Everything Else

In BTtF3, Doc and Marty burn out the DeLorean by trying to run it on whiskey. Doc was smart and any redneck can make moonshine. Why not further distill the whiskey into pure (more or less) ethanol and burn that? It would have worked, though the seals on the fuel lines would need replacing in a few years.

MisterDNA wrote: In BTtF3, Doc and Marty burn out the DeLorean by trying to run it on whiskey. Doc was smart and any redneck can make moonshine. Why not further distill the whiskey into pure (more or less) ethanol and burn that? It would have worked, though the seals on the fuel lines would need replacing in a few years.

Maybe because the writers were lazy hollywood hacks.

MisterDNA wrote: In BTtF3, Doc and Marty burn out the DeLorean by trying to run it on whiskey. Doc was smart and any redneck can make moonshine. Why not further distill the whiskey into pure (more or less) ethanol and burn that? It would have worked, though the seals on the fuel lines would need replacing in a few years.

I'm guessing it would take 3 - 10 days to distill the alcohol to ethanol. Doc is being shot in the back by Buford Tannen over a matter of $80 in 3 days, so in my opinion it's not really feasible.

The better question is why don't Doc and Marty get gasoline out of the other DeLorean that is in the Delgado Mine?
When Marty arrives in 1885 there should be 2 DeLoreans, one with burned up time circuits and the other with replacement components (vacuum tubes). The DeLorean in the mine should still have fuel in the tank, and if it's going to have to be towed in 1955 anyway (wheels rotted, etc.) then why not just take the fuel out of its tank?

The better question is why don't Doc and Marty get gasoline out of the other DeLorean that is in the Delgado Mine?
When Marty arrives in 1885 there should be 2 DeLoreans, one with burned up time circuits and the other with replacement components (vacuum tubes). The DeLorean in the mine should still have fuel in the tank, and if it's going to have to be towed in 1955 anyway (wheels rotted, etc.) then why not just take the fuel out of its tank?

I NEVER thought of that! But if they disturb it, it may affect time. If they put back one of the wooden boards wrong on the opening someone in the mine might see it instead of walking past, then the car is gone, vandalized, or in a government lab. You never know what the smallest change can do. Over a hundred years of sitting there, who knows who's been in there and if they tried to get in.

They attempted straight whiskey first, probably thinking "what could possibly go wrong?" And, if it simply did not work, they probably would have attempted one of the aforementioned ideas. The problem: they blew out the fuel injection manifold, and Doc guesstimated that it would take a month to fix. Taking that major of a component from the in-the-mine DeLorean really could have screwed up the time line, though I expect that taking the gas might not have. So, at that point, there was not much they could do.

A possibly better idea: leave town.

WolvesOfTheNight wrote: They attempted straight whiskey first, probably thinking "what could possibly go wrong?" And, if it simply did not work, they probably would have attempted one of the aforementioned ideas. The problem: they blew out the fuel injection manifold, and Doc guesstimated that it would take a month to fix. Taking that major of a component from the in-the-mine DeLorean really could have screwed up the time line, though I expect that taking the gas might not have. So, at that point, there was not much they could do.

A possibly better idea: leave town.

And that wasn't even the fuel injection manifold that shot out. That was the distributor, I think. Keep in mind I've never seen the movie on anything other than a 13" CRT with a VHS tape as the source so it was kinda blurry.

The object that fell out looked a distributor, though there might have been more to it than just the distributor. I was just going off of what Doc said happened. Maybe he was not much of a auto mechanic, or, more likely, hollywood was just wanting some important looking thing to fall out, and did not bother to correctly identify it. Regardless, the failure seemed a bit out of character for what I would expect whisky to do to the engine. But I am not an expert in modifying them with fusion reactors and flux capacitors either.

Anyway, with the engine dead, it did not matter if they came up with some fuel.