dents in it – aparantly this is quite common on these cars. The big issue is that when you re-brush the body, any dent shows up as the flappy wheel sander doesn’t get into the bottom of the dents – so if you go down that line, you have to go the whole hog or nothing.
The difference between before and after is second to none – if anyone else has a DMC, I’d strongly recommend Chris’s service. Here are a few shots of some of the worst bits before and after.
2) Air ride
This car was born to be dropped. It just looks so much better. I’m actually amazed that this isn’t a thing more often with Delorean owners. There was one guy in Canada who did it in about 2010, but other than that I haven’t seen another.
The kit I chose was a KNTRL system - mainly because we are the manufacturing partner with them (I make the cases for the controls and ECU) but also because it has a retro cool look that really goes with the Delorean.
The installation was done by Jonathan at intermotiv. The kit was abviously not off the shelf and Jonathan had to do a lot of work to get the right bits to make the kit. The front shocks especially – these are very short, and the only ones we could find to fit were from a Morgan 3 wheeler... with a custom bell housing on the top. This allowed the shock to fit into the shock mounts and also maintain a good level of adjustment.
The rears were a bit easier – fairly standard shocks, that fitted in like a glove.
Jonathan CAD’s these up and makes the bags from scratch – you can see the amount of work that went into them!
The tank and management were fitted neatly in the bonnet/boot/frunk and a new floor was made as to keep the original one untouched in case I want to return it to stock.
The Delorean is renowned for having weak lower control arms, so before installing the front shocks it was important to fortify these, especially as the full force of the shock and spring was going through the lower shock mount as opposed to the spring sitting in the sprint seat as in the original.
The installation was completed in January and instantly transformed the car
3) Wheels
This is the main thing I wanted – I went through so many different wheel options before I realised that the originals were just too cool to ignore. The problem is that no one makes anything like them and I wanted an updated look to the car. The only solution was to try and make my own. I looked at converting the originals to splits, but I just couldn’t bring myself to mangle an original set, as well as the fact that they are expensive as they are. So I mocked up a quick design and sent it to a load of wheel manufacturers to see what they thought.
I had a few responses, but in the end chose Mario from RAD48. They make some amazing wheels, and make most of them to order. Customer service was 100% and he’s a great guy too.
Mario took my design and made it work. We went through quite a few different iterations ranging from flat to concave, sandwich mounted to front mounted, with loads of other tweaks along the way.
We ended up settling on a design we both liked and then the hard bit – engineering them to be structurally safe.
The design was then sent off the factory where the apparently make the AMG wheels , so a place you can trust will do a good job.
To work out the offset, I CADed and 3D printed a tool that sat over the wheel nuts with a measure along the length of it. I then got some cake bases and drilled a few holes in them with a guide I also printed. This allowed me to see what offset and what wheel size would look and work best. I settled on a 16” front and 17” rear – 2” larger than the original, and an offset a whopping 70mm larger than the originals on the rear when spaced (good bye wheel bearings) – 35mm when not spaced. I chose to space them as it meant that if I had to bring them in for any reason (e.g. driving abroad) I could just remove the spacers and eliminate any poke from the drive height.
The wheels went on and looked amazing – better than I had ever imagined, and well worth the cost and the wait. (My wife doesn’t know the cost, so please don’t ask!)
Then spacing them completed it
I hope you like it, and hope to see you guys this weekend. I’ll wear a T shirt with a Delorean on it so you can know who I am if you have any questions J
Oh, I also build a bluetooth boom box out of a hover board to put in the back
A massive thank you to Jonathan at Intermotiv, Chris at PJ Grady and Mario at RAD48 - I couldn't have done it without you 😎
Hi Guys – I’ve been meaning to do this for a while – and seeing as I’ll be at the gathering this weekend I though now a good time to do it.
So I bought the car in September 2018 with one owner from new and 5,600 miles on the clock. The car was in immaculate condition on the underside, but a bit rough around the edges on the bodywork – very dented and leaky. There were actually over 200 dents...!
My main intension for the car was to:
· Lower it
· Make my own wheels
· Keep it 100% returnable to stock
So, what has been done to the car? Essentially 3 main things – body restoration, air-ride and wheels. I didn’t want to touch the design of the car, as I’m sure you’ll all agree, it doesn’t need any visual mods – it was as cool as it could come straight out of the factory (bar ride height).
1) Body
I did a panel beating course last year and really wanted to do it myself, but with stainless, you can’t really prime and fill... you have to get it perfect... unless you would paint it (no!). So I took it to PJ Grady in Essex. Chris at PJ Grady thinks that it was in a hail storm at some point as there were so many “golf ball” dents in it – aparantly this is quite common on these cars. The big issue is that when you re-brush the body, any dent shows up as the flappy wheel sander doesn’t get into the bottom of the dents – so if you go down that line, you have to go the whole hog or nothing.
The difference between before and after is second to none – if anyone else has a DMC, I’d strongly recommend Chris’s service. Here are a few shots of some of the worst bits before and after.
2) Air ride
This car was born to be dropped. It just looks so much better. I’m actually amazed that this isn’t a thing more often with Delorean owners. There was one guy in Canada who did it in about 2010, but other than that I haven’t seen another.
The kit I chose was a KNTRL system - mainly because we are the manufacturing partner with them (I make the cases for the controls and ECU) but also because it has a retro cool look that really goes with the Delorean.
The installation was done by Jonathan at intermotiv. The kit was abviously not off the shelf and Jonathan had to do a lot of work to get the right bits to make the kit. The front shocks especially – these are very short, and the only ones we could find to fit were from a Morgan 3 wheeler... with a custom bell housing on the top. This allowed the shock to fit into the shock mounts and also maintain a good level of adjustment.
The rears were a bit easier – fairly standard shocks, that fitted in like a glove.
Jonathan CAD’s these up and makes the bags from scratch – you can see the amount of work that went into them!
The tank and management were fitted neatly in the bonnet/boot/frunk and a new floor was made as to keep the original one untouched in case I want to return it to stock.
The Delorean is renowned for having weak lower control arms, so before installing the front shocks it was important to fortify these, especially as the full force of the shock and spring was going through the lower shock mount as opposed to the spring sitting in the sprint seat as in the original.
The installation was completed in January and instantly transformed the car
3) Wheels
This is the main thing I wanted – I went through so many different wheel options before I realised that the originals were just too cool to ignore. The problem is that no one makes anything like them and I wanted an updated look to the car. The only solution was to try and make my own. I looked at converting the originals to splits, but I just couldn’t bring myself to mangle an original set, as well as the fact that they are expensive as they are. So I mocked up a quick design and sent it to a load of wheel manufacturers to see what they thought.
I had a few responses, but in the end chose Mario from RAD48. They make some amazing wheels, and make most of them to order. Customer service was 100% and he’s a great guy too.
Mario took my design and made it work. We went through quite a few different iterations ranging from flat to concave, sandwich mounted to front mounted, with loads of other tweaks along the way.
We ended up settling on a design we both liked and then the hard bit – engineering them to be structurally safe.
The design was then sent off the factory where the apparently make the AMG wheels , so a place you can trust will do a good job.
To work out the offset, I CADed and 3D printed a tool that sat over the wheel nuts with a measure along the length of it. I then got some cake bases and drilled a few holes in them with a guide I also printed. This allowed me to see what offset and what wheel size would look and work best. I settled on a 16” front and 17” rear – 2” larger than the original, and an offset a whopping 70mm larger than the originals on the rear when spaced (good bye wheel bearings) – 35mm when not spaced. I chose to space them as it meant that if I had to bring them in for any reason (e.g. driving abroad) I could just remove the spacers and eliminate any poke from the drive height.
The wheels went on and looked amazing – better than I had ever imagined, and well worth the cost and the wait. (My wife doesn’t know the cost, so please don’t ask!)
Then spacing them completed it
I hope you like it, and hope to see you guys this weekend. I’ll wear a T shirt with a Delorean on it so you can know who I am if you have any questions J
Oh, I also build a bluetooth boom box out of a hover board to put in the back
A massive thank you to Jonathan at Intermotiv, Chris at PJ Grady and Mario at RAD48 - I couldn't have done it without you 😎
