Putting the frame back into the car!

 

The following morning, Wednesday, (1 day before Eurofest!) my Dad and I had to drive to Paul O'Malley's house near Prosperous in Kildare, to pick up a new steering shaft I had bought from Paul. We did not arrive back in Baltinglass until 11:30am, but we then got straight to work on the chassis again. The chassis was pretty much completed at this stage, so we spent a bit of time going over the chassis from front to back, making sure everything was correctly assembled. We also made sure that the fuel and other lines running along the frame were securely fastened, by putting cable ties in a few places, and using new fastners.

We then started to lift the body of the DeLorean out the front of the house using the concrete blocks method. Once it was raised to a sufficient height, we pushed the chassis underneath, and lowered the body down again. It took a bit of pushing the body and chassis this way and that before they lined up enough to lower the body fully onto the chassis.

At some point during the day, PJ Kennedy, a DeLorean owner living in Cork, rang to offer to come and help get the car running on the following day, Thursday. I told him I'd talk to him again in the morning, to tell him whether I thought it would be worth his while calling - depending on how much work we got done that night.

At this stage, daylight was fading, and we did not have a torch! We spent a long time trying to get all the body bolts to mount up, but they were very difficult to see. In the end, we pushed the now rolling car back to the side of the house, and decided to go to bed. It was 11pm or so, and we still had to get all the body bolts in, hook up all the wiring looms in the engine bay, mount the exhaust, bolt on the rear bumper, fill and bleed the brakes, clutch and coolant, and get the car running - and the show was due to start the following day! I hadn't slept more than 3 or 4 hours any of the nights since returning from India, and was having nightmares about DeLoreans when I did actually sleep!! I'll admit I was almost ready to accept that my DeLorean would not be going to Belfast the following day, and I was so tired all I could think of was going to bed. We had a cup of tea, and my Dad, my wife Deirdre and I sat down and talked about our options! Deirdre could see that I was losing faith, but she knew how much it would mean to me to have my DeLorean at the 25th anniversary show over the following few days, so she talked us into setting our alarms for 5:45am (sunrise)the following morning to go to work on the car again. Thanks Deirdre!!!!!!

Here are a few pics of that day's work: