RE: [DML] Re: Driving DMC on salted roads --- Plasti Dip

While the doors are definitely a structural part of the car, you can most definitely lift the car off the ground with the doors open. I've done it a number of times on my 2-post lift & I have also seen pictures of the DMC shops with cars on lifts with doors open. I don't make it a habit on my car & only do it when I still need access to the interior, but it can definitely be done.

I've also jacked a car up at 1 point with a jack to change a wheel. Granted the doors were closed when I did this, I don't believe it would be much different with the doors open. There may have been a few instances of cracked glass, but I believe it is a myth that's greatly been exaggerated in the DMC community.

---In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, <cbl302@...> wrote:

Wayne.. most of the flex has to do with the frame flexing/twisting.. if you jack up a delorean with the door(s)open...as some owners had found out the hard way..when they found that their windshields cracked when they jacked up their deloreans with the doors open..even cases where the rear window cracked/broke..the doors act as a rigid part of the built in safety cage and integral part of making the delorean frame and black body into a rigid structure. NEVER jack up a delorean with the doors open..not even with one of the doors open.

Also that is one of the reasons why Lotus had to use toll booth windows..if you had/have a one piece window that could open..you would lose some of the integrity that was engineered into the doors..since the majority of the weight of the delorean door is on the lower half, below the window...no matter how the delorean door was structurally engineered the vertical side pillars on the doors,especially where they bend towards the roof will ALWAYS be the weak points...and they truly did a lot of engineering to overcome that problem..but still...they will bend in the right situation.

Claude
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