Re: Front suspension damage

["David Teitelbaum" <jtrealty@xxxx>]

As the "fleet" of Deloreans age you will see more of this sort of 
thing. Other areas of age related deterioration are the following
Radiators, the plastic tanks leak and blow off
Fuel line hoses particularly the return hose on the accumulater
All of the cooling system hoses
Vacuum hoses becomming brittle and hard
Frame rust
Header bottles
Dirty, rusty ground connections
These things I think should be included in any though inspection along 
with too many others to mention! Maybe someone with too much time on 
their hands could come up with a comprehensive checklist that we can 
use at tech inspections. It could also be useful for looking at a 
prospective car for a buyer. Having a checklist when inspecting a car 
is very helpful so you don't forget to check everything. Every vender 
has their version but a standardized one based on the results from 
judging at the shows and the judging rules would be nice. Then 
everyone would be "working off of the same page" and it could be used 
to standardize the level of condition so it isn't arbitrary. Then if 
someone describes a car as a #2 everyone could agree on what that 
means. I would divide it into safety, mechanical, electrical, 
cosmetic, etc so you can prioritize the things that need to be done.
David Teitelbaum
vin 10757



--- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Toby Peterson" <tobyp@xxxx> wrote:
> Knut - I'm sure that you're aware of the dangerous situation that 
you 
> were facing with the cracked lower control arm (LCA). These types 
of 
> cracks normally start at the welds where the sway bar attachment is. 

> If the welds aren't properly stress-relieved after welding, residual 
> stresses can lead to that type of failure. In your case, it was 
> probably some edge damage or corrosion that helped start the crack. 

> After the reports last year of cracked LCA's "in the fleet", we 
> started to inspect the parts for cracks or other damage at every 
tech 
> session. I can't stress enough the importance of inspecting 
critical 
> components like this at every opportunity. In terms of the 
bushings, 
> I have one bushing that is starting to exhibit the same 
deterioration. 
> That's why I've been trying to organize urethane bushings. I keep 
> running into brick walls with that ... companies seem to be most 
> interested in profits "up front". This incident represents a "call 
to 
> action" for everybody to remain vigilent when maintaining their 
cars. 
> Thanks for sharing your experience with the List.
> 
> Toby Peterson VIN 2248
> Winged1 
> 
> 
> 
> --- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "ksgrimsr" <knut.s.grimsrud@xxxx> 
> wrote:
> 
> > While doing the work on my one lower control arm, I also 
discovered 
> > a massive lower control arm failure on the other side of the car. 
I 
> > uploaded a couple photos of this as well since it looks pretty 
> > impressive (photos in same folder as above). To think I was 
driving 
> > on it! The failure is not a result of impact damage as it might 
> > appear, but is instead due to metal fatigue. The failed arm has 
> > hairline cracks/fissures in the material in several places and it 
> > appears to have failed along some of these cracks (there are 
> > additional cracks in several other places as well that are not 
> > visible in the photo). The arm has 160,000 miles on it.