Middle Kids first car or have I totally ruined my child?

With my middle son turning 15 at the beginning this year he has been sending me adds for cars non stop.  About 3 weeks ago I was scrolling Reddit and came across a post in r/saab from a guy local to me selling an 86 SAAB 900 Turbo for $500.  The pictures were taken in a small dark apartment garage but the car looked all there and not full of rust on the top so I sent it to my son, he immediately texted me "Buy it" .  I set up a time to see the car, we both checked it out and it looked way better than I thought it would for the price.

A week later with a borrowed truck and a U Haul tow dolly this happened:

The plan was to take the car to my Dad's house, he and my step mom have not moved into the house yet and it has a two car detached garage.  The downside is its 1.5 hours from my house.  My son, Tyler, wanted to show the car to his mom and friends so we swung by our house.  As Tyler ran to collect his friends I pressure washed the car, it had sat for 4 years, and had a better look at what we were in for.

After the quick wash I grabbed a battery, hooked up the leads, and low and behold all the lights worked, windows went up and down and the original radio turned on.

The car was taken off the road due to a bad turbo.  The seller and a friend took the turbo off, ordered a rebuild kit, took the turbo apart and then life got in the way and the work stopped there.  The seller also dropped the gas tank to empty it, so the car was definitely not drivable but all the parts looked to be in the car so I am hoping for the best.  Also thanks to Power I now know the body kit is somewhat hard to find which is cool.

Probably 15 years ago I helped my brother find a Classic 900 that had been manual swapped.  After Tyler told his uncle about the car and showed him the pictures my brother said "I may still have a bunch of parts from my 900".  about two weeks later he shows up at the house and drops off a load of stuff.

Tyler imediately got to work

I was able to score a good turbo from BookFace for $100 and the plan is to head up to the car for the weekend and hopefully get it running.  

I like Tyler. 

Very cool!  I can totally relate to this build!

That looks awesome for the money.  Cool project, hope it goes together well.

$500 and no rust or is that why the bottom is painted black?

He has a big smile - you did well. 

Nice score!  Should be an easy thing to get roadworthy again.  I'll be following along.

Awesome! Youthful enthusiasm is always fun

These are the best times!!

Love it!

Great car and father and son project.

My twin 16 year old boys and I worked on their car tonight.  Replaced a 12v outlet with a USB port, made the back door at least open from the inside, checked the oil and replaced the outlet fuse.  One of them found out why the cigarette lighter glows, the hard way.

An old Saab will have similar teaching moments.

It's even a manual!  With strange battery placement.  Yay more teenagers that can shift.

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

That is an Airflow body kit from SAAB back in the day.  Once it's running the kit is coming off for a refurbishment and I am hoping for no nasty surprises.  So far the only real rust we have found is under the drivers door, I don't think this car has been in Ohio all that long. 

Good for both of you. Way more character than a lot of first cars, and he'll be invested in it due to the sweat equity.

Super cool! That thing is a score.

I did the same with my son, first car was  E30 4 door, he loved it and I enjoyed getting it ready for him to have fun in.  Great score, keep us posted on the progress.

One of the only cars you sit "in".  Quite secure; slammed from behind at a light?  The trunk tucks below the rear seat, the engine goes under your feet, cabin goes straight up.  Perfect first car as a parent.  

=~ )

Oh, and fun as hell to drive.

Today is the last day we will be at Grandpa's and unfortunately the car is not coming home with us yet.  The turbo bolts to a 90 degree cast bend that then connects to the exhaust with two long and one short stud.  The FB turbo I found had one of the long studs missing and with the original turbo in pieces my plan was to just swap the plate with the studs from one to the other.  Well the short stud is too short and with only a MAPP gas torch I can't get enough heat into the cast hot side of our original turbo to get one of the long studs out.  I ordered new studs and nuts and will take the new to us Turbo to a shop when the parts come in and get it squared away.  The shiny end should have been a clue.

So with the possibility of getting the car running off the table for the weekend we tackled getting the fuel tank back in the car, and Tyler has learned (don't tell his mom) to cuss PO's.  Instead of unbolting the fuel line banjo bolt from the top of the pump someone cut the plastic fuel line and snapped off the nipple for the return fuel line.  I was able to teach Tyler the benefits of finding an old school parts store, Creston has a NAPA staffed with old guys, and we were able to get parts to connect everything, except for the nylon fuel line oddly, hopefully leak free.

There was something poking out from the one of the bolsters in the drivers seat, and we wanted to give the carpet a clean, so both front seats came out.  Thanks you SAAB for using a zipper instead of hog rings so fixing the seat only took about 5 minutes.  

With my brother giving us a unicorn uncracked dash and needing to replace the turn signal stalk we took out the dash.  Tyler read through the Bentley manual that came with the car and said it should not be too bad of a job.  He learned that many things are easier written down than done, but we got the dash out only to find I forgot to bring the turn signal stalk so it will have to wait until next time to go back in.  We are taking the door cars home with us so they can be cleaned and reglued and both windows, while they work, are very slow so I am hoping a good clean of the tracks and motors will fix that issue. 

While we were getting the fuel tank back in I noticed that the back seatback is not in right, the passenger side is a couple of inches too high, but that job will have to wait until next time.

The car is remarkably rust free, there are a few spots on the trunk floor that will need cleaned and treated but the only hole I have found so far is at the front of the sill under the drivers door:

That will need to be cut out at some point but as I don't have the tools or skills to really fix this correctly we will clean and treat it as best we can for now.

As for the rest of the car, the back is way cleaner than I was expecting:

I have poked around under the front of the car in the spots these cars like to rust and have not found any, and the front half is covered in oil, but since we have not really worked up there yet no pictures.

The plan for today is to change the trans and motor oil, clean and organize the garage then head home.  I have to say a big thank you to my wife and my dad.  Tyler's mom did not po po his want for this car, even though it is one of the biggest projects I have undertaken and there is not a lot of extra money right now.  I get my love of cars from my father but he never got into the mechanical side of things.  Our cars always went to the shop, he never had any tools other than the basics, but when I asked if we could use his detached garage he said yes without any hesitation, and at 75 even helped us get it in the building which was harder than it should have been

Anyway, thanks for following along, this has been so much fun working with the kid without other things to worry about and seeing how excited he is to get this car back together

In reply to Aaron_King :

Cool car, my stepfather had one in the early 80's, I remember it being comfortable and dependable. We called it Mona because of the moaning sound the bov made. Hope you and your son get to spend quality time together wrenching on it. 

What a cool car! Seems like the right amount of work needed to be not impossible to overcome as a first project car, but enough to really build some sweat equity and do some teaching.

At 15/16 I'm thinking most of his peers will be very confused when they ask what car he drives and the reply is "Saab." They'll either google it or reply with, "wut? y U sad bro?"

I have been neglecting this thread but work has continued.

With the help of Evan we went from this:

to this:

to this:

After that we worked through putting the fuel pump back in, changing the fuel filter and fixing the fuel line the PO cut for no reason.  After getting all of that buttoned up we put some gas in it:

I don't think I have seen Tyler happier than when the motor finally fired.  It ran like crap, there is still so much crap on the engine I couldn't see any timing marks but it ran.  That is when Tyler noticed fuel was pouring out from the fuel pump.  After tearing it apart again I noticed a lack of threads in the pump where the banjo bolt threads in.

So with a pump on order we got to other things.  The back seat back was crooked and wouldn't latch so we took it out, took it apart and fixed it.  There is a metal piece that runs along the bottom with the pivot points and it was bent to hell.  A couple of C clamps and it was level in the car and latching.

We swapped out the uncracked dash from my brother, recovered part of the door card and part of the trunk floor.  I also kind of forced Tyler and my oldest son to go with me to the Dayton LKQ yard to pull the rear axle and front hubs off of a 92 900 Turbo there.  It was a pain in the butt but we got it done.  It was more for the future so we will have time to clean them up before putting it on the car.

The distributor had a lot of vertical play so we rebuilt that, swapped all of the rubber brake lines out, pulled and cleaned up the calipers and put new rotors and pads on.  That pretty much brings things up to date.  I got sent to Texas for work but I hope to get it out of the garage under its own power before it gets too cold.

So a month after the last update and it's alive.  After replacing the leaky fuel rail and chasing down some coolant leaks Tyler was able to drive it around my dads house, no plates yet.  

 

The brakes are soft, it's only boosting about a quarter into the yellow on the gauge and there is enough surface rust on the flywheel I can't see any timing marks but it runs pretty good.  
 

I have a power bleeder and silicone vacuum line on the way and seeing the grin in Tyler's face as he drive the car for the first time made it all worth it.   
 

You are a rad pops.  Raising your boy with class obviously if he wanted a Saab for a first car. This is a great read read.  I feel like having a Saab for a first car is a great idea because he will be too busy and too poor (saying that in the best way possible from another euro nerd) to get into trouble. 

That's awesome!  Congrats to you both!! 

That's awesome!  My daughter had a very similar grin on her face the first time we stuffed a body into the trunk of the Saab.  I mean, the first time she drove it.

In reply to wae :

Once we got the hatch area squared away Tyler could not believe how big it was. He said " we could go to races and sleep in the car. "

In reply to Aaron_King :

I can confirm that a c900 hatch is sleepable.

Love the progress, makes me miss the one I had.