I recently got the car back together after some extensive work on the coolant lines and fuel tank and pump and took it for a few shakedown drives. After one of the drives, I discovered some dark fluid on the ground near the rear passenger tire. A quick analysis revealed that it wasn't coolant, but it was coming from the rear shock. It was similar to hydraulic fluid and ended up leaving a large puddle on the ground by the next morning. Here is what the drops looked like after a quick drive:
The shocks were purchased from Special T Auto by the previous owner back in 2008, but I still didn't expect the shocks to fail after 13 years. After asking the DeLorean community about this setup, I learned that these rear shocks weren't really meant to be used the way they were. The collar that holds up the springs just clamps around the shocks, shocks that weren't necessarily designed to be used with a clamped collar like that to support the weight of a car. They had worked fine for me and I luckily I had zero issues with them, but since oil was leaking from this one, it was time to get them replaced.
The shocks seemed to still work fine, so I thought I would be okay to drive on them a bit more until I decided which ones I wanted to replace them with. The driver side rear shock was replaced by me back in 2011 after an unfortunate incident in which the rear tire fell off while driving, resulting in the shock being destroyed. But I knew I would replace both of the rears to match, even if the driver side hadn't started leaking.
I drove around 60 miles in the next few weeks while I decided what to do about the rear shock, but on one drive, I noticed some funny behavior from the rear passenger side. If I was going down the road and hit a bump on that tire, it would act like the rear tire was shimmying, the feeling I would expect to have if the rear trailing arm bolt were loose. I decided I needed to stop driving the car until I could figure out what all was wrong.
An inspection of the trailing arm bolt and bushings showed nothing wrong. I couldn't get the tire to move at all when I put the car up in the air. That pointed the issue back to being related to the bad shock. Perhaps it had finally lost any dampening abilities after so much fluid had leaked out, and that was what it felt like to have no working shock.
I was going to go with stock Girling shocks to replace these aftermarket shocks, but DMCH was out of stock for at least a month. That sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out which aftermarket setup would be best for me. I ended up going with the rear Spax shocks sold by DeLoreanGo. I learned that Spax has gone through a couple of versions of these to make sure they hold up and work well with the DeLorean. The biggest issue I found that people have with them is that the bottom part of the shock is bright yellow, which I will admit, is taking some getting used to.
I got the shocks very quickly, as is usually the case with DeLoreanGo, and went to work. Here is the passenger side removed:
I used my spring compressors to reinstall them into the car. It's a tight fit to get them in there without the compressors hitting the frame. It's a bit of trial and error to get it to fit.
The new shocks came with a double nut on the top. My old aftermarket shocks just had a single nut, but it never came loose. Better safe then sorry, I suppose.
I took the car for a nice long drive after replacing just the passenger side to see if the weird issues I was having before had gone away. I was pleased how it drove perfectly and any shimmy was gone, which confirmed that the shock was the cause of the weird behavior.
I then decided to go ahead and replace the driver side. Out with the old:
I discovered some cracking in the epoxy behind the upper control arm and started to chip it away. It soon became clear that I needed to remove the control are to be able to properly assess and fix it.
The rest of the frame looked pretty good.
I've seen other frames where it has rotted all the way through the frame right here, so I was happy to discover that it was all just surface rust, even though I was surprised at how much corrosion was exposed as I continued to chip off the epoxy coating.
My favorite method to fix frame rust is using POR15. Here it is after the first coat. I like to do at least two coats, then put on a finish coat of Krylon Smoke Gray, which matches the original frame color very closely.
Here is the area all cleaned up and the finish coat applied:
New shocks going in:
Both shocks installed, and ready to get put back on the road:
