UKSaabs

What a glorious spring like day, today.

So, 2 hrs cycling, nearly got ran off the road by a learner driver. Motorcyclist went past just shaking his head.

And so back the car. Sorry no pics today.

Paint work

Was covered in blobs of a cement toffee mixture.

On the roof on the bonnet, must have come from a lorry on my morning commute.

Scraped off with an old plastic bank card.

Then used Meguiars ScratchX to remove the excess.

Its bought the paint work back but there is a slight lift on the bigger marks.

I hate it when you start cleaning your car as you sort of tune in to all the bad bits on the paint work.

The bonnet is bad, so until I get myself a DA and compound, I had to to T-Cut the bonnet, after I'd removed the blobs.

So, happy now as bonnet looks more respectable.

I may get the front bumper and bonnet resprayed.

and finally today.

Stickers.
I got a pair or Roger Albert Clark Rally stickers at Race Retro last weekend.

Fixed them to the rear quarter windows, alongside my UKSaabs and We are Saab stickers.

Happy Saabing

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Joined the burble, burble, burble brigade, with 3" zorst.

Hi Saaber's:

Wheels.
Doing a bit of bodge job on them, rubbed down the scuffs on the rims, scuffs by the previous owner, and will be be priming, painting and lacquering next Friday.
Picture to follow.

Scratch X
Did the whole bonnet! T-cut was pants.
Will be investing in clay bar, compound and DA polisher during summer and doing the job properly, in normal light looks okay but under a spotlight at night, say at the petrol station it looks terrible.

Radio
To be repaced on Friday, not really interested in ICE, so standard Saab unit going in to make it look, well, standard!

Speakers
May have to wait another month, as I'm doing the wheels.

Sunroof
Will have to repaint the metal surround as its bubbled and flakey. May prime this on Friday if the wheels don't take all day!

That's all for now.

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Joined the burble, burble, burble brigade, with 3" zorst.

Well had a right result today.

I took the day off work to complete my DIY refurb my old viking alloys, or so I thought...

I found a petrol station and filled up with fuel.

I went to see Roy to get my FOC radio, as my existing radio died in spectacular style.

Anyhow, Roy says "your not in rush are you, as I may have something that interests you"

He showed me to a 9-3,

JD - "I can't take another car"

Roy - "the cars dead, but how about the wheels"

JD - "how can a car be dead?"

Roy " engine went, neglected use"

JD - " , thats the last thing you expect on a Saab"

So, A deal was stuck, more posted dated cheques, all I went in for was a radio

So here are the pictures:

The near rear was worse for wear.


Here's another work in progress shot:


Final results, not perfect but tidier:


Ta Da:


So I'm very, very happy. Shouldn't have done it but had rubbish week at work, and the car looks amazing. Thanks to Roy!

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Joined the burble, burble, burble brigade, with 3" zorst.

Very nice John! I'm torn between these and 9-5 Aero wheels. Really fancy Bonelorrys alloys but my money's gone on other things this month

How did you get on with the thicker front ARB?

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1st rule of fat club is you don't talk about fat club...

I really like these wheels - very nice too!

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......Gotta love a 9K..........

1996 9000 Aero
2001 9-3 Aero convertible

To repeat myself, thickening the front will cancel out the effects of thickening the rear. No idea why the garage would insist upon a change that isn't going to improve things. (bit like twostroke as they say the same) Leave the front bar as it is, it's a lot of work to change it as you have to drop the subframe.

Wheels look nice though.

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ケイ Homebrew Stage 3 - 256HP 360NM

Stiffen both imo stiffening the rear reduces understeer but only by increasing oversteer ime wich is worse on a fwd... The 9000 stiffens both with great success

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down with the td04 long live the t25

Doubling/thickening the rear Arb will reduce understeer, but will also introduce more oversteer.

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Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it into a fruit salad..

True, but i haven't had any problem with oversteer, there is still a tendency for understeer but its greatly reduced. I've not even had any close shaves even on track, might mean i'm not trying hard enough though.

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ケイ Homebrew Stage 3 - 256HP 360NM

Seems the 9-3 will oversteer anyway if you really fire it into a bend assuming its carried speed and not full boost power understeer.... The car has massive body roll at both ends and a far from stiff body...higher end cars came with thicker bars as standard

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down with the td04 long live the t25

Hi Dai,



I've not done the ARB mods yet, as its beyond my skills, so I'll be getting done by TwoStroke, so need to save up.

But, the wheels, made a difference on the handling just on their own. Bonelorry's look fantastic, if I did have the pennies, I would have got them, but now I have these!

I did a big drive to Frome and back on Saturday, and had much fun hooning around the roundabouts in Milton Keynes!


