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WellI’m
sorry to hear about your problems Tony, but look on the bright side,………….. It’ll
make a great piece for the Mag! Any chance of a Photo of you holding
the stained, wet Y fronts, in your
injured hand, over your smouldering engine ? Chrispy -----Original
Message----- HappyNew
Year to all. This is Right
Hand Drive Man in Cold Southampton (yes, it's been snowing even here).
You don't have to read all this but I need to get it off my chest. Well,what an
exciting Christmas! Having broken my finger in the early hours of
Christmas morning, whilst attempting to plant a Christmas tree in its plastic
pot, I set off to see my sister in hospital in Chichester. Driving the D
down the M27 was a sheer delight as the sun was out, the roads were clear and
the car had started first go. Having
visited my sister, and stopped off in casualty to have my finger x-rayed and
strapped up, I headed back hopefully towards Southampton for a traditional
Christmas lunch. Admittedly I was a bit late, but I felt confident that,
with the car having been running fine on the way down, and with the engine
nicely warmed up, I could use a reasonable part of its potential to hurry along
the journey. Cornering fast round Chichester's wide open roundabouts was
great fun, and the turbo produced that lovely whine when exercised above 3500
revs. What few cars there were on the road I passed with ease and I felt
their envious looks as I sailed past. I wasn't sure of my speed, because
the speedo doesn't work, but I simply multiply the revs by a factor of 0.02and
subtract a bit and I'm sure that's close enough. Imagine my
surprise when I looked in the mirror and saw what I took to be fog. At
first it seemed odd that the fog was so localised, being behind me but not in
front nor to the sides. The awful truth dawned on me that I was
afire. I understand that wartime bomber pilots in these
circumstances used to dive, to try to blow the fire out, and I momentarily
considered an equivalent option, or even of driving off the road straight into
the adjacent sea, but a handy lay-by seemed a good first step. As I
stopped I saw the cars which I had so recently passed saunter by with their
drivers' looks of envy strangely changed to ones that approached
smugness. Upon opening the engine compartment I was greeted with a large
splattering of black oil and some flames issuing from the left hand side. After
initially feeling that the only thing I could do was unleash my
bladder on it (I was prepared to risk burns to my nether
regions, but the trouble is you can never go just when you want to) I am
pleased to report that the Delorean Owners Club duster, of which I have been so
proud, came to the rescue. I soaked it in a nearby puddle of filthy water
and thrust it down into the flames where there was a great resultant sizzling
and steaming. It didn't do any good to my broken finger and its bandage
(Don't get it wet, said the nurse - but she said nothing about getting it
covered in oil) nor to my smart Christmas shirt. The shirt would havehad
to have been the next soaking object to go into the flames, followed presumably
by my trousers, had I not found a bucket and old rags in the rubbish in the
lay-by. (The 'rags' later turned out to be a pair of boxer shorts, with
certain stains upon them. Think, why else would they be abandoned in a
bucket in a lay-by?) Putting hygienic considerations aside I successfully
doused all the flames and smoke and managed to clean up the engine. I replaced
the oil filler cap, which, as you have probably guessed, had blown off, letthe
engine cool a bit, and let my heart rate settle down. As I couldn't see
any damage I started up the car and watched it for a while until I was sureit
wasn't going to repeat the conflagration trick and headed slowly back to Southampton.
I had, however, a rather smoky exhaust. My garage now
says there is no compression in one cylinder so I guess it has a piston with a
hole in it. They are preparing to take the engine out and set about
repairing whatever damage has occurred. Does anyone have any advice for
taking the engine out, getting engine parts, and doing any other jobs whilst
it's out? In particular, I am concerned that the engine may have been
modified to take the turbo, possibly by fitting different pistons, which may
not be easy to identify. Any hints would be welcome, or even sympathyand
encouragement. My garage mechanics are specialised in Renault engines,
though they keep pointing out how old this one is. I gotmy
Christmas lunch at 9 o'clock in the evening. I feel a
severe pain in the wallet coming on, and it's not a good time of year. Tony Lawther Southampton
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