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Update: 22nd. June 2009
April - June ‘09: The Saab Wheels Resto gets serious!
I’ve finally begun to get down to the Saab in earnest, these past few months: going on YouTube to check out other people’s videos of fully – functioning 9000’s just isn’t enough of a fix anymore, I want to get my own working!
At the moment I am a bit limited in what I can do, but I decided in March and April to really get down to doing those wheels. It’s been quite a journey indeed: frustrating, hard work and rewarding and very rewarding – not necessarily in equal measure, and not necessarily in that order either!
I noticed a few chilling ‘nasties’ when I took off the wheels. Nearly each tyre bore evidence of Holts ‘Tyre Weld’ or similar ‘Get you home’ spray having been used. Hardly safe. Some even had nails still embedded in them - not good at all.
 
I had already started off with the first wheel, and foolishly I tried to fill in the ‘bad bits’ around the outer edge with fine surface – filler. Huge mistake. Think about it: how do you sand a curve reliably? It all looked great until the wheel was finished, and of course by that stage the paint had brought up all of the imperfections. Suddenly the super – fine filling job looked like it was dented with a hammer throughout!
 
Above: I bought these 15’s to temporarily replace my original 16’s through resto.
Getting the wheels off was a nightmare. One of the back wheels was so badly seized on to the hubs that it took 3 attempts to get it off, each time spending ages with the car jacked ( on a slope ). Needless to say, hammering was out of the question. Luckily, several doses of ‘W5 Penetrating oil’ did the trick, from my local Lidl supermarket. Having actually got them off it took up to a week to properly clean the wheels – the insides of them that is. Baked – on brake dust must be one of the hardest substances in the World to get off!
 
I eventually devised a system for actually painting them without taking the impossible ‘filler’ route. As the only bad parts were around the outer edges, I masked off each section and stripped off the paint using Nitromors paint remover and an Artist’s palette – knife. Incidentally, I used the gel – consistency paintstripper, for obvious reasons.
I should mention that, apart from the fact that the inner part of the wheels were fine, I wanted to remove as little of the factory finish as possible. The factory finish is incredibly good.
 
 
Once I was done with stripping, I left the masking tape in place and I simply built up layers of primer using CarPlan ‘High Build’ Primer. It took a lot of coats, but it was worth it. Nothing remained then but to sand off any ridges left after removing the masking tape. It really worked a treat. After this is was a case of painting and building up coats of laquer. I’m on the final wheel now, and I’ve used a full tin of paint ( Simonez Five Wheel Steel ) and laquer ( Hycote Clear Laquer ) on each wheel.
 
