Cleans up pretty good
Cleans up pretty good
bgkast wrote: Cleans up pretty good
the nicest piece of paint on this car will be that new, completely legal license plate. Perseverance pays.
Glad to see it is all coming together. This will fix your shifter issue and then some: Short Shifter NG900/9-3 94-02/9-5
I have gotten a few things from that place and they are great people.
In reply to Rusted_Busted_Spit:
They will probably be getting several hundred of my dollars eventually.
Added some sticker action to the hatch:
This thing really dwarfs the Miata
The rear window now stays up without tape. The regulator I pulled in the junkyard was an upgraded version too!
Updating the budgets for the window fix, emissions and registration:
Actual spent $611.75 Challenge $397.71
And the best part of the Saab saga so far...
When I was a kid my parents had a 1980 Saab 900 (manual of course). It was probably the car I came home from the hospital in. It looked something like this:
The keychain for the car had a medallion with a detailed picture of a turbo charger on it. I remember studying the keychain and trying to figure out how the turbo worked. It's probably one of the things that got me interested in mechanical things and cars when I was a kid.
Eventually the 900 got old, and needed work. My Mom took it to a local mechanic named Leo who even to my 8 or 9 year old brain seemed disreputable. Eventually Leo told my Mom that the car needed a new transmission because the "worm gear" was going out and making noise in reverse gear. In reality it was probably just normal gear noise. The repair quote was too expensive, so the car was sold to him for parts, and my mom went on to drive a hand be down Caprice wagon from my grandparents (with the awesome rear facing 3rd row seat).
Twenty something years later I asked my mom if she knew what ever happened to that old keychain. She looked through the junk drawer and found this:
Awesome! I like the look of this car a bit more than I should. Can't wait to see how you like it once you've logged some mileage.
bgkast wrote: Eventually the 900 got old, and needed work. My Mom took it to a local mechanic named Leo who even to my 8 or 9 year old brain seemed disreputable. Eventually Leo told my Mom that the car needed a new transmission because the "worm gear" was going out and making noise in reverse gear. In reality it was probably just normal gear noise. The repair quote was too expensive, so the car was sold to him for parts, and my mom went on to drive a hand be down Caprice wagon from my grandparents (with the awesome rear facing 3rd row seat).
Are you from Louisville?
Your picture is from the late '80s. I owned an '83 8-valve Turbo. What a great car. I actually got it for free. Unfortunately, I don't have any pics handy. Great job on the red one.
In reply to Powar:
No, Seattle Area.
Edited my above post, the old 900 was a 1980.
bgkast wrote: In reply to Powar: No, Seattle Area. Edited my above post, the old 900 was a 1980.
Interesting. The Louisville area had a Saab mechanic named Leo who screwed/attempted to screw quite a few people, including me. He recently passed away and I believe his shop is closed forever.
Good job on the 9-3. Next thing you know, you'll be picking up free C900s like the rest of us weirdos. 
This would have been around 1994, maybe he moved east? 
With allergy season in full swing I decided I should replace the cabin air filter, which on this car involves removing the windshield wipers and pulling the plastic cowl panel. I got it apart and found this:
Have I mentioned recently how much I hate rodents? This one had made a nest of it's own fur right on top of the filter. Nasty little bugger. It's urinal area actually had some of the paint flake off, but no rust luckily.
Some scrubbing with liberal quantities of simple green later it was looking better:
I noticied when rinsing off the soap that it was draining slowly. I pulled the rubber elephant trunk drain spout thing and found it totally full of fir needles and rodent nest. Filthy little bastard.
I also topped off the windshield washer fluid with a gallon of the cheap stuff so the car would stop telling me to "check washer fluid" every time I started it.
Unless I'm told otherwise I'm not counting these towards the challenge budget since they have no effect on performance or how the car runs. I will need some creature comforts if I end up driving this thing 3000 miles to the challenge.
Total spent this time: $25.58
New total: $637.33
Challenge budget: $397.71
Hmmmm.....This could be why the stereo sounds like e36 M3
At home, 3 beers in and watching the Wheeler Dealer Saab 93 episode I may have ordered $336.73 of rear sway bar and steering rack brace.
I also found that 2 of the wheels are bent which may be the cause of my vibration. I found a full set of matching wheels with sportier tires on Craigslist and talked the guy down to $80 for the set. Hopefully I can pick them up tomorrow.
In reply to bgkast:
Great progress man
bgkast wrote: At home, 3 beers in and watching the Wheeler Dealer Saab 93 episode I may have ordered $336.73 of rear sway bar and steering rack brace.
I've found that this place and Wheeler Dealers cost me a lot of money 
I had the C900 episode saved on DVR to motivate myself, but my daughter deleted it to record kid shows.
Man, rodents are disgusting! My dad had his RSX out in his portable garage/tent thing while working on his race car, and had similar looking nests going on after a few weeks, even though he was driving it daily.
In reply to XLR99:
The C900 episode is on youtube if you need more motivation/enabling.
I got a chance to get under the car tonight. There is no play in the steering joints or wheel bearings, and the brakes aren't dragging. Holding the inner driver and rocking the wheel back and forth there is a bit of roational play in the inner cv joints on both sides. Looks like I'll be doing the axles. Luckily I couldn't feel any play in the differential bushing.
Did the new wheels fix your vibration?
I think a bit of play is normal. The vibration comes from the tripod bearings wearing the drive cups on the inner drivers. I seem to have gotten rid of my worn out 9000 inner drivers, but here's a drawing to give an idea:
Maybe pull them apart and get some good quality grease in there, and assess how much wear there really is. (The drivers aren't cheap)
I haven't put on the new wheels yet, but the tire shop moved the bent wheels to the back and the vibration didn't change. My neighbor had an extra set of axles with drivers that he traded me. They feel good and have no play. The current plan is to open them up and inspect them, re-pack with grease, maybe replace the boots and swap them in.
I couldn't remember where you were at in diagnosing the 'massage', but the presence of extra stuff is never a bad thing!
New speakers arrived. Yey!
They're too big to fit the stock holes. Boo!
Oh well, I found some longer screws and let them stick up a bit.
Stock covers barely still fit.
what we did on dad's 911 is take some 3/4" mdf and trim it such taht it added to the lift. We trimmed it so the covers fit to it and then painted it black. Came out decent and to the point that it just looks like a trim ring.
A mdf or plywood spacer is a good idea. I will try that if this ends up being too loose.
Sway bar and other goodies should arrive today.
You'll need to log in to post.
