RUST!

The driver's side seat (Just driver's seat?) well that seat came out pretty easily. The bottom of the seat is pretty rusted. I am not sure what I am going to do with these little pieces of history. But replacing them with new delorean seats is out of the question because the cost is so high. Just for new leather it is $500 and as we can see, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Aftermarket lightweight seats are in the $400-$600 range. Bottom line is I am not set on the seats for this car, anything that is black will do nicely.

The passenger's seat was not as easy to come out. I am betting that the car was not level and there was more water sitting on the passenger's side. Here is what the rails looked like.

Getting that seat out took some force. The whole thing was rust-cemented to the floor mats. After I was sure that force was both needed and safe I then got a 1x4 to use as a lever. The lever was quickly broken. I upped it to a 2x4 and it came out.

Condition of the flooded seats

I got some new info on this car. I heard this second hand, but the rumor is that this car was stolen then found in a creek. Some of the pictures make the seats look pretty good, but in reality they are destroyed.

Here is what they look like initially.

Yeah, these have got to go...

Door Vent Solutions

This blog software likes to upload the pictures backwards, but as you can see by the finished product, all of the gaps are filled by great stuff and then finally sealed with duct tape. Not just any duct tape, black duct tape. Basically all of the cracks were filled with "great stuff" (whoever named this stuff never got it on their hands). After the foam was trimmed down flat, I put the tape on it. Once everything gets put back together (in a few years) then I hope that it makes the HVAC work more efficiently.

Door Vent problems

The doors on the delorean have an vent that gets air from the dash. This is nothing new, many cars have this setup, but the delorean's setup is so leaky that the air does not make it through. Since this is a complete rebuild we might as well fix this problem before it even starts.

It is laughable at how badly the air duct lines up with the vent.

Door Rebuild 2

The passenger door is rebuilt, but not perfect just yet. Right now it will open but it takes some effort to get it to unlatch. I think once I trim the metal around the door latches it will close and open easier. I don't plan on putting the interior anytime soon so there will be time to adjust the rods. The next post will show the door vent upgrades.

Door rebuild 1

The passenger door was just mangled. This picture does not really show just how bent up some of the parts are, but the main level latch part had a big bend in it and the rods were a bit bent up too. Also the main door handle holder thing was bent down too. I found one of the front latch rods on the floor of the car all rusted. It took a while to sand down all of the oxidation, but it will be worth it in the end.

The latches worked pretty good, they did need to be cleaned up a bit. Some of the plastic is broken off on the top half of where the striker pin connects. On the door it's self the metal is bent up a bit and the plastic around the striker pin has some deep scratches on it. I will have to look into adjusting the door so that it will hit the pins cleaner.

Here is the door stripped down a bit.