About an hour and a half into the drive I noticed my temperature gauge rising.
We stopped when coolant steam started jetting out of the overflow tube of the expansion tank. We sat and let things cool down a bit, and added some bottled water we had with us. Went down the road another mile or so and the same problems occurred.
AAA to the rescue. (We requested a flat bed, as we've heard this is better for DeLoreans.)
After getting towed back home, our friendly neighborhood garage discovered a cracked coolant cap and loose belts, both of which may have caused us the problems.
We replaced the cap, tightened the belts, topped off the coolant, did a pressure test, frantically fixing everything, and tried again. We had a narrow window of opportunity to make the 20+ hour drive.
An hour out of town, a coolant hose blew, this time, great billows of steam pouring out of the exhaust vents, creating a spectacular visual effect! Yeah, I know. Wish I had taken a picture of that, don't you? Please accept my apologies. I was a little distracted.
Fortunately, the next exit was close, and we coasted down the off ramp into a very small mom-n-pop's convenience store. By now, it was lunch time, so taking a cue from our DeLorean Jedi master Bob Zilla, we took it as a sign. We ordered a couple of hot dogs and drinks and chips and just cooled ourselves off while the car finished it's show in the parking lot.
Later, I was able to make the repair myself, good enough to get us back home, but something is making the engine run hot and I don't know what it is.
(Besides this blistering weather!) A fun thing about the cooling system is whenever something happens, you really need to let it cool down for about 45 minutes to an hour before you can even work on it. -Or else risk getting scalded, of which I'm not a big fan. Normally, our D is trouble free, and you'll rarely find a blog post about unexpected problems, compared to the number of uneventful trips we've taken. But this particular episode has shaken me up. I'm always praising the car's performance and really don't like for it to be seen on the bed of a tow truck, or broken down on the side of the road. It just perpetuates the myth that DeLoreans are not good cars, which couldn't be further from the truth. It's a machine, that requires regular maintenance and care, and I know it's just a matter of time before I unlock the mystery of why the engine is unhappy right now.
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