DAMNED close call

[Spittybug]

I was driving home tonight after a day of helping Ian with his continuing electrical issues. Buzzing along nicely at 75 mph, admiring how well the car is running and how peppy it now is. Center lane on 249 in Houston, a major artery......start feeling a "clanking" metallic feeling in the steering wheel for a mile or so. Definitely felt like something banging in the steering column or under the plastic cover. Then, without warning a giant THUD on the passenger side front. I instantly thought I had a blow out but the steering went all squirrely on me and starting drifting left and right. Amazing how that left front fender defensive instinct kicks in! I immediately started wrestling it to the right shoulder (started at 75 mph remember) and was lucky that there was sufficient gap in the traffic that I didn't have a problem. I can hear things grinding at this point and control of the car is marginal at best. Started smelling rubber too. Got stopped on the shoulder, hazards on, popped door and went for a look. Wheel is at an odd angle and not at all healthy looking. Looking under car, I can see the lower control arm is totally disconnected from the wheel and is riding inside the bottom of the wheel. No nut on top. I know with 100% certainty that it had a cotter pin locked castle nut on it last week when I was under there checking my A/C drain.

I called AAA (first time I've needed it for any car in 9 years) and half an hour later a flat bed picked me up and took me home, just a couple of miles away. He backed it into my driveway and the two of us got it in the garage where tomorrow I will get it up on the lift and fully assess the damage. Rolling on/off the flatbed, the wheel is now at a 45* angle and certainly not pointed in the right direction.

I so very, very easily could have put that thing into another car or the barriers on either side of the road. I was extremely lucky. Moral of the story is if something doesn't sound or feel right, STOP and check it right away!!!

[Kenny_Z]

That sounds terrifying. I'm glad you and the Delorean got out of it safely.

[Tillsy]

Scary story mate - most important thing is you came out of it okay.

Keen as mustard to learn what it is that happened to your D :(

[opethmike]

HOLY SHIT! Very glad you are alive and uninjured, Owen!

[Dangermouse]

Holy crap. Glad you are OK.

Looking forward to the forensics.

[DMC5180]

Your one lucky dude! Was the ball joint completely out of the spindle taper? I wonder if you lost the nut or snapped the ball stud? Are the lower ball joints OE or Replacements?

[Mark D]

Glad to hear you are OK and there was no major damage. I'm really interested to hear what failed...lower ball joint?

[Ryan King]

Clearly your DeLorean knew you were satisfied with its recent stellar performance and decided to mix things up. :)

[thirdmanj]

Duuuuuuude:jawdrop: yeah, it'll be interesting to read more about it! I hope it's nothing too serious!

[cineman]

Bad story, but good enought ending...! What was your first thoughts when you lost control ?
Let's see some photos... of control arm, balljoint...

[WelmoedJ]

Geezz.... that must have been a scary moment!!!
Good to know you escaped with only adrenaline pumping, I presume.
And to the car's damage, like all I need to know what caused it (pictures too!).

[Michael]

Glad to hear your damage is as light as could be and you are OK. I guess one thing about the Delorean is it sort of forces you to keep a tighter than average grip on the wheel. Most other cars and most other people would have a finger or 2 resting on the wheel with a casual grip.

[Spittybug]

Thanks everyone. It was indeed pretty scary, but reflecting on it, I'm kind of surprised how calm I was about it at the time. Probably a function of always being "aware" when driving that car. You never know when something might happen (it is 30+ years old after all) so I think you tend to be more tuned-in when driving.

I'm getting ready to go get it on the lift which may be hard since I'm not centered and rolling this car isn't really an option right now. I may try furniture slides under the wheels on my wet painted floor. Only need a few inches. Here are two initial pictures. The wheel is totally "dangling" in the well. More to follow.

[justlooking]

Just tell us who's ball joints you have.

[DMC5180]

You can Also simply reach around the back of the wheel and snap a few pictures on a macro setting. You should be able shift the car with small movements on floor jack.

