Disaster Strikes

Last week, on my way home from showing my car to a bunch of friends and my sister, I was on the interstate going around 70 MPH. About 22 miles from home, the rear driver-side of the car just collapsed. All I remember is there being a lot of smoke and sparks, but somehow I managed to cross the carpool lane and get into the asphalt median without getting hit or hitting anyone else. It was the scariest driving moment to date.

It felt like the rear driver-side of the car just collapsed, and the car was super hard to control. I thought the lug nuts had come loose and that the rim and tire would be lodged in someone’s windshield. After I came to a stop in the median, I opened the door to find the tire lodged between the asphalt and car, still in the wheel arch, but at about a 45 degree angle. I immediately called my insurance’s roadside assistance number so I could get a tow home. I did this before I even got out of the car to see what the problem was. I could see when I opened the door that the lug nuts were still on tight, and upon further inspection, I saw the splines and threads from the outboard shaft, which meant that the hub nut on the stub axle had come completely loose.

I immediately remembered that the previous owner told me that he recently replaced all four hub assemblies, but I have no idea how long ago that was. He must not have tightened the nut enough for it to have worked loose like that. I also noticed that there was now a bit of a tweak to the stainless quarter panel, so my flawless stainless body was no more. It took the tow truck over an hour to get there. As he started to drag it onto the tow bed, it was raised enough to finally fit a jack under the frame. I then did my best to put the tire back on the hub so it didn’t have to be dragged all the way up the ramp. The tire about came off again on the way home since there wasn’t anything holding it on there.

The car must have fallen on the tire so quickly and the brake lines combined must have held the tire under the car. Today I was able to get the car into the garage and see the extent of the damage. Here is where the car was dragging along the interstate:

This is what it looked like after I took the tire off. The nut and washer were inside the rim:



This is what the tire looked like after I took it off:


My poor quarter panel! It's not terrible, but it's no longer perfect:


This is what happened to the caliper and hub carrier. Both of them snapped:


It really could have ended up much worse than it did. The tow truck driver was amazed that the car didn't have more damage... especially after he saw the grooves in the interstate behind the car that I had made.

Here's a list of things that I need to replace so far:
Rear Hub Carrier
Lower link, washers & pivot nut
Rear shock
Brake caliper
Rear brake line
Parking brake pads
Driver side tire
Fix or replace driver side rear quarter panel

I don't know what the condition of the actual hub bearing is. The outer drive shaft's threads are a little damaged, but I may get by.

When I removed the tire, I noticed that the hub nut threads were caked in grease by the previous owner. I'm wondering if the grease contributed to the fact that the nut came off the threads. I guess I'll never know for sure.  I'm glad this didn't have to be a post where I announced that I had destroyed my DeLorean.

The Car's New Home

My wife and I are fortunate enough to live in a home with a large two-car garage. Attached to the garage is a work shop, but two big hinged doors can be opened up to make them into one large room. Before we bought the DeLorean, we realized that we didn’t want any of our cars to be outside in the elements. The hot sun and freezing snow are not gentle on cars. I decided to clean out the shop enough to be able to fit another car in there. So now we technically have a three car garage with a two car garage opening. In order to get the DeLorean in and out, we simply pull the Jeep out of the way, and we can squeeze in and out. This works out fine for how little we have been driving the D. Here are a couple of pics to show you its new home:

The Surprise

The weekend after I had driven the DeLorean home, my wife’s family was having a BBQ and we thought it would be the perfect time for the DeLorean to make its debut. It was so fun to see the reactions on everyone’s faces when they saw the car. Both of her brothers were so fun to talk to about the car and to watch their reactions. I had washed the car earlier that day, but it was covered in finger and hand prints by the time the weekend was over. Something about the stainless steel makes people want to touch it. Here are a few pics of me showing them the new-to-me ride:

While at my wife’s parents’ house, the car developed two problems: the driver door wouldn’t open back up, and the Kenwood DVD/CD player stopped working. Later that night I figured out how to open the door, but the CD player will only work once in a while. I need to likely adjust the rod for the door lock because I can get it to open just fine if I push on the unlock switch while pulling on the door handle. The CD player seems like it will be a pain, but hopefully I’ll be able to figure it out.

