Holler's Time Machine accident

[Dangermouse]

At the risk of being accused to "pulling a Chris", I just saw on FB that Oliver Hollers car has been involved in an "incident". I am reporting it here in the hope that he might get better advice than "oh, he must have been doing 88mph"

I know many people on here have met them in their travels. Both of the Hollers are OK and posted all the pictures to their FB page https://www.facebook.com/ToTheFuture.org/



As you may know, he is traveling through Europe in the TM, as usual raising money for the MJFox Foundation.

It seems that while in Greece, his car suffered some sort of failure on a rear wheel. My first thought was TAB, but that doesn't seem to be the case.



It will be interesting to here the final cause.

Good luck

[Morpheus]

I'm glad they are both ok, that easily could have been much worse. Aside from the Left hub assembly and related components, the damage on the back end looks cosmetic for the most part.

[Bitsyncmaster]

It could have been the TAB and that caused the stress on the hub. Or just a flaw in the hub casting.

[David T]

It could have been the TAB and that caused the stress on the hub. Or just a flaw in the hub casting.

Hard to tell from the pictures but it looks like something came apart in the hub. Could have been from the added weight of all the BTTF stuff or a prior curb hit but that is more common on the right side. Looks like the nut just came off and the wheel walked off the spline.

[Timebender]

Amazing how quickly this ended up on Instagram with the meme of "life imitates art- hover mode on".

[Shuttleman]

Not the first incident like that. It looks like the hub nut got lose and came off. This nut is critical that's why it is supposed to be replaced everytime. At least mark with torque seal or point line and torque check once in a while.

[Jonathan]

Does this look like something got sheered off? Where the two red arrows are pointing. I'm trying to rotate this around in my mind and figure out which way all of that is facing. Those two spots look like part of the hub or trailing arm itself came right apart. Caused by the hub nut coming loose, or this is the cause in the first place and the nut wasn't the issue?

Holler accident with arrows.jpg

[Shuttleman]

It is because the disk stay attached to the wheel sandwiched between the hub and wheel. When this assembly (wheel, disk and hub) gets loose because of the hub nut, it start to wooble. The only thing that retains it is the caliper holding the disk which breaks the caliper mounting tabs. It is not a Delorean specific type of failure.

[Josh]

This is what happened, I know because it happened to my car.

The wheel hub nut came off. This nut is a stover lock nut with no retaining mechanism like most vehicles (cotter pin or flat spot on threads). Stover lock nuts are not ideal as they only have 2 or 3 on/off cycles before they lose their hexagonal shape which locks them.
The second issue is the threads on the drivers side promote the nut loosening. You will not see a failure of this type on the passenger side as the threads promote the nut tightening as the car drives down the road.

So this nut will walk itself off and the hub will slide off taking everything with it. This includes the brake caliper.
The car will drop down to the suspension and drag on the lower control arm if the car is at stock height. If it is lowered it will drag on the frame and body tub, possibly the oil pan. Not to mention the suspension parts.

I have a strong belief that many deloreans on the road have this rear drivers side nut loose to some extent. It should be checked that it is torqued to 270 ft-lbs. Not just tightened with an impact. I would not re-use these nuts.
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[81dmc]

Don't most cars have cotter pins or a type of lock washer to avoid accidents like this?