The tranny stuff has arrived!

The manual transmission stuff has arrived!

...but, my goodness, was the packing poor or what! The tranny had more or less been dropped into a cardboard box in which it rolled around and bent all sorts of brackets. The fact that it didn't fall off the pallet was pure luck!

Knowing very well that much of this will need attention to bring it up to par, here is my basic plan of action:

• Clean, degrease and inspect everything
• Take inventory
• Remind the seller of the stuff he missed
• Purchase missing stuff from DMCH or other sources for the stuff he simply didn't have
• Shotblast, paint or plate
• Re-torque/stake the large nuts on the transmission's input shafts

Sourcing manual transmission parts

Before I even think about handing over the car to SEO, I need to prep it, and the first (and biggest) thing is to convert to manual transmission - "stick shift".

The pursuit of the manual tranny stuff actually started over a year ago, in July 2013, when a fellow D owner in Florida had purchased a wrecked Delorean that he was planning to part out. Sometime last fall I started getting serious about committing to this projectso when he asked if I needed anything I went for it and sent him a parts list and a check for the full amount. qoo% up front to a compelte stranger - that's how many of us like to do business in the D community. Well, so much for that. 4-5 months passed and after no action and endless number of reminders I had finally had it, so I demnaded a refund. The good news was that I got my money back. The bad news was that my engine upgrade project was dead in the water. (This is where a reality show would cut to commercial.)

Shortly thereafter, in April 2014, another D owner with a parts car cropped up; this time from San Diego, CA. The car itself was VIN #712, born in April 1981, just a month before mine. ACcording to the seller, the car had been in good condition with 23K miles on it and had spent all of its life in California (he has actually found soem paper work showing that it had been owned by Hughes Aircraft at some point). Never been wrecked, just in need of an iverhaul. And as often happens when there is a second car, one car gets a new lease on life at the expense of the other; well #713 got the short end of the stick according to the seller, and was therefore aprted out. My gain.

Here is what I needed:

• Manual transmission (duh!)
• Complete pedal box assembly with three pedals
• Shifter
• Shifter linkage
• Cluch fluid reservoir
• Clutch master cylinder
• Cluch slave cylinder
• Clutch (hydraulic) line
• Cluch fork
• Clutch kit, i.e. pressure plate, clutch disk, throw-out bearing, pilot bearing
• Transmission mounting brackets
• Hardware for all of the above

Now some of the above are clearly "consumables" and much of it will be redesigned by SEO from scratch but, hey, wouldn't hurt to have it! (I have a detailed list if anyone is interested.) The price for the above was reasonable so I jumped on it! So here I am, waiting for my man in CA to remove and ship the stuff.

What will it be? A crate-full of great parts or junk? Drumroll, please!