[Dangermouse]

:popcorn:

[Jonathan]

Wow dude. Glad to hear you and the car and the guard rail didn't get to know each other better. Hopefully you get it all sorted out relatively painlessly.

You mention the locked nut up front on the suspension. This is part of the front end recall, right? Would anyone mind posting pictures (photos maybe, not that sketch from the manual) of what this locked nut looks like? I have never been 100% convinced my car has had all the proper recalls done on it, and I lost my chance for that check-up when I couldn't make it to the DMCMW-ODOC tech day. Thanks!!

[DMC5180]

Wow dude. Glad to hear you and the car and the guard rail didn't get to know each other better. Hopefully you get it all sorted out relatively painlessly.

You mention the locked nut up front on the suspension. This is part of the front end recall, right? Would anyone mind posting pictures (photos maybe, not that sketch from the manual) of what this locked nut looks like? I have never been 100% convinced my car has had all the proper recalls done on it, and I lost my chance for that check-up when I couldn't make it to the DMCMW-ODOC tech day. Thanks!!

If you have a castle nut and Cotter pin you've had the recall done. The original used a Nylon locking nut. Also look for the RED and BLUE paint dots located next to the Ignition resistor. This indicates compliance with front end Recalls.

[stevedmc]

Glad to hear you are okay. See what happens when you replace K-Jet? The car gets driven and more stuff breaks. I'm curious if there were any cracks on the control arm or if it was simply a ball joint issue.

Regardless, this is why I belive Henninger's LCAs are a necessity. Sure they aren't stainless but they are a whole lot beefier than they have to be. I certainly dont want an LCA failure while I am driving.

[Squall67584]

Geez that's scary! Glad to hear you made it okay. It'll be interesting to see what you find out.

[Spittybug]

Good thing I still had that small car jack to use under the damaged suspension area....allowed me to roll car enough to center it between lift posts.

I've removed the wheel and inspected the damage. Looks like I've got some purchases to make :sad30:. Take a look at the closeup shot of the stud. SHEARED OFF. I went back through my records and photos of when I did the front end refresh a few years ago. The lower ball joints were nice and tight, still protected in their boots, good threads and castle nuts so they stayed in place. Oh, to have a real time machine....... The wheel rim got a nice lathe turning by the lower control arm but I think it will clean up OK. I'll obviously get the tire rebalanced. No apparent rubber damage nor wheel well damage. The lower control arm took a pretty good beating though and it would appear that my reinforcing and boxing may indeed have paid dividends as it pretty much stayed in one piece while getting eaten up. The last photo is the driver side lower arm. It looks like it banged the brake rotor shield a bit and got scuffed up, but there ain't no way in hell I'm trusting that part anymore.

Nasty.

Anyone ever had any experience with dealing with an insurance company for something like this? I have Haggerty classic and have never made a claim, but given that I had to be towed in an emergency situation, have this photo documentation and of course since replacing the damage will be expensive, I think I should be looking into filing a claim.

[DeLorean03]

Man, that is a pretty scary story. I'm glad your car escaped the really bad damage of becoming one with a guardrail, and obviously more importantly, I'm glad nothing happened to you bud.

So, do you know exactly what failed and what parts you're going to have to replace? I see the pictures, but I wanted to ask before I jump the gun too far ;).

[jawn101]

Wow, that's some scary stuff. To echo those before, were these original factory ball joints, DMCH replacements, something else? Experiences and pictures like this will make a lot of us give a lot of serious thought to our front suspensions, and the more we know the better we can all make our cars.

Glad you're OK, and the car more or less as well! Keep us posted on what you find and what you decide to do about it.

[thirdmanj]

I don't know about Hagerty, although I believe someone on this site said they used them, made a claim and were promptly dropped. But that's hearsay a suppose. In my case I have State Farm, once I took a corner at about 45mph and slammed into a curb. Dammage was about 9gs worth but they paid up no hassle and didn't even raise my rates. Good luck to you dude!

[DMCMW Dave]

It will depend on whether you hit something (pothole, curb, banana peel) or it was just a straight mechanical failure of the car. At some point they will need to make a determination.

If it was a mechanical failure, and then you hit another car, the crash damage would be covered but not the underlying cause. Assuming that could be determined.

Im my experience Hagerty has been great to deal with, but they do have rules on use, and if you are obviously driving the car more than a typical show car I'd expect them to drop you.

[Spittybug]

I just got off the phone with them and am awaiting an adjusters' call. I have a declared number of miles that I'm allowed to drive (non-commute) and I'm well under it. It may indeed be considered wear and tear or mechanical failure, but the fact that the bolt actually sheared must indicate that some external force or trauma caused it. Given the condition of roads these days, especially the ones I was driving on to get from Ian's house, I'm surprised I still have ANY suspension.

[Bitsyncmaster]

I'm glad your OK and your car survived. But I wish I had not seen your post until I got to the Auto Train today. On the beltway, all I was thinking about was my LCA falling off.:cry:

[David T]

You mentioned you did a "front end refresh" years ago. Can you explain exactly what you did (if anything) to the ball joints? You mentioned "nice and tight". Did you actually check the torque of the castle nut on the ball joint? Did you tighten it more? I can think of a couple of reasons this could happen without hitting something.
1) overtorqued castle nut putting too much stress on the stud. This happens when you torque the nut and then have to turn it to line up the cotter pin hole and you turn it too much.
2) undertorqued castle nut allowing the stud to be subjected to bending stresses.
3) defective ball joint. This last one is the most troublesome. If the ball joint was an OEM part this would be cause for alarm for the whole fleet. It would mean this part is time-lifed and should not have failed in this manner. This would seem rather unikely, by now we would have seen more failures of this type. More history on the parts would be helpful. For instance, how many miles on the car? Was the car ever flooded? How often, if ever, was the joint greased? Was the joint ever removed and how? Is there any accident history on the car? A local owner just had a minor accident with his car. He hit the sway bar bracket on a raised manhole. It bent the frame. Haggerty was very generous with the amount they determined it will take to repair. That is the difference between a cheap insurance company and a good one! If your company will cover this they may also cover the tow. They may decide to pay off since this could have been MUCH worse. You could have hit another car, rolled over and totaled your car, gotten hurt, hurt someone else, etc. Buy a Lottery ticket while your luck is still good!!!!!!!
David Teitelbaum

[jawn101]

...
3) defective ball joint. This last one is the most troublesome. If the ball joint was an OEM part this would be cause for alarm for the whole fleet. It would mean this part is time-lifed and should not have failed in this manner...

Massive +1 on this. We really need to know what ball joints you were running here.

[LEVY]

Whatever it was, you have a very clean car, seems like you take good care of it.

Glad you and your car ended up OK.


LEVY



Massive +1 on this. We really need to know what ball joints you were running here.

[DCUK Martin]

Can you take a high resolution photo of the broken end of the ball joint stud before it has a chance to rust over much. This will very likely show "beach marks" which are the effect of crack propagation over a period of time.

Remember the weight of the car does not hang off the nut, it hangs off the taper lock which is maintained by the torque on the nut. What you describe sounds like the taper lock failed and the nut survived only so long, but this is pure speculation from me.

[Spittybug]

Here is a closer up shot of the ball joint now removed. I really can't get too good of a shot of it, but examining the sheared face I cannot see any pitting or indication of a crack or stress fracture that may have been present for a while. Who knows though? The second shot is of the control arm which, upon closer examination, is only minimally damaged and should "buff out". :giggle: Looks like another excuse to get the welder out and beef it up some more. If not satisfactory, I'll go the Henninger route I think. The rough tears on the side really aren't bad; they are the folded over side pieces and will straighten out. The rim around the ball joint really took no real damage.

When I refreshed the front end a few years ago I left the ball joints as they were in the lower arms. They had no slop in them, felt very "tight" in that they didn't wobble and showed no wear, and the boot was intact and full of grease. Given the condition of the one I just lost (other than the shearing!), I would have to say that they aren't original; the grease just looks too good to be 30 years old. Would stock ones have had plastic tie wraps to hold the boot? This did. Since I was not the owner who may have replaced them, I can't tell you where they are from. Photos of Hervey's joints show metal clips on the boots. Before me, the car lived in Long Island and I do know that it has been to Grady's at some point in its life, but for what I don't know. I've had it since Nov. 1986.

To the best of my knowledge and to my eye, the car has never been in any accident (other than a fender bender of some a&& backing into it when I first got it, but that was rear quarter). Nor is there evidence of flood. It is of course possible that the castle nut was over or under torqued because of the cotter pin alignment like you pointed out. I installed it, but recall nothing of the event. I presume the best way to avoid this in the future is to shim it?

New ball joints on both sides for sure. Herveys ($17.95 or $49.90 for reinforcing ring equipped ones) or DMCH ($89.95 ... must be gold plated I guess?) I know many of you are asking ME based on this failure, but since I don't know whose I have, I don't know whose to buy!

***Martin, just saw your post. I had to hammer pretty good to get this guy to pop out of the arm. I don't think the taper lock failed. Here are better resolution picture of the face.

[Mark D]

It seems to me like those would be the original ball joints, or if they had been replaced prior to your ownership of the car they would have been NOS factory parts. I think DMCH had OEM ball joints in stock until sometime until the early 2000's when they ran out and sourced their 'improved' replacements.

There is a lot of info on what is currently available for replacement ball joints here:

http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?2408-Ball-Joint-Discussion-Revisited

I went with the DMC Club UK joints since the taper/installation geometry is an exact match to the original specs and they have a thicker bottom plate. If the ones DMCH is now selling are 89.99 they may have switched over from their previous parts source to the DMC Club UK parts.

The ones previously available from DMCH were failure prone, most likely because of heat related issues when machining the snap ring groove on the top edge of the ball joint.

Hervey's are a cross referenced ball joint normally used on a VW. He custom machines a snap ring groove in his (which is sometimes hit or miss) but the biggest issue is that the taper geometry is not correct. More details above in that link.


....

Also, from that pic above of the sheared off face of the joint it looks like there is rust in part of the area where there should be clean sheared metal. To me this indicates that there was a crack propagating its way through the metal until it finally sheared off.
http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=10978&d=1339618217

It could just be a weird angle though, from the other pics I can't tell if it's rust, or just a different grain to the surface.

[lazabby]

Main thing is that you are ok. Could have been dangerous.

[Spittybug]

Researching ball joints and control arms..... Josh, you ready with your stainless ones yet? I'd be willing to be your test mule for a good price!

The Euro ball joints would appear to be the fan favorites. But do I go and put them in same old same old control arms? Heninger's look nice but man they are pricey.... what ball joints does he put in them, does anyone know?

The $$ add up quick with suspension stuff. Cheaper to go EFI.... I couldn't make it to DCS, but if any of the vendors are having special pricing, I'd love to hear about it~~

[DMCMW Dave]

This is a failure that occurs (luckily not very often) with the OE joints. Indicative that it has likely been removed/replaced a time or two, and the castle nut often gets pulled tighter each time. Torque spec on these is relatively low, so they are easy to overtighten. With a castle nut it has to go a whole flat tighter to line up the cotter pin, so it's easy to go too far. This is similar to lug stud failure on high mileage cars that have had the wheels removed many times with impact wrenches.

The grease doesn't mean much, there are grease fittings so the grease should be only as old as your last oil change.

DMCH is now selling the the Euro club joints. I've seen Heninger's but I did not recongnize them. I don't recall them having grease fittings.

--------

Problem is - EFI won't hold your car off the ground. Maybe a hover conversion?

[DMC5180]

This is a failure that occurs (luckily not very often) with the OE joints. Indicative that it has likely been removed/replaced a time or two, and the castle nut often gets pulled tighter each time. Torque spec on these is relatively low, so they are easy to overtighten. With a castle nut it has to go a whole flat tighter to line up the cotter pin, so it's easy to go too far. This is similar to lug stud failure on high mileage cars that have had the wheels removed many times with impact wrenches.

+1

I can relate to the last statement too. The last couple tire rotations on the wife's car popped a couple studs. One during removal. The car gets tires rotated every 6K or so and it just rolled over 300K last week.

[David T]

The ball joint looks to be original. The tie wraps could mean the joint was removed and reinstalled presumably to replace a torn boot. If all of this is so then the most likely scenario is that the joint was removed and reinstalled at some point in the past, over torqued and caused the failure. The lesson here is that we must, in the future, be very careful not to overtorque the stud. Overtorquing stretches the stud. You also do not want to remove the ball joint too often from the lower control arm. It is a press fit and each time it will fit a little looser. If necessary you can use a thin washer on the castle nut or file it a little so it will line up with the cotter pin easier. Or undertorque the nut and finish it up by lining up the cotter pin hole. This was a problem area going WAY back and was an early recall.
David Teitelbaum

[Rich]

Anyone ever had any experience with dealing with an insurance company for something like this? I have Haggerty classic and have never made a claim, but given that I had to be towed in an emergency situation, have this photo documentation and of course since replacing the damage will be expensive, I think I should be looking into filing a claim.

Let us know how what your Hagerty contact says about this. As noted in another post, car insurance isn't intended to cover mechanical failures, only accidental or collision damage. A similar situation might be a tire failure that in turn ruins the rims or bends the fender on this or any car. No claim, just a cost of ownership.

There could be one other remedy. If the right front tire hit a big pothole and this caused the failure then you might be able to claim something from the road authority, be it state or local. Bent rims and tire damage are often compensated if the driver can show that the road was in poor repair in a particular place and that this caused damage under otherwise reasonable conditions. This seems unlikely based on your first post.

Happy to hear that the damage was contained and that it ended safely for you.

[Spittybug]

Hagerty sent out an adjuster yesterday and we went over the car. I should hear soon. We're under that assumption that a pothole or piece of crap on the road was the catalyst for the failure.... The wheel rim needs refinishing, a new driver side lower control arm with bushings, ball joint, a few hours labor and a wheel alignment. Will have to wait and see what Hagerty ends up agreeing to, but it should be on the order of $1000 I think. So far they have been great to deal with.

I think that other than glass breakage, this is the only time in my entire life that I've made a claim on my car insurance. That's since getting my license back in ~1980. I've had a couple of claim against the other guy's insurance when people have hit me, but never on mine. That's pretty amazing.

[Spittybug]

I have removed both front suspension assemblies and am disassembling. Mental note to self, take the axle nuts off before removing everything from the car. Hard to do in the vice. No way can I get the back nuts off that hold the stub axle. I'm removing everything I can so that I can send it all out for powder coating.

Obviously new lower ball joints are needed. After 31 years I think I'll also replace the upper ones, whether they are a failure prone part or not. Maybe I'm just a little paranoid under the circumstances. I notice the replacement ones have a flange with four holes to mount them. Nuts & bolt attachment. My stock ones would appear to have been factory attached to the upper arm; no nut and bolts, some kind of studs with nipples on the topside. I am correct in presuming these must be ground off and the studs hammered back out to remove the ball joint?

I've never had parts powder coated before. Do I have to press out all bushings before hand or can they be masked off from the sandblasting and paint? Does the oven get hot enough long enough to damage them?

Thanks.

[WelmoedJ]

I've never had parts powder coated before. Do I have to press out all bushings before hand or can they be masked off from the sandblasting and paint? Does the oven get hot enough long enough to damage them?

You need to take every part off of the LCA.

Bofore yoy send it off for blasting and powder coating, you may want to consider having the LCAs re-enforced by having to open bottom closed.
Makes them much stronger.

Welmoed.

[Spittybug]

Thanks Welmoed, but I'm going to be buying new LCAs I'm pretty sure. I chewed one of them up in the "incident". Seriously considering Byrne's but also waiting for Josh to answer me about SS ones.
I've also Googled a bit and found that all bushings/bearings should be removed prior to painting or else they will be destroyed or ooze grease out and ruin things.

I looked in the manual too and it says that to remove the upper ball joint one must cut/spit the studs in the top side and then the replacement goes in with nuts and bolts.

[WelmoedJ]

It may be wise to compare the weigth of original LCAs (also the ones with the re-enforced bottom) with the one Birne offers.

It is always advices to keep the weigth of the non dampened part of the car as low as possible.
I'm not sure if I used the correct term for it but I hope you will understand what I am trying to explain.

[Spittybug]

I got a check today for $666 and change. I wonder if I should be worried about the meaning? :evilgrin: They applied a $250 deductible, so the actual appraised damage was $916.

I've been taking the time to paint my parts and replace the hardware. I found a good place just around the corner from me that carries all different sizes of metric, in 10.9 grade. They will be my first choice now as they are better than Ace. My upper ball joints ended up being just fine; I couldn't justify the effort and expense of replacing them. I also bailed on the concept of powder coating when I got the prices and I wasn't able to get the nuts off the back of the steering knuckles in any case. I had no desire to press out my couple-year-old wheel bearings either. I ended up using black truck bed liner paint that has plastic ingredients and is really tough stuff and abrasion resistant. I've used it on other things before and it is as tough as nails. I'm very pleased with the results.



I definitely need new lower ball joints. There seems to be no question that the European versions are the best.
The interior rim of my wheel got lathed, but I've managed to clean it up pretty good and after a balance it should be perfectly fine.
My choice is now whether or not to actually replace my lower control arms with Bryne's (which would involve about $200 out of pocket for both, and I don't believe they come with the better ball joints, do they?) or to weld up nose on the one damaged one and spend the money on the LCA outriggers now being offered. I suppose I could always give it a try and if I don't like the way it comes out, I still have the option. All it really needs is a horseshoe shape wrap around the nose to replace some of the flange metal that wore down inside the wheel rim. The unit didn't warp or break in any way. They are already boxed in. The bushings all seem fine when I mount the arm and try to move it through its motions.
Alignment.


Any opinions (he asks naively) on which is better bang for the buck, beefier arms or boxed stock arms with EU club ball joints plus outrigger support brackets?

[Mark D]

If you go with Bryne's LCA's you should be able to get them without ball joints installed so you can put in your own DMC club UK ball joints from your vendor of choice. Or you might be able to get Bryne to install them for you.

The stiffer LCA's will give you piece of mind that they won't fail like the OEM LCA's could, but wont' give you any upgrade in handling like the DMCEurope supports will. It sounds like your boxed in LCA's survived pretty well, all things considered. If you can repair your one damaged LCA I would probably go that route and upgrade with the lower supports.

[David T]

If you did not mess with the tie rod ends you do not require an alignment. You may want to replace the rubber on the upper shock mounts. Depending on the condition of your brakes you may want to rebuild the front calipers and replace the hoses. Maybe new pads too. Be sure to properly torque all of the hardware and cotter pin it. Double check all of your work. Be careful where you get the paint, you do NOT want it to get onto any of the parts with tapers like the ball joint studs or tie rod ends (or the parts where they fit into). The upper ball joints do not carry any weight so they are not under a lot of stress so they last a long time. Just keep them tight and lubricated.
David Teitelbaum



If you go with Bryne's LCA's you should be able to get them without ball joints installed so you can put in your own DMC club UK ball joints from your vendor of choice. Or you might be able to get Bryne to install them for you.

The stiffer LCA's will give you piece of mind that they won't fail like the OEM LCA's could, but wont' give you any upgrade in handling like the DMCEurope supports will. It sounds like your boxed in LCA's survived pretty well, all things considered. If you can repair your one damaged LCA I would probably go that route and upgrade with the lower supports.

[DMCMW Dave]

[QUOTE=Spittybug;62143]........... replace my lower control arms with Bryne's (which would involve about $200 out of pocket for both, and I don't believe they come with the better ball joints, do they?)QUOTE]

Byrne's come with ball joints installed, but I can't determine which ones they are.

[john 05141]

That is some scary stuff!!!

