September 22, 2011

Possible culprit for engine ‘rattle noise’

When the car was in one piece, I would hear a loud rattle coming out the engine compartment while driving at highway speed. It didn’t sound like it was coming from the engine itself, but I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Today I removed the radiator hanger/hood latch to get it painted and noticed that the upper left bracket of the radiator had broken off. I removed the radiator and also found that the right lower bracket had also broken. That means that the radiator was only being held in place by the overfill hose and the left lower bracket. I’m going to guess that this damaged occurred in the accident.

Fortunately there is a radiator shop next to the body shop, so I walked it over. The shop said that the breaks were clean enough that everything could be prepped (sandblasted and tinned) and welded back on. I was also told that this is a common occurrence with SAAB 99s and 900s.

The radiator and assembly is going to be painted black. The hoses are in good shape, but I’m going to replace the temperature sensor fan switch and the thermostat with lower threshold ones to improve cooling.

September 19, 2011

Experiment in refinishing turn signal reflectors

Before I found the old new stock turn signal, I got a pair of front turn signals that were complete, but were pretty weathered. I started searching on how to refurbish the reflective surface of the light cluster and found a couple of options. Unfortunately the only right way to do it is expensive and uses the same method of applying a thin metal film just as it was done during the manufacturing process. Some people suggest “chroming plastic” which is a little cheaper. Others suggest using two coats of Krylon high gloss black plastic paint as a base and then two coats of “brilliant” silver paint. So I tried that, and after letting the clusters air dry, I put them in a low temp drying oven for a few hours.

Before:

After Krylon High Gloss Black for plastic:

After Krylon Brilliant Metallic Silver paint:

I’m concerned at how well it will hold up, but we’ll see. It definitely is reflecting light better.

September 17, 2011

The SAAB 99 Holy Grail .. well, one of them

There is a definite list of Holy Grails for the SAAB 99. The front turn signals probably aren’t that rare for the 1977-1984 models since they’re newer and they were made for 7 years, but they seem impossible to find. I was piecing together a set when I came across a brand new one .. and just one. Both the left and right on the car were destroyed by the accident and weathering. What was left of them crumbled to the touch.





I probably will save the new one pictured above until I find another and for now make a pair out of these below. The clear lenses are from the earlier years, the later were European spec and later US models. One reason why these may be so rare is that they have issues with weatherproofing which causes moisture to get trapped. The build up of moisture, moss/mold can destroy the reflective mirroring enamel and ultimately make the plastic brittle. If you ever crack your lenses its important to take care of it as soon a possible. I’ve been researching how to restore them, its a common problem but its very expensive to get the mirroring restored.

It’s best not to obsess over this though.





September 15, 2011

Seats are nearly done

Here is a start at the interior. Once the painting is done, I’ll get it finished up, but I wanted to at least get the seats redone first.

You remember this one:

I wanted to the new seats to be similar to the old sporty Sonnett buckets which looked like this:

This is how they turned out: