De Lorean EuroTec

A common fault on the De is a failure of the door gas strut bracket. There was a batch of over length struts a few years ago which bent & damage the brackets. Age also plays a factor, as does driving with doors open and general faults in the tub manufacture at build.

A month or so ago I repaired Scott's car, and thought you'd like to see how to do it.

This is what usually happens



With the bracket removed you will usually find this.



Repairing the tub with glass fibre is very time consuming, messy, difficult to guarantee strength and the T & quarter has to come off!

So I made a template



Then a brushed stainless bracket with a smaller back plate with welded captive nuts, to fit inside the tub.



Sandwiched with Tigerbond to water seal it and held with M6 bolts, giving a much stronger and longer lasting support than original.

Making a nice straight strut mounting point.



Then put back together for an "invisible" repair.

Nice work Darren, good write up

mine was a ta wobbly so i get a pair of eds sent over, i did extend mine inwards by about 7 inches, i could see that on its own it would have failed again TT

Top work again there Darren !

Nice job Darren!

There would appear to be no end to your skills Darren, great pics and write up

looks great, Ive done something similar myself only a couple of weeks before eurotec, although it fixes differently along the horizontal part of the fibreglass.
What are the m6 screws going into? riv nuts, or did you manage to get nuts & washers behind there?

This is really something every delorean owner should look at, it will more than likely be a problem on most cars.
30 years of the gas strut being in a fully compressed state most of the time will eventually push the lower stud outwards, damaging the fibreglass rather than bending the stud itself.
Both of mine were quite bad, with fibreglass damage aswell as bent stud mounting plates. Simply replacing the stud mounting plate wouldnt have been enough.
Delorean europe sell some larger mounting plates that attach using the original 2 screws plus 2 pop rivets as an extra, but if the fibreglass is damaged I doubt they would be a good enough repair.

I seem to remember in the late 90's, early 00's one vendor was selling struts that were actually slightly too long, this may explain why some cars suffer worse than others

Hi Phil,

The two top M6's "screw into" a rectangular plate with two M6 nuts welded on the back. This fits inside the tub through the letterbox slot under the headliner. (with a bit of foam dug out) This then clamps the plate to the tub so no fear of it tearing out again.

The bottom M6 has a nut and large penny washer with flats cut on it, so that it fits inside the tub.

The two centre M6 (either side of pin) go into the original oval bracket.

A new M10 nut is welded behind the new stainless front plate (which is drilled 8.5mm) this allows to tap out the thick stainless plate to give a really long thread for the pin.

More than meets the eye in the picture!

Phil349 wrote:looks great, Ive done something similar myself only a couple of weeks before eurotec, although it fixes differently along the horizontal part of the fibreglass.
What are the m6 screws going into? riv nuts, or did you manage to get nuts & washers behind there?

This is really something every delorean owner should look at, it will more than likely be a problem on most cars.
30 years of the gas strut being in a fully compressed state most of the time will eventually push the lower stud outwards, damaging the fibreglass rather than bending the stud itself.
Both of mine were quite bad, with fibreglass damage aswell as bent stud mounting plates. Simply replacing the stud mounting plate wouldnt have been enough.
Delorean europe sell some larger mounting plates that attach using the original 2 screws plus 2 pop rivets as an extra, but if the fibreglass is damaged I doubt they would be a good enough repair.

You bracket looked OEM Phil, very neat very impressive
I don't suppose you took dimensions while you were at it?

Well done all on finding solutions to these cars 'quirks'