Upgrading my DeLorean's 40 year old front suspension so THIS doesn't happen again
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- čas přidán 22. 07. 2024
- After forty years, my original DeLorean suspension is showing its age. I had refurbished some of it before, but it was time to upgrade to all new parts -- billet aluminum lower control arms, adjustable upper control arms, KW coil-overs, LCA stabilizers, resurfaced rotors, the works.
More information about this repair can be found at www.tmproductions.com/repairs...
Details on installing the big brakes can be found at www.tmproductions.com/repairs...
The previous refurbishing of the front suspension are detailed at
www.tmproductions.com/repairs...
Installing the lower control arm support braces (stabilizers) is covered at www.tmproductions.com/repairs...
And the incident with the the lower ball joint falling off on the highway can be found at www.tmproductions.com/repairs...
Visit www.tmproductions.com for more of Joe's Projects!
Timestamps:
00:00 Opening
00:12 Refurbishing
00:35 The New Parts
00:42 Disassembly
04:48 Reassembly
05:15 Installing the LCA
05:57 Installing the UCA
07:14 Installing the KW Shocks
08:48 Story Time: Why Castle Nuts and Cotter Pins Are Important
11:40 Reinstalling the Rotors
12:29 Fixing My Press
12:45 Replacing the Wheel Bearing
13:06 Finishing Up
13:34 Closing
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This is one of the best build videos ive seen in such a long time, i really hope more people get to see this, you deserve so much more recognition!!
Guy! You are hilarious! The real DIY mechanic!
Your channel was recommended to me randomly and I have to say that I was shocked to see your subscriber count! The production value and the way that you conduct yourself on camera is indicative of a much more successful channel. Well done, I hope to see your channel blow up soon!
Thanks! I think I just have to keep making videos and hoping that The Algorithm recommends them. Gotta play the long game. :)
That’s awesome I never see these kinds of videos on deloreans
Thank you. Your Narration is professional quality. Your mechanical skills are... Well entertaining. Thank you for entertaining a mechanic.
Hell of a story and a great install, another awesome video Joe! #NERD
Great video, glad I am not the only one who has impossible bolts to remove. Also glad to know I am not the only one who does simple tasks 3 times cause I keep forgetting to put on ALL the freakin parts. I feel like we must be related.
That was quite a horror story with your right ball joint, I'm glad it ended well.
Thanks. It was pretty nerve-wracking. I didn't realize quite how much danger I was in until I looked under the car.
I loved the adventure installing the first lower control arm. I can relate to having to pull things apart several times like that due to errors like leaving out a washer. I’m sure you used some more colourful words at the time.
Joe, you do SUCH a great job on all these Vids!
Joe, these videos, all of them, are amazing! Super useful and also very very funny!
Still a fantastic job, wish you the best.
you use the angle grinder to cut nuts off when you could use a nut splitter and save yourself the heat and sparks! also GREAT POINT on cotter pins etc. the only time I've ever wrecked was due to a mechanic forgetting a cotter pin.
Ah, a nut splitter -- good point! It would also reduce the chance of damaging the threads, although in this case I was going to throw out the old shocks anyway. Also, I somehow didn't notice that you can just put a wrench on the top of the shock stem and get it off that way, which would have saved a lot of time! Assuming they weren't rusted in place, in which case the nut splitter would have been the way to go.
glad to see we doing the work and enjoying the full experence of owning such a fantastic icon of a car.
"The full experience" is right! Whether or not I'm enjoying it per se depends on if I'm trying to show my partner that the car really is reliable and that we'll have no problems on our trip, honest this time. :)
Amazing content, instant subscribe. You remind me of an older version of @ZackFreedman
That works for me - his stuff is great. :)
I had a similar failure on my 77’ corvette where a nut came off a suspension bolt making the suspension collapse in one corner. I was lucky and skidded slowly to a parking space. I had recently disassembled and reassembled the rear suspension. I never figured out why the bolt and nut threads failed but just replaced that nut and bolt. The other side failed about a week later so it wasn’t a fluke! I definitely felt foolish for just replacing hardware on one side after the failure. It was a castle nut and it sheared off the Cotter pin like it was a toothpick.
Sounds like you got lucky too, in that it didn't happen on the highway! My new ball joints have really thick cotter pins that are a pain to install and bend open, but given what you said about the pin sheering off, now I'm glad they're as overbuilt as they are!
@@joeangellx Thinking more deeply about what happened in my case: the full rear leaf spring pressure is on the nut and bolt that failed. I relieved the spring pressure with a floor jack on disassembly. On reassembly I think I used the nut and bolt to compress the spring. The heavy spring load on reassembly was probably the issue. Despite being oiled there was a lot of friction and wear on the nut and bolt. I would guess a fine pile of metal dust came out of the nut and bolt on reassembly. Everything was fine until hitting a speed bump at about 20mph.
I am enjoying the videos thank you for making great content!
Ah, that makes sense - Your description of what you think happened sounds pretty likely to me, and easy to overlook. I’ve made plenty of similar mistakes, like I’ve striping some a bolt because I just thought it was tight, and didn’t realize it was cross-threaded until it was too late. And I made a mistake in with regards to removing the shocks - I didn’t notice the hex shaft on the top (which is why I cut the nuts off) until someone told me in the comments!