The next day, we had dinner at my parents’ house and had a good time surprising my family with the car too. It was a good weekend. Many of my relatives wanted me to take them on a drive in the car; so much of the afternoon was spent doing that. The fuel pump started getting louder after taking some of them for a ride, so I’ll have to look into that. It probably has something to do with the heat because it doesn’t make any noise if the car has been sitting for long time. Here are some pics the day we showed my family the car:

The drive home definitely caused the newness of the car to wear off quickly for me, but I am still super happy with the purchase and would do it again in a heartbeat. My family told me to put the car in my hometown’s annual 4^th of July car show, so that should be fun to participate in. I’ve never had a car unique enough to be able to participate in a car show.

The Road Trip Home

I was so happy to get on the road, but didn’t start driving until about 10:30 PM. I stopped and filled up the car and put some air in the tires, then headed off. I drove for a few hours that night and made it to Cape Girardeau, MO before calling it a night and stayed at a Super 8 Motel. I don’t know if it was stress or what, but I only could sleep for about 4 hours before I was wide awake. I hit the road on Saturday morning at about 7 AM and drove for 18 hours. It was great seeing so many places of the country that I had never seen before, but because no DeLoreans have cruise control, my right leg was so dead and started aching so much that I had to start stopping every 140 miles or so to get out and stretch my legs. Here’s a picture I snapped during one of my leg-stretching stops somewhere near the west side of Missouri:

I can’t tell you how many times I saw people pointing at the car as I drove by, or how many people got out cameras to take pictures as I passed them on the freeway. Filling up with gas was always a show though. Not a whole lot of people came up to talk to me, but those that did were generally very nice and intrigued by the car. Many that didn’t come to talk to me would just stare at the car as they walked by. Most of the time I was relieved when I wasn’t approached because I just wanted to get back on the road and home as soon as I could. During one stop for fuel, a lady asked if she could take a picture of the car because her son didn’t believe that the car in Back to the Future was real and she wanted to prove him wrong. During that same fuel stop, a couple of older guys came to talk to me about the car. One of them asked me if they were rare, and I replied that they were “a dime a dozen,” which made him laugh.

Later on in the drive I stopped for fuel in Nebraska. After filling up, I started walking inside to grab a drink and empty my bladder when a kid pulled up in a car and asked if he could take a picture of the car. I told him that would be fine, and I walked inside. To my surprise, the kid had followed me inside to ask me if he could take a picture with the door open. It both surprised and annoyed me that he would be so bold as to follow me around, but I went outside and let him take pictures with the door open.

The car itself performed flawlessly the entire drive, rain or shine. Since the AC didn’t work, I was glad that it wasn’t hot weather and the wind through the windows cooled me down fine. I drove well into the night on Saturday and finally stopped in Rawlins, WY at 1 AM and crashed at another Super 8 Motel. It was a crappy location, but I somehow managed to get a room right above where I parked the car. I remember looking down out the window and thinking how great the car looked parked outside and realized why it was getting so much attention: it’s a great looking car! For some reason, I couldn’t fall asleep again and I only ended up sleeping about 5 hours that night. I hit the road later that morning and started driving the rest of the way home.

Here is a map of the route I took on my drive home. I wanted to stick to the interstate in case of a break down. It took approximately 25 hours of road time and 1613 miles. Ouch.

The west side of Wyoming is super hilly and windy and Interstate 80 is in terrible disrepair on that section, which made the car feel like it was wandering all over the road. Luckily it was just because of the road and wind. The only times it rained on me the entire trip were at the very beginning in Missouri and at the very end in Ogden, UT. My wife was driving home from her Mom’s house that Sunday morning as I was coming into Ogden and I pulled over to wait for her to catch up so she could drive with me the rest of the way.