Question, Would Ed's Lower arm support have prevented this, or with this Lower arm spupprt create even more stress, increasing the chance this ever happening?

Welmoed, Is a Baljoint the same as "Kogelfusée"? I had mine replaced this spring. (I think just one side tough)
Like Dave, I tend to keep that in mind while driving.

John

[DCUK Martin]

Ed's brackets would not have prevented the lower arm from hitting the tarmac and would make no difference to the stress the ball joint *thread* experiences.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[Spittybug]

Martin is correct. The LCA in fact fell into the now tilted wheel, thus grinding the aluminum somewhat. Not too badly though. The braces would not have had any bearing on this happening or the ultimate outcome.

I've welded a piece of steel that I wrapped around the "nose" of the LCA where it got a little worn down and frayed. You can't add too much or you lose your clearance between it and the dust shield of the brakes. I'm still dressing the weld and shaping the repair so that I don't have clearance issues and I think it is going to be a full success. I'll add pictures later.

[Spittybug]

All fixed.

LCA fitted with a strip of steel around the nose, welded to the sides. Ground down to the original profile, but it is now a bit longer than before. Doesn't *appear* to be hitting the dust shield of the brake, but I will get it back up on the lift after a little driving to see if it needs trimming a bit. No obvious sounds or sensation of such during test drive.
New Euro ball joints
New grade 10.9 bolts for dust shield and hub mounting on steering knuckle
New truck-bed-liner paint on steering components. Good tough stuff.
New nylock nuts on all pivot bolts
Everything torqued per spec, upper ball joints "guesstimated" since I couldn't get a wrench in there. Only tightened to the point where I could get cotter pin through bolt. Felt nice and firm with wrench.
New grease in the upper ball joints. Lowers came pre-greased.
Still need to get wheel balanced and front end aligned, but test drive went well. The passenger side tire shows more wear than the driver side; I don't know if that happened during the "incident" or if (more likely), it is toed in and is scrubbing a bit. Appreciably less vibration in steering, so something must have been awry before the bolt snapped. Stretched?
Bled all 4 brakes, draining old fluid out and replacing with new. NASTY brown.
Decided to do clutch too since access to my slave is now simple. EVEN nastier brown! I have been less than diligent doing this and am resolved to get it on the regular maintenance schedule. When doing the clutch I noticed the rubber line between the reservoir and cylinder looked floppy and it ripped when I pulled on it. Very deteriorated. Luckily, easy to replace with a length of good "transmission" fluid quality piece of hose I had in the hose bucket.


Looks like I'll make Coffee & Cars tomorrow morning after all!

[Chris 16409]

Wow, I wouldn't have expected that lower control arm would be salvageable since the nose piece was detached! I'm interested to see how the repair turned out. What made you decide to go against new control arms?

[DCUK Martin]

. Luckily, easy to replace with a length of good "transmission" fluid quality piece of hose I had in the hose bucket.


Transmission fluid and brake fluid are quite different - do check that hose is good for brake fluid too or it will eat through it pretty fast.

[Spittybug]

Wow, I wouldn't have expected that lower control arm would be salvageable since the nose piece was detached! I'm interested to see how the repair turned out. What made you decide to go against new control arms?

The nose piece wasn't detached, I don't think I said that. It did however get a bit worn down as it lathed the interior of the wheel. I had previously boxed and reinforced my arms and they haven't distorted in any way. The last picture is of the damaged LCA nose, but note that my original reinforcement around the ball joint is intact. The first picture shows the driver side one (left) and the damaged one after my repair. This was taken before it was fully dressed and made to look nice. You can see some black marker coloring on the right hand one where I needed to nibble away steel to get the right profile. You can't really see from these pictures, but there is no shortage of steel wrapped around the nose of these LCAs. The last shot is to show how close the clearance was between the LCA and the dust shield. This middle was a couple of years ago. After this refresh I've returned everything to black.

I decided against new ones only because of the success of the repair. I was already boxed and reinforced and have poly bushings in the sway bar mounting hole so I reasoned that the upgrade to the beefier LCAs wasn't going to be that big of an upgrade for me. I did buy the new EU club ball joints however and am still thinking about the reinforcing brackets.