Hi Kei,



The "garage" is Twostroke, been using Roy ever since he sorted out a load of grief when another garage messed up a replacement gearbox. That was years ago, and I just trust them, built a good friendship over the years, so I'm sticking with them.

I do hear what you saying about the ARB's, but I'm going to give it go, just need to save up first!


Hi Brooklands,

I'm very happy with the wheels. Problem is now I can see the brake calipers, the vikings used to cover them up more. So, I have another item to add to my list.

Paint the brake calipers!

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Joined the burble, burble, burble brigade, with 3" zorst.

Top work!

One question: why, when painting alloys (and I have seen a number of other folk do this) do you mask up the wheel in situ?

I know I am no end of an idiot, and watching flakes of silvery stuff pinball around the wheelarch when I last jetwashed my heap, I am aware my own wheels are in desperate need of a refurb. But I think I would, ooh, I hesitate to say this... take the wheel off? No need to mask everything up, could do the back as well.

What am I missing here?

And I dare you to paint your calipers pink.

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Don't ask. I don't know.

It's cheaper and easier to do it this way as you don't need to pay to have the tyres removed and then pay again to have them refitted. Likelihood is the finish won't last as long as doing it fully but it'll last for at least a year or two.

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ケイ Homebrew Stage 3 - 256HP 360NM

Hmm, what I meant was why not take the entire wheel and tyre off the vehicle, still paint by masking up and not removing tyre, and then put back on vehicle.

Just seems more work.

I still feel I'm missing something here.

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Don't ask. I don't know.

Ah, now that does make sense.

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......Gotta love a 9K..........

1996 9000 Aero
2001 9-3 Aero convertible

Hi Everyone,

I've been very busy at work hence why I've not been on here for a while, but to answer the question:


I couldn't be bothered going through the rigmoral of taking off the wheels, I would only have taken the wheels off, and not bothered getting the tyres taken off.

The scuffs were not too bad so I just did in situ but masked up the car with paper to stop overspray.

The overall finish is far from professional, but nothing a blind man on galloping horse would notice,

Suspension and insurance

I did some research this week, by my next renewal I will have 2 yrs NCB. What difference it makes.

The website "confused" had a modified section:

So I ticked.
Engine chip.
Suspension lowered.
Suspension modified other.
Exhaust non standard.
Filter non standard.
Brake upgrade.

and the quote was around £650, which is lower than my current premium, I'm really happy about that. It was about £60 cheaper without the engine chip.

Out of curiosity, I got a quote for a standard 96v4 and it was £90

For a 96v4, if you ticked modified options for engine bore, engine other (x-over webers was my thinking)suspension other, exhaust and filters, it jumped to £450, but I still though that was good value.


So, there you go, I can realistically plan to get the suspension mods and other things done to my 9-3.

I want my 9-3 to have minimum roll, as that suits my driving style, so i think I will have to lower it on some Eibach's, which i'll have to factor in to the grand scheme, when I get round to doing the roll bars and various bushes.

Happy Saabing.

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Joined the burble, burble, burble brigade, with 3" zorst.

Latest update.

Idling was getting a bit random recently - this was due to perished vacuum hoses.

So, I asked Two Stroke, if I could pop in on Saturday and DIY the hoses. Roy obliged and left me to it. Managed to snap the nipple off the manifold piece, oops, but then hunted round the wrecks and found a suitable donor!

Micky showed me the tip of checking the dump valve and the one way valve to the manifold, these were all okay.

And that's it eratic idling gone.

We also discussed the merits of replacing the delivery pipe and upgrading the dump valve to Abbott items, even without a remap, Micky was of the opinion this would give a bettter throttle and turbo response, so may think about this for the future.

Whilst there, they were also handing back a fully restored Volkswagon Beetle a limited edition model called a "Jean", it has seats that have jean fabric!

It looked fantastic.

They owners arrived and celebrated with an unveiling and champagne!

That's all for now!

Happy Saabing

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Joined the burble, burble, burble brigade, with 3" zorst.

Car had its MOT today, and only fail was a corroded brake pipe, under the car near the nearside rear wheel, not too bad I thought.

Car is booked in for next week to have this fixed and a service.

Here's a picture from summer, all clean and shiney.



Here a shot of one of the winter tyres, which I got from Neo's, check out the tread!

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Joined the burble, burble, burble brigade, with 3" zorst.

Continental wintercontact TS830's by the looks of it. Was thinking of them for mine.

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ケイ Homebrew Stage 3 - 256HP 360NM

Yep, them's the one's. They've been great in the recently cold mornings.

They were also great coping with the worn out motorways where the wheel ruts fill with water.

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Joined the burble, burble, burble brigade, with 3" zorst.