There are a few kerbing dents on the rims, but I left them in situ. Okay, it’s unprofessional but I figured two things. Firstly, I want the Saab to look great but it’ll never be ‘concours’. Day to day life will be done ( it’s too much of a car to leave sitting – the fun factor is so great it should be banned! ). Secondly, if I tried to hammer the dents out, God knows what would happen – like the metal stretching. Better to leave ( relatively ) well alone.
I’m working on a Video / picture / text tutorial right now, so keep an eye out for ‘Tony’s Wheel Resto’ video!
May 2009: Scumbag damage found, C/L ‘quick fix’ (with a gromit!)
In early May I finally got around to starting the Saab again. Like Volvo’s it seems, Saabs can have an ‘unhappy’ relationship with rainwater. I soon discovered that this wasn’t the sum total of my problems. Yes, the display still says ‘Check Radiator Level’ and the ABS light is still on ... but when I walked past the car I quickly realized that something was not right.
Sure enough, the little scumbag who did the door of my 440 with a screwdriver back in March had also attempted to have a go at the Saab too, but didn’t get very far as he’s obviously a pretty stupid thief. But hey, it’s part of a scumbag’s core philosophy: if I can’t have it, well, I’ll f*** it up for someone else. A “scumbag consolation prize”, if you will. I blame it on Ireland’s ban on contraception during the 1980’s / early 1990’s. Too many unwanted ferral little b*****s walking around.
To my horror, I then discovered that the rear offside door wasn’t locking at all. It gives the impression of being locked, due to the stiffness of the handle. The trim was surprisingly easy to take off, and it just turned out that a plastic clip - which the mechanism was pivoting on - was broken off. I duly replaced it with a drywall gromit for now - ugly perhaps, but it works!
April ‘09: Goodness from the U.S.A. - in flatpack form!
In April my good friend Bob in Maine sent me over my two ebay purchases from ages ago – Saab trim panels. I actually bought the two of them which were on offer: ‘New old stock’ as they say. These really were too – the condition of each is perfect, with everything in the box / packing bag. Not a single piece missing. Incidentally I paid about $300 for the two of them, so I guess this should be taken for granted!
I actually like the back of the Saab as it is – with the original trim panel which I painted VW red. I wanted to get my hands on a proper un-faded example ( ‘or two’ as it happened ) simply for the sake of being able to return the car to originality if desired. I worry about these things …
Panel info. for nerds: ART # 105219901 / 105219919
Part #: 243006
Handle: 105219885
Sacex ‘Made in Italy’
Update: 14th. March 2009
* This update covers all of 2009 so far! *
Attempted wheel ‘resto’: 05 - 07th. March
What I wouldn’t give for a flat driveway ...
I finally managed to get the wheels off the Saab ... or at least one of them ... at the beginning of March. Simon from Dargle Tyres kindly called up and loosened all four wheels with his torque wrench. Sadly I don’t have a spare set, which would have been handy really, so I have to get one wheel done and refitted before I can start the next.
I had been looking on Ebay, and I even found nice original alloys ( not aero’s ) for £10 each, rim - only, but carriage to Ireland not surprisingly worked out at £36 per wheel. In any event, I have learned that having spares, while handy, is a bit of a storage nightmare afterwards. I will make do.
I initially planned to get the wheels professionally restored, but at 100 euro minimum per wheel I figured that I would probably buy a set of Aero’s in near 100% condition for that. Off I went to my local motor factors and 60 euro later I had all of the materials needed to do it myself!
Thanks in no small part to extensive tutorials on the Volvo Owner’s Club forums, I think I have all of the expertise I need. They’re nothing if not a dedicated and meticulous lot on there! So will I be able to “hack it”? - I certainly hope so! As they say, “we shall see ...”
February 2009: Truly messing about!
I have not been a responsible Saab owner these past few months! I got a little turned off in December when I had a look at the rear nearside tyre: flat as a pancake. I firstly tried to take the wheel off: nothing doing. The nuts were so tight they may as well have been welded on.
Oh well, I guess better to find out now than some night in the dark when it’s raining sometime in the future. The car itself is getting quite wet inside - it’s looking suspiciously like either the windscreen or the sunroof. There’s a big job ahead with this one, but it will be worth it: I have had two serious offers to buy it in the past few months, and it’s not even for sale!
I duly jacked the car up and inflated the tyre, seeing as I couldn’t get it off. A few days later I returned to find it flat again. Well, at least I charged up the battery and started it. No problems there: it sprang to life. As fickle as it sounds and is, all this messing with the wheel and it going flat again ... even little things like that are so time consuming and depressing.
The tyres for this baby are dear too: about 165 euro each for the good ones! The Volvo’s are half that. Driving this car, though, is an experience you just can’t put a price on. It’s truly amazing! I hope to have some real progress photos for the next update, instead of eye - candy!
******************** 2008 Archive ********************
In early 2008 I took the 480s for the Car Test, it passed, and around March I brought the 440xi as well and it passed. I then returned to driving the 440xi. I miss the Saab terribly though - it is a unique driving experience to say the least.
Below I have catalogued the various few things that I did to the Saab in 2007. I hope to have the Saab back up and running again in 2009 - it’s a pretty firm ambition. There’s nothing actually wrong with it at present in terms of it running just fine, but the question is ‘for how long?’. The underlying problem is that the gearbox is in need of a rebuild.