Martin; thanks for the heads up, I'll watch it. I tried using the blue, fabric braided hoses that VW used (left over from my '79 vert restoration), but the diameter was too small. The old hose was definitely deteriorated, I'm glad I checked it.

[Squall67584]

Looks good! The powder coating looks pretty killer too!

[Spittybug]

Looks good! The powder coating looks pretty killer too!

Thanks, but actually the silver isn't powder coating, it was what I put on a couple of year's ago; Thomas' Stainless Steel paint over a coat of POR15. It's pretty good stuff, but as part of this repair I repainted with black truck bed liner. It never really looked right with the silver under there.

[Spittybug]

Took the car for wheel balancing and front end alignment today after getting everything all put back together. The passenger front wheel (accident one) is more that just lathed a little; the balancing machine showed the wheel to be pretty far out of round. When it pointed out where, it was indeed then obvious to the eye as the bead looked different and running a hand on the inside of the wheel you could kind of feel a bulge. So, per the instructions of the appraiser, I've sent him the documentation and he'll adjust the amount. It makes sense..... it must have been the horribly rutted road (Dairy Ashford for anyone in Houston) I was on earlier in the day. I thought my fillings were going to come out. Must have bent the rim and then maybe that added wobble was enough to snap an already stressed ball stud? I don't know... I need a CSI.

For the alignment, I took the relevant pages of my manual with me. Our book says .5* toe in, +/- 10 minutes. Firestone's computer however shows spec at .25* I called James at DMCH and he told me that they outsource all of their alignment work. I compromised a bit and we set it at .4* toe in. Given the nature of a nut on a threaded rod as a "precision" setting, getting 1/6 of a degree (10 minutes) variance is splitting the proverbial hair. While there is no ability to alter them, I at least have my numbers for castor and camber and would appear to be out of spec on these too. While these aren't adjustable, what would make them out of spec?

(Spec) Driver/ Passenger
Caster (3.5 to 4.0) 2.2 / 3.1
Camber (-.5 to 0) .2/ -.4

My passenger rear camber is -1 while spec is -.8 to -.3 Not far enough out for me to worry about playing around with shims. Read toe was in spec.

The tech was no rookie and he took his time and let me watch. Even torqued the lug nuts correctly. He was really enthused to work on a Delorean!

[Spittybug]

Just got a call from Hagerty approving the extra $$ because of the wheel. These guys have been very responsive and great to work with. I highly recommend.

Anyone got a good, round wheel for sale?

[Spittybug]

Got my wheels back today from RockyRoad Texas http://www.rockyroadstx.com/ refinishing. They look great. The background is the charcoal and the face is just polished aluminum with clearcoat. It looks like it is painted a light gray but it isn't. I'm about to go mount them (and yes, I marked the tires ahead of time... I'm surprised I remembered to do that).

[Bitsyncmaster]

Got my wheels back today from RockyRoad Texas http://www.rockyroadstx.com/ refinishing. They look great. The background is the charcoal and the face is just polished aluminum with clearcoat. It looks like it is painted a light gray but it isn't. I'm about to go mount them (and yes, I marked the tires ahead of time... I'm surprised I remembered to do that).

Nice. Thats on my list of things to do.

[Spittybug]

They look great now that they are on the car too. I posted (in another thread) about finding lug nuts at Costco. I replaced all of my front ones. Oddly but actually better in my opinion, they are 19mm not 21mm like the Gorillas they are replacing. I say better because the socket now slides in without touching the side walls. I put a layer of duct tape around the socket to make sure not to scratch the new clear coat. Torqued to 70lbs with weight on the wheels. God I love having a lift.

When you consider a new wheel is ~$440 from DMCH, spending $600 to unmount, sandblast, true up, lathe, paint, clearcoat, remount and balance all 4 isn't terrible. Yes, you can buy a nice looking wheel for between $150 and $200 if you're lucky, but not one as beefy or detailed as ours.