Tommi’s Saab Site

My car got stolen!

My Saab 900 is gone.

Somebody took it from our yard, not 10 meters away from my bedroom window. Didn’t even wake up…

The car was locked, but.. Well… The locks on these old Saabs…

I did have one of those separate locks to go between a pedal and the steering wheel, but apparently it didn’t do any good. The car’s now been gone for five days, so there’s really no hope of getting it back in one piece…

So, that really took the wind out of me and I can’t get to the garage to work on the stroker since I don’t have a car!

- – -

The car was found three weeks later but as I thought that it would be gone forever I went ant bought the Turbo…

The side panels are starting to look ok:

I realised that we really need to do the final fitting of the doors and fenders before I spray the overcoat on the car. It will take some time, so I’m not all that confident that I will have time to spray the car this summer. We’ll see.

Some of the fenders needed extensive rust repairs, so they aren’t really the best possible fit. And there was also some old collision damages.

Some sections of the left rear fender were pretty badly out of shape and needed to be cut open and re-welded. It also required a couple of hours of work to beat the fender to correct shape.

The right rear fender was too far gone so I sourced a better one from a fellow Saabist (But if I don’t get my car back I can’t go to pick it up…)

The left front fender wasn’t really bad at all. It needed some corrosion repairs, but not as much as the others:

Putty time!

Putty on.
Putty off.

Putty on.
Putty off.

Putty on.
Putty…

Smoothing out the welded areas.

Surface pitting here…

I don’t know which is worst; sanding or welding…. At the moment I think it’s sanding.

- – -

We are planning on getting the car on it’s wheels next weekend, so all the suspension parts have to be found (they are stored in several boxes somewhere…).

Rear axle. Temporary hubs.

Springs.

- – -

Update 2008-7-20

OK. We didn’t put the car on it’s wheels yet. I realized that it’s better to wait until at least the engine bay is painted (overcoat and all)….

But, here’s some photos after putty and a new coat of primer:

This area is now pretty good.

Some minor fixes needed, but all in all almost ready here also.

Done here too!

So the insides are pretty much ready for filler paint and water sanding. But ofcourse, the exterior is still to be sorted. I started with the side panels.

Here’s the section right under right hand side rear window. The shape is pretty good here, no need for panel beating.

But further down there’s some issues with warping because of all the welding.

And even further down the side it gets worse. So this will need some beating to raise the low areas. The shape should be so close to the desired that preferably less than 1 millimeter layer of putty is needed to do the final smoothing.

Ofcourse if there is some surface pitting you may need a thicker layer of putty there. But the rule of <1mm is good for any larger areas that need putty. If you put too much putty it will eventually crack because of vibrations. The doors are especially difficult in this respect.

Even if you get the shape of the panels to within 1 millimeter of specs, you’ll still need putty to do the final smoothing. So, putty time again!

The side panels are a bit tricky to sand, because of the basic shape. It curves from front to rear and from up to down. A long flexiple sanding block is needed to get the shape right.

Tools of the trade – two pieces of laminate flooring, about half a meter long and 6 cm wide. The laminate is a little bit flexible but has a hard surface. Ideal for following the gentle curves of a Saab.

The sanding paper is attached with two sided tape or glue.

- – -

We really need to concentrate on the body, so the door repair is on hold. But we started to make one missing piece for it – The list that runs the length of the door and holds the bottom edge rubber seal.

In a V4 it’s just held with some plastic clips but on a stroker the rubber seal fits snugly in a special groove. As the one on the door is now 70% rust, we have to make a new list. In the photo the rubber on left and the beginnings of the list on right.

The underside of the car is now ready for corrosion protection. Everything has been painted:

A can of Dinitrol “Corrosion protection for vehicle underbody” and a suitable spraygun.

I see Black! Black!

The great thing about painting the underbody a light colour is obvious. You see immediately if you miss a spot when spraying the corrosion protection.

The thing to remember is to blug every single hole in the body and mask the areas that don’t need this stuff…

It took almost three cans (3 litres) to get the whole underbody covered.

Nasty stuff. You really need to wear full protective clothing (hair and everything) with this stuff. When you spray it, it’s pretty much like standing in a cloud of spray glue. It’s not exactly poisonous but it make’s everything sticky …and black.

- – -

We have a local fleamarket type happening here every year. Mostly antiques and car and motorcycle stuff. Hundreds of sellers and tons of stuff.

Surprisingly little Saab stuff this year though. But I made a few nice finds.

A wood steering wheel for a V4. Pretty good condition too.

A sun shade for the 99-900 Combi-Coupe (image from Wikimedia Commons)

I also got original Saab chrome wheel rings for the 96.

And these were a really nice find:

A bunch of Swedish racing yearbooks. Lot’s about Saabs and rallying in them! Great opportunity to patch up my rusty swedish.

As you may remember I currently have two right hand side doors that should be made into one…

The stroker door has had the skin removed and the green V4 door is going to donate one.

But the sroker door also has some rust issues to deal with:

So it is not just the matter of replacing the skin, we have to replace some of the door body also.

Well… Take the bull by the horns…

First, the cutting points needed to be figured out:

And then just cut it:

The idea in cutting the pieces this way is to get as little seams on visible areas as possiple. This way a good part of the seams will be behind door trim and you only need to use time on finishing the visible sections perfectly.

Then, test fit and mark the cutting points on the other door:

Ofcourse, you need to allow for some fitting, so the cuts are positioned so that there’s a couple centimeters overlap at this point.

And this is how far we got today:

To be continued…

All welding on the body is now done!

The final pieces that went on:

Stone guard on the left hand side.

And the right.

The two piece mounting bracket and the bottom half of the stone guard were practically corroded away, so they have been fabricated from sheet metal.

The top section of the back seat support was also replaced.

…

Wow! What a milestone! It feels so nice that the body is now complete.

Ofcourse there’s still a lot to be done, but some things are starting to look quite ok:

Note the little holes in the center of the lid for the old school SAAB airplane badge

Driver side door getting a coating of primer. This is the modified Saab 93 door.

But there’s still plenty to do:

The welding may be done, but there’s still some cleaning and filling to do before I can start painting the body. Also, I have to go through the seams with body sealant before paint.

…

The main goal is to get the body painted (final overcoat) this summer. That way I can start putting stuff in during the winter (when painting is not possible).

I haven’t been able to have a real holiday for the last couple of years because of the firm, but this summer I am taking a full month! So I am pretty confident that I can get this done.