You may have seen in previous posts that I am preparing my DeLorean for a road trip from Houston to Illinois next month for DCS 2016. The biggest issue facing the car at the moment is that the driver side door strut ball stud has broken loose out of the fiberglass underbody, rendering the door inoperable. Today, our local fiberglass repairman came to the shop to tend to 2932 and a customer's car that was experiencing the same issue. 

He ground down the top gel coat until the actual glass matting was exposed. In the case of my underbody, there was a lot of gel coat and not a lot of fiberglass, meaning it had shape but no structural support. It was going to give way at one point or another. He also found several air pockets that weren't helping the situation, either. He laid the areas with more matting and then gave a top gel coat and a coat of primer and paint to bring it back to its original look. He purposely left off the paint at the torsion bar areas so the new roof box can bond directly to the underbody and not to the paint layer on top.

Now the ball stud is back in place and the car can go back together again, then on to DCS!

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When I first bought 2932, I sought out the previous owner to try and establish a connection with my DeLorean's history and to keep her in the loop of what was going on with it. She was getting up in age and wasn't able to get in and out of the car or reach up and close the door like she used to, which was why she was forced to sell it. It was her daily driver back and forth from her house to the nearby flower shop she owned in Louisiana. Every time the car would need service, it was sent to DMC Houston, so the maintenance record was impeccable. She had owned the car almost since new. The man who bought it from the dealership only had it a few years before he sold it to her, so she has been the owner who has stayed with the car the longest. I really wanted to do everything I could to bring it over to her again.

I was finally able to speak with her on the phone a few years ago and expressed an interest in driving over to see her. Almost immediately after that, my car was involved in a rear-end collision when the person behind me was taking pictures of my car while I was at a red light and they didn't stop in time. It didn't leave my car with any serious damage, but it did spend a lot of time in the shop to get repairs done, and it blew my plans to go see her. 

We have recently made contact again and I am working on a plan to detour to Louisiana either on my way up to, or my way back from DCS, since it won't be too far off course from Texas to Illinois, or vice versa. I am really excited and I can't wait to meet her!

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