I’ll keep in mind to watch the load on parts before tightening the nuts, just in case. Thanks!
I had the ball joint come loose from the lower arm due to rust eating thru. Lucky for me it happened right at the end of the driveway instead of the street.
@@davidedgar3509 If it has to happen, that's where you want it to happen! I bet the tricky bit was getting it back up the driveway so you could fix it.
Sorry Joe saw the last few minutes after earlier conment ..lucky mate..wow👍
No worries - and yeah, I was VERY luckily I caught this when I did, just before I did over 2400 miles of driving!
(oops, I thought your comment was about the rear suspension and the rusted-out trailing arm I found; sorry if my reply was confusing.)
@@joeangellx haha all good yeah after making that very lame joke I then saw the issue with front ball joint and went oh s*!* better clarify ASAP.. once again so fortunate its an awesome car NOW though 👍👏😊
@@Andrew-jh5uv No problem! Thanks to pure luck, the bad ball joint was more of an inconvenience than anything -- no one was hurt, and no real damage was done. Thanks!
Consider getting a cotter pin extractor.
I did not know that was a thing - I will definitely look into it!
Good video, not sure what happened to your failed ball joint. Could you elaborate more on the the condition of the tread? I know that a lot of newer cars uses nylon lock nuts for ball joints right out of factories. They seem to work alright. I haven't heard of massive recall on this matter. Annoying part is tha they are one time use only and need to be replaced after removal. I believe you are aware of it. When you tighten the lock nut, did you feel additional resistance from the nylon insert?
It was about a year and a half ago, so I don't remember all the details now, like the resistance from the insert. I usually do notice that, though, mostly from how I need a wrench immediately instead of only at the end when I'm torquing it down. I don't seem to have any pictures of the old ball joint threads, and I don't have the ball joints themselves anymore either.
I had assumed I'd screwed up putting on the nylock (it was a new, unused nylock), but when I got to the Tech Day event, we found two nuts (not nylocks), threaded them on, did a circle in the parking lot to pull into the garage, and the ball joint popped off again I pulled in. However, it's possible we happened to pick the wrong nuts (say, a close imperial nut instead of metric), which would seem like it fit but doesn't quite fit. One of the other guys did that for me, so I don't know what the nuts felt like going onto the threads.
That said, I remember the other side's nylock seeming loose, too, as did some of the other guys at the Tech Day, so I don't think it was just that one ball joint or nylock that was bad..
The vendor I got these from has three different ball joints at different prices. Those were the "budget" ones. Normally I get the nicer parts, but I'd already spent too much money that summer and chose the wrong thing to cheap out on. I later found out that they sell almost none of the budget ones, which doesn't surprise me in the least.
Needless to say, I replaced both ball joints with the nicer ones. I think I may have just gotten unlucky -- as you said, modern cars use nylocks all the time (I didn't realize that; I mostly work on the DeLorean), so they must be generally sound. Do modern cars still have the cottern pin? These ball joints didn't have the hole for that, although I could have drilled it myself -- I just assumed that if it wasn't there, it wasn't needed and that the nylock was enough.
Gosh Joe, that could have gone a lot worse like you said... good job you're safe....though I'm so glad I specialise in 50 year old Mustangs where the shock towers come out the top ...Are your wheel bearing "French"? ... I had problems with Renault in the past (changed front bearings 3x) as the French seem to make bearings out of chocolate. I'm not sure how much DMC is poisoned with French parts. ... on the Renault I managed to find German equivalents made to a higher standard.
I’ve tried whatever the original ones are (I think British), and SKF ones from Spain and Italy. I’m starting to think that the hub is damaged and that is somehow killing there bearings, so I recently got a replacement, although I haven’t installed it yet. I’m going to see how long this new bearing lasts.
The DMCs main Renault parts are the engine (PRV) and transmission. I’m not sure if Lotus designed the suspension (they did the frames), or if that was from DeLorean themselves.
@@joeangellx ... Thx...You only have 2x jobs to do from now on ... keep breathing in and out + keep wrenching on your cars 👌 ... great channel by the way 🏆... I dont have time to do much with mine. 🛻aarrgh
Me too a random recommendation ...love your work Joe 10/10👍 ..just dont take it ov...jesus nearly the worst Dad joke ..
Don’t hang the calumets on the break line 🤦
The only interesting thing about a Delorean is the SS shell. The rest of it looks like… what.. a Chevy Vega?
Letting brake rotors hang from the brake line without any support is a bad idea.
You're right, of course. I've finally ordered some brake hangers so I don't risk damaging the brake lines. I should have at least put my lift jack under it to keep the strain off of them. Once the knuckle is out of the way I can put the caliper on the frame, but there's no obvious place to rest it until then, and I was being stupid.
Lithium grease is too solid. Use fluid film instead
Good to know -- I just ordered a can to try out. Thanks!
so can we all take a moment to realise how implausible it would be to put the Delorean in a cave for 80 years
It looked like Doc did do some kind of winterizing/storage prep, at least. They did show that they replaced the tires and presumably other rubber parts that would have rotted out. Might have had to replace the capacitors in some of the electronics, and hopefully mice didn’t eat too much of the wiring…
Some of the other owners I know have frames that are in really good shape, but I drive my car a lot.