UKSaabs

Looking good!

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www.saabv4.com

Cheers Melle.
Had a couple of days scraping off the last of the underseal from under the passenger side front wing, welded up a couple of small holes, etch and applied seam sealer. Then I couldn't ignore this anymore:


Someone has crudely added another 'bracket' underneath at some stage, while not addressing the rust in the original. It'll all have to come out

It only took an old screwdriver and fine adjusting tool No.2 to peel off the original bracket, but a bit of scraping and poking uncovered more rust

Used a cutting disc to cut vertically through the welds in the remaining bracket, and it didn't take much persuading to remove. Then decided the best approach with the rest of the rust was to cut a slot, grind off the remaining outer panel at the bottom, then let in a repair panel

Had to let a couple of small pieces into the inner panel first

Before welding in the main repair panel, and dressing

Quite a fruitful hour's bodging, but when the sun went down behind my neighbours' roof it suddenly got rather cold. Still got to weld the lower seam, fabricate the bracket (the original job!) and get some protection on. Oh well, more tomorrow with any luck

Used a cutting disc to cut vertically through the welds in the remaining bracket, and it didn't take much persuading to remove. Then decided the best approach with the rest of the rust was to cut a slot, grind off the remaining outer panel at the bottom, then let in a repair panel

Had to let a couple of small pieces into the inner panel first

Before welding in the main repair panel, and dressing

Quite a fruitful hour's bodging, but when the sun went down behind my neighbours' roof it suddenly got rather cold. Still got to weld the lower seam, fabricate the bracket (the original job!) and get some protection on. Oh well, more tomorrow with any luck

Have just spent a crazy sum of money on a rear axle complete with trailing arms and brakes. Won an online auction and had to part with a whopping 99p

The downside - had to make a 120+ miles round trip to pick it up

However the vendor is a super guy, who has a fantastic V4 (I'm not going to tell you about it. It's his business if he wants to go public). He was having a bit if a clear out so I picked up a few other useful parts while I was there. Many Thanks Mark, if you read this

Man Maths means fuel is free.

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Underskatt aldrig en gammal man med en gammal SAAB

I'm very happy to help in a good cause, I shall follow the project with interest....

When I bought the car, the rear bumper was held on one side with a cable tie

I hadn't bothered to investigate, but as I knew either the bumper or bracket needed replacing, I picked this up when collecting the rear axle from Mark

So on Friday decided to investigate, and cut the cable tie off

The fillet welded to the inside of the bumper, which attaches to the bracket, has completely disintegrated

...as has the one on the end

Luckily, these bumper end sections are not handed, so regardless of which side it originally came from, the replacement section will fit

As Friday afternoon was lovely and warm, I was keen to get a second coat of hammerite on the inner wing to protect it during the coming winter

and on the 'bracket' that I was repairing last week

Unfortunately I hadn't taken the road spring out first so the bump stop turret will have to wait.
I really want to get the suspension on this corner dismantled before the weather gets too bad, so that the parts can be refurbished indoors. There was a bitter wind this morning, and snow on the tops just over the border in Wales, so the 'outdoor workshop' will soon be having a seasonal shutdown

Managed to get all of the NS suspension off the car before the temperature dropped. Currently in the process of cleaning and repainting, but pretty much the same as the other side, so I haven't bothered with photos.
I've also been doing another inside job. The aluminium brackets that retain the front indicator/side light assembly are badly corroded (I understand they are usually steel and suffer the same fate). So I'm re-purposing the lid off an old deep fat fryer, which is stainless steel

Visited a mate in the village who's a hot-rodder and geared up for machining stainless, to drill the hole. Then cut to size with a cutting disc in the angle grinder, and dress with a file

Keeping the returns on each end of the bracket, so there is a smoother, less sharp, contact with the inner wing, which should be less likely to cut through the underseal. This does however mean that the bracket will be longer than the original, and contact the inner wing in a different place. This necessitates the bends in the bracket being at non-right-angles, which took a bit of experimentation

I'm thinking of using these plastic number plate screws, which were left over when I replaced the plates on the 900; they will need trimming to a suitable length. Again, just trying to minimize future corrosion problems.
Just got to make another one now. They will be 'handed' as the angle of the bends is different at each end

It's been a while since I last posted, but work on the front suspension and brakes is almost complete. Bought some "Professional Parts Sweden" discs off t'internet for a very reasonable price. Just got to clean off the protective coating and fit the new pads.


So work on stripping down the rear suspension and brakes began this morning



The drums came off easily once I remembered to release the handbrake They're obviously home to spiders, but plenty of meat on the shoes, and the springs look fairly new. Letting the duck oil soak in before attempting to undo any nuts

Looking good there Greg...
Doing a great job, how did you get your yellow hammerite paint to turn black on the inner wings

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Always Win, If You Can't Win, Cheat

Focus B234
Focus ST 336hp
5 Saabs
3 French

Omega B234
RX8 B204

About one and a half tins of this...

Most PPS (formerly known as Scantech) parts are reasonably priced for a reason... I have not tried those brake discs but generally their stuff is utter rubbish.

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www.saabv4.com

Oh dear! They look quite well machined, so I guess it will be down to the quality of the steel that has been used. These were quite a lot cheaper than I've seen at 'list' price. so I'll just hope for the best

Spent rather longer than I had planned removing the driver's side rear wing. Two of the captive nuts down the front edge became de-captivated as soon as I put a spanner of the bolts, so had to remove the interior trim panel.
Then most of Friday was taken up with removing underseal

When I took the trim panel out it revealed this mess.

Someone has welded a patch in without cutting out the rust. Just patch it up to get it through one more MOT kinda thing. You could argue that if it had never been patched the car would at some point failed an MOT big style and ended up being scrapped.
There is only one cure for this. Nurse, pass the cutting disc please

Removed the remaining patch piece at the top as I din't like the shape, then decided that making the repair sections was a 'two pint problem' to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes. After a couple of pints I decided to make the flat part from one piece, and the curved section from a further two.
Flat section clamped in and ready to weld

Some metal bashing and welding later

A bit of tidying up and we have a reasonable approximation of the original shape

Still got to plug weld the flange to the outer panel, then start to tackle the carnage in the boot

Looking good again!

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www.saabv4.com

The rear lower spring seats are both past their best, with very thin weak metal round the edge. Harvested a good RH side one from the spare axle picked up from Lumpey back in November, but I have a small selection of LH side ones which all have rust holes. Here are a couple

Didn't particularly fancy spending £75 on a new one, so it was out with the grinder and MiG welder, and selected the least worst one, which had a thin area on top - sorted

and a couple of holes in the side - that should do the job

The rear axle is now completely stripped with the exception of one handbrake cable. It's had a soak in a mixture of Acetone and ATF for a week, a few gentle taps with a hammer, and attempts to rotate with the mole grips, but it doesn't want to move. I don't want to use heat as it would risk melting the outer sleeve on a perfectly serviceable cable...

Nice work so far

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Think you know it all, it's a sure sign you don't.

Self righteousness is for the narrow-minded.