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.