There are two Delorean's in 1885.
The one that the Doc arrived in.
The one Marty took back to 1885 after the electronics were fixed by the Doc in 1955.
Why not siphon the gas from the one Doc took back with him and put it in the one Marty arrived in?
Maybe it was out of gas???
My guess is Doc took the gas and used it for something else.
Its a pretty easy explanation that fits. Doc was building all sorts of weird inventions.
I have come to tell you that there is such a thing as time travel.
If that's true they should have mentioned it. It leaves a hole in the plot.
My guess is Doc took the gas and used it for something else.
Also - at that point when the deLorean was hit by lightning - It was flying was it not? I'm assuming the entire car had been converted to run off the mr. Fusion. Where else but the engine bay would you put the hover mechanism? So no gas anymore. And the mr. Fusion unit was damaged by the lightning.
Nah, at the beginning of 2 Marty asked the Doc if the Delorean "ran off of garbage" and Doc told him that Mr. Fusion had replaced the need for the plutonium but the car itself was still powerd by an IC engine that needed traditional fuel.
Why didn't he just go back to 1884 and leave some gas cans lying around for him to use? At some point he has the time machine train that can go anywhere.
You know with all that time - Doc should have been able to drill for oil and build and design a refinery. It's just a fractional distiller after all, just some pressure gauges, a number of grids, and vacuum on a number of pipes and there ya go.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/oil-refining4.htm
Granted the hardest part would be to drill the oil.
But he could have built a wood gas generator.
Refining gas probably would have been a waste of time when really all they needed to do was find a big hill with a pretty straight road on it. I guess maybe those are a little hard to find back then though.
Didn't have roads anywhere in the world in 1885. Just dirt trails and cobblestone or brick streets in the cities for pedestrians. Also in southern california - thats canyon country. Probably would have taken a big effort to move the delorean somewhere there existed giant smooth hills with nothing on them.