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Model X: Falcon Wings vs. Gull Wings

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I just had to share this. I did a search for other threads before posting. I just thought this was once in a blue moon opportunity. I was getting ready to drive home with the kids and ran across a Delorean. I took a chance and asked the owner if he would be willing to park his car for a photo opp with our Model X; doors opened of course. It was just hilarious and a great experience. Folks began gathering around the cars taking photos as well. Really great guy and was extremely curious about our X and how the Falcon wing doors worked. One thing for sure, we have come a long way with the engineering and technology of our doors.

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Those Delorean doors were a very simple design. I believe a tension bar that "coiled" when closed and helped the door raise back up when opened. I don't believe there was an 18 month delay on the Delorean :)
I asked the owner if I could feel the tension and weight of the door as I've never been that close to a Delorean before and "whoa" that door was heavy. The owner runs a Delorean Northwest shop here and he explained the mechanism and the door was easily over 200lbs in weight; all manual operation of course. The simplicity of its operation and design was quite a sight especially knowing how the X doors were designed and operate.. I just told him, "there is nothing like standing next to a real classic."
 
Ah, so you met Toby Peterson. Great guy! He does a lot of cool stuff for the DeLorean community besides run the Northwest DMC service center. He makes a door launcher kit that gives DeLoreans remote door opening functionality!

To explain the torsion bar slightly more (you guys have it mostly correct): it was a DeLorean patent -- a cryogenically twisted piece of metal that would release the door. You adjust the tension on the torsion bar with a special tool so that it doesn't have too little or too much force on it. The gas strut also attached to the door actually lifts it the rest of the way once it's released. If you were to remove the gas strut, a properly set torsion bar would make it so that the door would still stay slightly open.

It was actually a pretty remarkable piece of engineering for the time.

(I'm a 12-year DeLorean owner, if you couldn't tell, heh)
 
Ah, so you met Toby Peterson. Great guy! He does a lot of cool stuff for the DeLorean community besides run the Northwest DMC service center. He makes a door launcher kit that gives DeLoreans remote door opening functionality!

To explain the torsion bar slightly more (you guys have it mostly correct): it was a DeLorean patent -- a cryogenically twisted piece of metal that would release the door. You adjust the tension on the torsion bar with a special tool so that it doesn't have too little or too much force on it. The gas strut also attached to the door actually lifts it the rest of the way once it's released. If you were to remove the gas strut, a properly set torsion bar would make it so that the door would still stay slightly open.

It was actually a pretty remarkable piece of engineering for the time.

(I'm a 12-year DeLorean owner, if you couldn't tell, heh)
Ok now that is great.. Yes it absolutely was Toby Peterson. Great guy and clearly extremely passionate about the DeLorean. Really big of him to spend some time with me to share his knowledge and a few moments with his classic. What was interesting was how similar the Gull and Falcon doors looked while fully opened. It was a bit of a surreal sight looking at the two in that position.
 
Ah, so you met Toby Peterson. Great guy! He does a lot of cool stuff for the DeLorean community besides run the Northwest DMC service center. He makes a door launcher kit that gives DeLoreans remote door opening functionality!

To explain the torsion bar slightly more (you guys have it mostly correct): it was a DeLorean patent -- a cryogenically twisted piece of metal that would release the door. You adjust the tension on the torsion bar with a special tool so that it doesn't have too little or too much force on it. The gas strut also attached to the door actually lifts it the rest of the way once it's released. If you were to remove the gas strut, a properly set torsion bar would make it so that the door would still stay slightly open.

It was actually a pretty remarkable piece of engineering for the time.

(I'm a 12-year DeLorean owner, if you couldn't tell, heh)

Hey Ryan, good info on the DeLorean. I wasn't aware they were using torsion to help lift the door, I thought it was gas struts only.

Tesla is doing something similar with the X, they've implemented high-strength steel springs in the doors to do pretty much all the lifting. The rest is through electrically powered lift struts. The folding action is also through a push-pull setup inside the door frames.

Screen Shot 2016-07-18 at 10.30.27 AM.png
 
Great pic! I owned and restored a DeLorean back in early 1990s. The struts definitely can get wimpy on cold days and not fully lift. They need replacement every few years to retain the "energetic" lift. It was hard finding a shop that can get genuine parts then, and I'm sure it's virtually impossible now...

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Thanks Trev P.for the info. I also just watched your video of the X doors. I love stuff like that. I never was good at just knowing it works, get on with it :) I like to know how? :) But, did that Lego take hours to set up? :)

Hey, thanks for watching!! LEGO FTW :) That little freaking demo took me 2 hours to build. I thought I would nail it in 15 minutes but replicating it in LEGO was really tough and I'm pretty good at building the Technic stuff (my favourite kind). Kudos to the Tesla engineers, no wonder it took them a long time to do those doors...

I would have posted my video here but the admins don't like me posting stuff that points to my show or my dedicated Model 3 forum :(
 
I just had to share this. I did a search for other threads before posting. I just thought this was once in a blue moon opportunity. I was getting ready to drive home with the kids and ran across a Delorean. I took a chance and asked the owner if he would be willing to park his car for a photo opp with our Model X; doors opened of course. It was just hilarious and a great experience. Folks began gathering around the cars taking photos as well. Really great guy and was extremely curious about our X and how the Falcon wing doors worked. One thing for sure, we have come a long way with the engineering and technology of our doors.

View media item 115497View media item 115496
I'm a DeLorean owner myself, that's Toby's D. The doors weight is about 90lbs. The tortion bar is twisted 50 times and dipped in liquid nitrogen. The torsion bar is for the bottom lift and the gas struts are for the top lift. They lift easily when everything is working together. I can open them remotely but they can't shut by themselves like the X can.
 
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