If I were to keep going and the gearbox packed in, I would not find it easy to get another - espcially not in Ireland. A replacement would have to be a Turbo unit, and the later ( facelift ) model gearbox is unsuitable to the point of being impossible to fit: the ‘bullnose’ model that I have has a remarkably different one. For now, I will have to live on a diet of memories. Can’t wait to get back to my old friend though!
According to a Saab specialist who has been in the business for over 30 years, there are only two other 9000 Carlssons in Ireland.
December - Wood effect dashboard fitted
I had been eyeing up other Saab interiors for quite some time before I decided to fit this: I love chrome ( not on the Saab though! ) and Wood effect interiors ( You bet! ). Fitting it was very easy. The vents pop out easily and it’s just a case of removing a few hex screws to get the thing off. Actually the biggest hinderance - other than disconnecting the ‘Infocentre’ - was the steering wheel itself. I really did not want to take it off, but I managed with a bit of difficulty to work around it.
The infocentre itself is a bit of a nuisance to disconnect. For anyone who has ever disconnected a CD-ROM drive in a computer with a small amount of space, you would be thinking along the right lines. The Infocentre has a similar connector at the back. If I remember rightly, it unclips at one side. Best to check it with the Saab forums first, because it won’t budge without doing it the right way. They were a huge help to me ( see the Links page ).
The Woodie dash cost me all of E50 from a guy breaking a 1995 Turbo. That was very nice indeed, because a few days later I saw them on Ebay for 200.00 GPB. Being from the later model, the facia now had a hole in it: they moved the hazard warning switch from the steering column to the dashboard in the later models.
To cover the hole I got a bit inventive, because I could not source the hazard switch to block the hole. I bought a Saab keyring in my local Motor factor’s, took the badge out of the middle, and bonded it to the back cover ( chrome ) of a digital watch. I then stuck this on to the dash, over the hole, and it looks great!
September 2007 - Faded rear decor panel rescue!
As you can see from the above picture, I was not only laying a new floor but the rear quarter panel from my 9000 wasn’t looking so good! Getting it off the car was no problem: I simply took off the number plate and behind it were a couple of bolts to be undone ( from the inside of the tailgate ) and some long - perished adhesive trim. There was no possibility of painting the panel from the back: it was ‘helpfully’ coated with silver paint which would not budge.
Off I went to the Motor factor’s. Naturally, the paint could not be got so I settled for a Volkswagen colour which proved a good match. After two tins, it looked like this:
I was far from convinced with the result. The white just looked weird, and I realized that the upper level of white was not meant to be white at all: it should have been orange! Rather than make a real prostitute’s handbag of it by trying to spray an unconvincing line of orange on it, I decided to just buy more V.W. paint and paint the whole thing red. I did this and it looked 100% better. I would recommend it if you have nothing to lose: the result is really very nice:
I’ve since sourced two ‘old stock’ panels from the U.S. via Ebay. The seller - ‘danburysaabguys’ - ripped me off to the tune of $100 on postage but after much messing about I thankfully managed to get them sent to my friend Bob in Maine ( without the return of the $100 ). Leaving aside the rip - off, they cost me about $250 for the two. Bob is visiting Ireland next year, so here’s waiting!
August 2008 - Seats
I think my Carlsson may have carried a number of overfed businessmen in it’s early life: in fact it was first registered to a company Director in Swansea. Our own businessmen are far from slim too: I hope I am never reincarnated as one of their toilet bowls. The leather seats in the Saab are nice, though I can’t figure out why they are grey rather than black - which surely would look better in a red car.
Other than a slight detach along the stitching line of the fabric insert on the edge of the driver’s seat, the seats are perfectly intact. The cloth inserts themselves are in dismal condition in terms of colour: it is impossible to tell what colour they are meant to be. The leather is VERY good: the interior shows signs of wear ‘n’ tear ( after more than 165,000 miles this is fair! ), but there is no sagging.
I cleaned the cloth bits with ‘1001 Carpet Cleaner’ ( severe but nothing to lose ) and I did the seats - twice - with ‘Auto Glym’ leather care. It looked a lot better when I was finished:
March 2008 - Brake Calipers
I am not so sure that the brake calipers on the car needed replacing, but I bought four off a guy Breaking a Turbo ( same source as the wood - effect dash ). For these I paid the princely sum of 50 euro. I decided to strip these spares and paint them. At the time I was dealing with a Cowboy in Co. Meath who claimed to be a ‘Saab Specialist’, and he offered to get them reconditioned ( not that I’m sure that they needed reconditioning ).
To cut a long story short, he claimed he sent them away for reconditioning, despite my telling him not to until he had a firm price, and he then tried to charge me twice the going rate for their return. I think it’s called ‘extortion’. My guess is that he went on Ebay, bought a pair, and tried to sell them on to me for twice the price while pretending that they were mine. Of course the great benefit would be that he could then keep mine. This matter is still ‘live’, and the Small claims court beckons.
He certainly had an impressive collection of Saabs at his place - mostly clocked and faked ‘special editions’ as I was later informed. A word of Warning: Ring a Saab dealer in order to find a Recommended Saab Specialist’s. I am amazed at how many dodgy Saab people operate here, given the relative rarity of Saabs - but I guess the answer is in that statement. Rarity equals expensive, and expensive parts to fiddle people out of in my case.
My Saab 9000 Calipers before they took leave. Just as well they weren’t the ones off the car itself.
See also: Vlog - 440 460 480
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