When she saw the car, she was surprised at how dark the car looked, but it was because it was sopping wet in the rain and it wasn’t shining like it does in the sun. Since cleaning it and driving it in the sun, she has since changed her mind on it being dark. After I pulled into the garage a little after noon, I was so relieved to have made it in one piece with no break downs. My wife and I wanted the car to be a surprise to our family and we hadn’t told anyone that we had bought it. Because it was raining the day I got home, we didn’t take it anywhere like we had planned. Instead it stayed in the garage for a few days since I needed to take a break from driving it. My wife actually didn’t ride in it until the middle of the week until we took it for a quick spin around town and to show a coworker of mine.

The Purchase

I made the offer at the end of March, which was accepted by the seller. The next month and a half was a huge headache, which you will find out. The first obstacle was making sure that this indeed was the car that I wanted to buy before I sent payment. The seller had not provided the full VIN in the vehicle listing, which had me concerned. Once I got the full VIN, I ran an AutoCheck vehicle history report, only to find that there was an accident listed for the car. The report listed it as a “Right front impact with another vehicle. Severe damage reported.”

I immediately contacted the seller to ask him about this, feeling like he wasn’t being up-front with me. He assured me that the car had not been in a single accident, that the panels were all original, undamaged, and that the car was not even driving at the time that the report says that the accident occurred. After investigating this further, I found out that vehicle history reports are a joke and near impossible to correct any false information. He assured me that he had been up and down the insides of the car and there was no way that the car had been in an accident.

With that behind me, the next big challenge was arranging payment for a seller in another state. I was very hesitant to just mail a check for the purchase amount to a total stranger. I did a lot more investigating and looked up the seller’s house on google maps. This was the first image of the DeLorean I saw that wasn’t provided to me by the seller. It’s parked under the car port under the car cover:

Once I knew I wasn’t getting scammed, I decided to overnight the seller a cashier’s check, after which he overnighted me the signed title. My wife and I were the proud new owners of a 1981 DeLorean! The hardest part of the process was behind us… or so I thought. The plan from the beginning was to have the car shipped to our house due to the long distance and the price of flights. To fly my wife and me to Memphis one way was well over $1000, not to mention the cost of the drive home. I got a few bids, and decided to go with the company with the lowest bid, thinking the car would get picked up in the next week or so and be at my house in a couple of weeks.

I went ahead and purchased collector’s auto insurance from Hagerty Insurance, just in case something happened before the car was picked up. I was ready to roll and just needed to wait, and wait, and wait. Nobody ever called me to pick up the car.

I tried multiple shipping companies, beginning with shipanycar.com. What a disaster. The web site says that they will be able to tell you a pickup date within 7 to 10 business days. After waiting a week and a half with no word, I contacted them only to hear that because of where the car was located and where I lived, not many drivers were going along that route and it could be a long time before they locate a driver. They advised me to try another shipping company and offered me a refund of my $150 deposit.

I then posted the car on uship.com, where drivers bid on the job and I can pick the company that I want by selecting their bid. After I accepted a bid from a company and I paid the deposit, I was contacted immediately by the company to let me know that it will be tough, but they should be able to locate a driver within a week. Another week passed, but once again I was told that they couldn’t find a driver and they suggested that I contact a company with their own private fleet of trucks. I then contacted DAS twice, only to be told that I need a special quote. I left two voicemails with the guy in charge of special quotes, sent him an email, but he never contacted me back. They must not have wanted my business. I then contacted Passport, but was also told by them that there was no guarantee that they would be able to ship the car anytime soon.

That was the last straw. I finally decided that I was going to buy a one-way plane ticket to Memphis, TN and spend a weekend driving over 1600 miles home, which was exactly what I did. On the first weekend of May, after work on Friday, I made the 2.5 hour flight from Salt Lake to Memphis and the seller picked me up at the airport. He was a super nice guy and I’m so glad that he took such good care of the car. When we pulled up to his house that I had seen multiple times on Google maps, I saw the DeLorean under his carport, draped in the car cover. We spent about an hour going over everything that he had packed into the car for me to take home. I asked a bunch of questions on where certain things were located, such as the hood and trunk release, horn, and the light switch. I had him sign a bill of sale that I’d need when registering the car in Utah. He was super helpful and I could tell that he didn’t like seeing the car leave as I pulled out of the driveway. He even changed the oil for me before I flew out so that it had a fresh oil change for the trip.