Tommi’s Saab Site

Niklas Enander from www.classicsaabracing.com had a little boutique at the IntSaab2011 event selling various performance parts for the two stroke and V4. I decided to buy the Pertronix breakerless ignition kit for the two stroke just to minimize any ignition problems and improve reliability.

There’s two versions of the kit for two strokes – one for Saabs with the vacuum hose that goes from the firewall to the distributor and one for those without. I don’t know what the difference is but apparently there is a difference since there’s two kits. The kit cost around 180 euros so it’s not exactly cheap.

So, dad decided to install it and here’s a few pics.

The distributor was taken apart, cleaned, lubricated etc. Also, dad went through all the spare distributors we had and sourced better gears.

In dad’s opinion the Pertronix was quite easy to fit and the car also started right up after installation. The car runs pretty nice now, but I still wish new gears for the distributor were availlable.

I asked Niklas if there are any plans for manufacturing new gears for the two stroke distributor but the answer was no since they would be very expensive to have manufactured. Apparently the design is pretty difficult and requires special machining.

… But it will not be ready. Unfortunately I have not been able to work on the car during the summer, so it will not be finished in time for IntSaab. But I will bring it on a trailer anyway.

It is in running condition though – we managed to sort most of the problems on that department. Here’s a short video:

Starting to sound pretty healthy to me

I finally got all the electrics sorted out. The car has combined wire harnesses from 1964 (engine), 1966 (cabin) and V4 (rear), so there was a little bit of figuring out what connects where and which wires are not needed… But it’s all working now:

Front parking lights.

Rear end is close to finished.

Stone guards.

I’m trying to figure out if this is the correct locking knob for the door – I have a bunch of different sorts…

Windscreen wipers.

Rear shelf in place. Still needs the front edge rubber which hasn’t been cleaned yet.

Basically I can now fit the dash! I still need the little card pieces in the footwell and need to do some sound insulation. Also I do not have the headliner and need to make it myself or have one made…

I’m hoping that I will get the Sport seats before IntSaab. I don’t know if I can get the car completely finished before it but hopefully it will be in good enough shape that I can bring it to the event anyway.

Some progress on the two stroke again. I managed to get a Saab 95 front window rubber from a fellow Saabclub member and the old rear window rubber was only cracked at couple places so it was used as such.

Rear fenders are in place. The rubber strip between body and the fenders is thicker than the original but then again it hides some of the fitting problems (it’s not that easy to make everything fit perfectly on car that has been rolled over and has parts from many different donors).

Check the photos:

I wasn’t really satisfied with the directional light mods I did earlier – so I did a few changes that I think work better and suit the car better (not that they are visible).

I took off the ugly patch I made earlier and inserted a proper rubber seal into the hole.

I then used some black silicon rubber to "glue" the 900 light in place.

And also to seal the rubber blug. I think that will work ok.

I also installed the headlights.

New H4 headlights with parking lights.

Tapping out the attachment iron threads.

Fitting the attachment iron and chrome

Punching out the paper seals for the attachment iron.

The little paper "seals" go here - between the support ring and the chrome ring. I don't actually know exactly why they are there - maybe to act as an "insulator" (corrosion protection) between the black attachment iron and the zinc plated piece on the chrome ring. Or maybe they just keep the screw from falling if it becomes loose...

No lights yet. Aluminium list are installed.

The little mounting rubber.

Headlight unit in place (also the adjustment screws with springs).

Here we go. Not the correct position yet - needs adjustment.

And the other side.

We also fitted some other pieces:

The air scoop.

The rubber seal had shrunk so we glued two seals together to get a sufficiently long one.

Trunk handle. Ok condition - not perfect. Maybe I can find a better one some day...

Minor issues. The window rubber seals have shrunk also. But I think we may be able to stretch them by gluing them in a bit by bit.

The directional lights in front were not in a good shape. The plastic body was ok but the lamp sockets had rusted useless. I thought about finding new replacements but then a couple extra Saab 900 side directional lights came my way… The lights in the shortnose and the OG are similar in shape but different in size, which got me thinking – would the OG light fit inside the stroker casing? It did with verry little work:

I cut away the old lamp sockets.

Then I closed the hole with a piece of plastic and drilled another one for the OG900 blinker…

That looks like a neat fit… I’ll trim down the patch and seal the whole thing with seaming combound. Makes it easy to change the light bulb too…

Doesn’t look bad to my eye. Ofcourse I could have used a clear side light but orange is nice also.

Finnish law requires that there is parking light as well as headlights and directional lights. Originally the parking light is the same lamp as the directional light so that will not work anymore. I will replace the original headlights (with the old style light bulbs) with H4 assemblies that have integrated parking lights.