Re: Trailing Arm Bolt Concerns

[jtrealty@xxxx]

This is a very interesting story. It reminds me of the guy who every 
weekend tightened up every bolt on his motorcycle. Eventualty bolts 
started breaking off. You must not constantly retorque bolts. I don't 
think that is what is happening here though. The Delorean venders have 
known for a long time about the "crappy" OEM trailing arm bolts and 
all now offer a higher tensile strength bolt with either double nuts 
or elastic stop-nuts. The problem as I see it is getting the owners of 
the Deloreans aware of the potential for serious trouble and to check 
or if in doubt just replacing the "crappy" bolts. They are relatively 
cheap as compared to the alternative! Also when getting an alignement 
many shops don't have the proper washers (shims) so the ones they put 
in are too small or too soft so they bend and crush. Fortunatly this 
is one area of weak design that is easy to upgrade. In fact I am 
suprised that none of the US government agencies like DOT or NHSTA 
never did a recall on this as they did on the front suspension! 
Failure of this bolt has caused some cars to lose control as told in 
this list, fortunatly it seems to happen at low speeds but I don't see 
why it couldn't happen at highway speeds.
David Teitelbaum
vin 10757 


--- In dmcnews@xxxx, tobyp@xxxx wrote:
> Hello List - 
> I've got some information relating to trailing arm bolts that I 
think 
> would be of interest