DeLorean Luggage Net Repair

I always liked the stock look of the luggage net behind the seats in the DeLorean pictures I have seen online. The net in my DeLorean was removed before I bought it, but I found it in a box of parts. I discovered that the bungee cord around the net was fraying terribly in multiple places which not only made it a terrible eye sore, but it didn't function very well either.

New old stock (NOS) net assemblies are for sale at DMC Houston, but I didn't really feel that these were worth nearly $50 for a new one. I went to local fabric stores and Home Depot, but none of them sold the bungee cord by the foot. I discovered an online company that does sell them by the foot at this website. I decided to go with the black 3/16" cord. I removed the old bungee cord from the net and it measured at about 7.5 feet. I decided to get 8 feet of new bungee cord to be safe and I would trim down any extra length.

It arrived a week later and I set the two cords side by side and cut the new cord to the exact length of the original. Here is a picture of the old, frayed cord laying next to the new bungee cord:



I then weaved the new cord into the net and hooked the two ends together using the supplied clamps.
Below is the image of the two connected ends:

 

As you can see, the original net was still in great condition, but it had an awful smell, like it had spent time in a house of a smoker. It was a really strong smell too and I didn't want to reinstall it into the DeLorean without getting rid of the smell first. Before I installed the new bungee cord, I first washed it by hand, and the brown soapy water that came off that net was very gross. I then sprayed it on two separate occasions with Febreeze to eliminate the odor. I then rinsed it thoroughly and dried it in a clothes dryer. It still has a very faint smell to it, but it is extremely better than it was when I found it.

Here is the net all put back together and almost ready for assembly. The original net has some black thread that attaches the net to the bungee cord in four places so that the net is always in the same relative place on the bungee cord. Be sure to replicate those attachment points using the black string of your choice, or else the net will not look right when reinstalled in the DeLorean.

The one thing I didn't realize was that the new cord has much less elasticity than the original bungee cord. The old one was made up of many thin, gray elastic strands, but the new one appears to just be one solid, white strand of an elastic material. This means that it is much harder to stretch the new material to fit correctly on the hooks on the back shelf. If I were to do this again, I wouldn't have trimmed any length off of the 8 foot bungee cord, and I recommend getting a bit more than that. I did make it work, but the cord is definitely tight.

I hope that it will loosen up over time, but I am leaving it in place for a very long time to allow it to stretch. Here is the old net with a new bungee cord installed in my car for the first time since I have owned it: