The Cars
The Cars
I started this whole adventure many years ago when my parents bought a 1986 Saab 9000 from Framingham Saab. It was nice car that I fell in love with, and I was hooked. When the chance came up to get my own Saab, a 1985 900, I jumped on it. When the '85 died, a great opportunity presented itself in the form of my now current 900T. This is their stories...
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The 1986
History
About three weeks after my 1985 900's engine died, my mechanic called me and informed me that another of his clients was moving, and she wanted to sell her 1986 900T and asked if I would like to buy it from her. I said I would like to but I had to check it out and see if it was going to be worth the time and effort. I went down to his place and looked at the car, and saw that the body was in excellent condition, paint still shiny with no rust or cracks. I opened the door and found that the seats and floor were spotless, but the ceiling did have the droop that all older 900 seem to get- no major issue there. I checked the odometer and found out the thing only had 124k miles on it after 16 years. I took it for a test drive, and while it did have a few minor rattles and creaks, it ran very well.
So I had my self a new (used) car.
The car has run well for several years now. I didn't really have to anything to it besides regular maintenance, well not until the fall of 2004.
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The Money Pit
In the Autumn of 2004 my car began to show its age and systems began to fail. First it was the exhaust: the muffler went and took the tail pipe with it- $300. Then the breaks went, all of them- $600. The exhaust again, this time the front pipes and catalytic converter, $600 more (d@mn converter was almost $200 of that). Then the break master cylinder and two, make that three of the brake lines- another $700.
The kicker came in March of 2005- my engine began spitting white smoke from the tail pipe. The smoke began small at first, but progressed to the point of me having to turn the engine off when stopped lest I kill the surrounding drivers, pedestrians and small mammals with a choking white, smelly haze. I looked into the problem and discovered that this was a major symptom of a failing turbocharger.
The turbocharger on my car is an oil cooled unit, unlike the ones found in later model 900 that are water cooled. Trying to find an oil cooled turbo for a Saab turned out to be very hard, since most if not all the parts places only had the water cooled units. I ended up getting a rebuilt on eBay, and when I got it, it turned out it was just another water cooled unit. I had it, and needed to replace the old, so it went in with out cooling. I used Ellis Imports, a local Saab & Volvo repair shop in Southborough, MA. The old unit did not go quietly- the mounting studs were rusted in place and broke off when they went to remove the mounting bolts. This required all of the mounting studs to be drilled out and replaced. In addition the vacuum hoses needed to be redone and several check valves replaced. In all, with parts and labor, it was another thousand dollar job.
So for the six months from September, '04 to March, '05 I dropped somewhere in the realm of $3200 keeping a $1500 dollar car on the road. Yeah, my wife thought the same thing.
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Adding insult to injury
By June of '05, my car was now mechanically 100% and I decided to start working on other items. My first decision was to upgrade my stereo system, I had a very nice 15 year-old Pioneer system that was fully decked out for its age: a head unit with tape deck, 9-channel passive EQ, 6-disc CD changer and two amplifiers powering 4 speaker separates and a sub-woofer. This was a fairly expensive setup when I first got it, and had been in three cars. By now it was showing its age, so if I wanted any modern features I needed to replace it.
I decided to go whole-hog with the new system (See the exact details here for the specifics on equipment and such) and put in good, solid foundation that would allow me to expand the system as needed without having to rip out the interior again and again. So I ripped out the interior.
After removing the seats, console and carpeting I encountered something that was unsettling, the floor padding was soaking wet. Now when I first removed the interior of the '85 I encountered the same thing, and I knew what was next. I lifted the padding up and found several small holes along the metal seams and dram plugs in the floor. They weren't as bad as the ones I found in the '85 but they were still troubling. I decided that I had to find out the extent of the damage to the floor and began the arduous job of stripping out all of the sound dampening material of the floor. If you have ever installed Dynamat or one of its contemporary products, you know that this stuff is basically roofer's tar that is laid on the sheet metal after the car is built and then sprayed over when the frame goes in for paint at the factory. The details can be found here.
In all there were six holes in the floor of the cabin: two along the floor seams in either of the front foot wells, one in the center hump above the catalytic, and three of the drain plugs in the back seat area. I also came across five holes in the trunk: three along the center seam, one in each corner at the edge of the wheel well and under the bracket in the right side in front of the power roof motor. Also, there was surface rust scattered across the floor. Repairing the damage required several different jobs- I could and did fix the drain plugs my self and had new steel plates welded in place by my mechanic and a local body shop. The total cost was just around $400, including materials.
Once I had the floor refinished and sealed up, I had to replace the sound dampening material, insulation and carpeting. The existing carpet and padding had been exposed to the elements and were destroyed. Getting the carpet was easy, a deceased 1985 two door coupe donated its rug. The insulation in that was also toast, due to the same rust problem. In fact all the cars I checked seemed to rust out at the seams and been water logged. I ended up ordering some Dynamat ExtremeLiner sound and temperature (R24) insulation. The ExtremeLiner made the ride near twice as quiet as as with the old OEM insulation. On went the donated rug, topped off with some rubber floor mats I got from the same 900 2-door. I really wanted to keep water from being transferred into the carpet and onto the floor from passenger feet.
At the same time I was doing the floor, I went to work on the door and side panels, the drooping roof (there's a surprise, a c900 with a sagging headliner)
Seats and console - I finished the whole thing off with a pair of leather buckets from a '92 and a rear bench from a '93.
Dash and gauges
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History Repeats Itself:
On September 13th of 2005 I was at the central postoffice here in Framingham. I had just dropped off a package and was preparing to leave, I got in the car and went to the west exit of the lot and stopped to allow a (illeagally) parked semi (lorry for those in the UK) to pull in to traffic. As the truck began to pull forwrd, I noticed that the driver had yet to turn his wheels and was moving forward in a strait line. I leaned on the horn to warn him, and it did no good. I went to move back, but failed to get in gear before having him "bump" my bumper and fender.
After we had both pulled back to inspect the damage, and me to swear, I found that the 1 mph accident had crushed my hood, fender, bumper and corner lamp. He had a small, black smudge on his truck.
To add insult to injury, the police officer summoned to the scene said I was to blame for him leaving the road and hitting me! The officer's exact words were: "Oh, the only way that type of accident happens is if the driver of the struck car pulls out into traffic without looking. You're lucky I am not ticketing you!" Who cares that she could not make that declaration legally (The only way she could was if she actually witnessed the accident. Her opinion counts as hearsay only and has no legal bearing.) What does it matter if she only inteviewed the truck driver and his wife and not me? I am at fault because I cut him off, she knows these things.
When all was said and done, I had about $2150 in damage, and he had about an hours work with rubbing compound. I ended up replacing the hood, fender, cornering light, bumper and radiator support, a total of more than $1600 for parts. I also repaired some rust damage along the driver's side quarter panel.
All in the car looked a whole lot better, but I am still out the $3700 because they still haven't settled the damn thing yet with the insurance company, 20 months later. With interest that is almost $4900. I am in the process of suing them.
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Time (& Money) Well (?) Spent:
Here is the current list of repairs and upgrades that I have already completed and am going to do:
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To Do |
Mechanical/Structural Needs |
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Mechanical/Structural Wants |
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Cosmetic Needs |
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Cosmetic Wants |
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The 1985
In September of '03 I had to take the Blue Beastie and it to the send it to the local junk yard do to serious rust damage to the frame and underside. It was a fun project while it lasted. I took allot of the parts that I have purchased for the '85 and used them to improve my '86.
History of the Blue Beastie
My first car is a blue, three-door, 1985 Saab 900 base model that was originally purchased at Charles River Saab in Watertown, MA by my godmother's family in 1984. They were the only owners and drove the car up to about the end of 1996. At that time, they took the vehicle off the road due to several problems, the worst of which was a shot power steering rack. The car sat beside their garage in Lexington, MA for approximately the next year.
Now, up to then, I had been driving my family's previous vehicle, a 1986 Pontiac Parisienne Safari full size station wagon and paying for it. I was working in Burlington, MA, about 25 miles from my house, and the weekly gas bill on this V-8 monster was topping out at about $70 a week. Two fill-ups of about 20 gallons each time were bankrupting me. On top of the gas bill, the thing would break down on a seemingly monthly basis, taxing my already depleted funds.
Sick of my griping and groaning about never having any cash, my godmother said she would let me have her Saab if I would just get it out of her yard. Now, my mother had had a 1992 Saab 9000 that she let me drive on occasion, and I had fallen in love with that car. Because of this love of that car, I jumped at the opportunity to own my own Saab, even if I had to drop some cash in to it.
Little did I know just how much cash that would require.
I took ownership of the car at the beginning of 1997 and my father drove it home from my godparent's house. His exact words describing the trip are lost to me, but he implied that the trip was one of the scariest car rides he had ever taken. The steering was almost gone, the tires bald, and the engine was waaay out of tune. I brought the Blue Beast to Greg, my local mechanic, and when I told him that I wanted to make it road worthy, he gave me a look that basically said you're nuts. He agreed to make the repairs and approximately one week and my entire 1996 state and federal tax refund checks later, I had a drivable Saab.
Now, the difference between having a drivable car and having fully functioning car is a major stretch. I drove the car for about a week, and at the end of that week, I had a major list of stuff that had to be fixed, replaced, or added. The first thing that had to go was the radio. My godmother's sons had put this piece of crap Panasonic stereo that now only barely worked. It went. Quickly. (See The Stereo page to see what I did and am still planning). The driver's side door was bashed in and it did not close fully. It went. It had no storage up front. I put in a center console. The ceiling suffered from the dreaded Saab Droopy Ceiling Syndrome. I replaced it. It leaked oil like a sieve. I had all the gaskets replaced. Engine electrical gremlins abounded. I had the coil, distributor, distributor cap, wires, plugs, and battery replaced. The driver's side seat back collapsed. I rebuilt it. The brakes were shot. I had them replaced, the front ones twice. The suspension both upfront and in the back was gone. New shocks all around plus new links in the rear. Exhaust system leaked horribly and had no heat shield. I got a completely new one except for the catalytic converter. The door handles were held together with bailing wire. I replaced those, too. Et cetera Et cetera Et cetera.
You get the point.
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The Accident
It took three years, but I had the car at a point where I was feeling rather good about it. Unfortunately, that feeling did not last very long.
On October 24, 2000, I was on my way to work, and I had stopped at a red traffic signal. I was drinking a Coca-Cola, listening to Matty in the Morning on the radio, and generally enjoying the beautiful autumn day when, quite unexpectedly, BANG! I was hit from behind quite forcefully and slammed forward into the car that was stopped in front of me.
After a minute of so of disorientation, I exited the car to find out just what exactly had just happened. I walked around to the back to see what had hit me and the damage it had caused. I had been hit by a white E250 Ford Econoline Van that rode right over the rear bumper. It had impacted my car squarely across the tailgate and folded it in about six inches, crushing all four taillights. I was not happy about this. The front side was not as bad, but it was still screwed up. The bumper was twisted into an unnatural angle and causing the bumper supports to bend and the radiator supports on the right side to twist. The radiator supports also support the hood, and this caused the hood to push back about a half inch so that it intersected the front of both doors. The doors now opened with a resounding “c-thunk” noise. After I had exchanged insurance information with the driver of the van and other car, I got in my car and found another problem: the driver's side seat back, the one I had so carefully rebuilt 6 months before, had collapsed and now was sitting in the back seat. The only plus was that there was no mechanical damage. The engine still ran, the brakes worked, and the cooling system, despite the radiator support damage, still cooled. Surprisingly, the frame was not twisted either. Tough little bugger, that 900.
Unfortunately, I did not fare as well. I had a “good” case of whiplash and a small back pull that kept me out of work for a week and that I was still feeling towards the end of 2000.
After all the automotive related insurance issues were settled, I got into fixing the Blue Beast. Yes, I dropped more cash into it, but not as much as you would think. You see, earlier in 2000, I had purchased a used tailgate from my local junkyard for $100. The gate had many of the accessories I had always wanted to add, including a whaleback tail fin, and it was the same color as my car. I had to purchase new outer taillights, a grill, headlight rims, and two tailgate lifter pistons from Saab, at a total cost of about $500. The labor to get them all installed ran only about $500 at a local body shop. I purchased a whole set of cloth seats from the same local junkyard, and they only want $100 for them. Now, I had received a $1200 check for the car from the hitter's insurance company, so I ended up even, with a better-looking car to boot. Not too bad in my opinion.
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And Yet Another Setback…
OK I got the car working great, it looks a whole lot better, and I can finally begin to improve it. Or so I think.
In late March of 2001, I was coming home from work on my usual route when I came to a set of train tracks that crosses the road near my house. Over the winter months, the cold weather had caused frost heaves to slowly push the rails up out of their beds until they were raised about five or six inches higher than before. I crossed them as I normally did, but instead of the normal “thump” noise I usually heard, was a loud “Cthunk-bang” noise and a very forceful jolt. I figured that the rails had banged into the under carriage and that was all, so I drove home.
The next day I was driving in to Boston, and my oil light came on as I made a turn. I thought that this was odd since the oil was changed recently and the level should be fine. I pulled into a gas station and checked my oil and it was empty. This was not unheard of; I was burning oil, so maybe I was just burning more than I previously believed. I filled the oil and went about my business for the day. That night as I was turning into my driveway, my oil light again came on. I got out and again I checked the oil, and it was empty for the second time. Now I knew something was up and I brought the car down to my mechanic the next day.
His diagnosis was bad: the impact had crushed the oil pan and caused a good deal of impact related compression damage to the underside of the engine. The engine was terminal. In one fell swoop, my car went from my baby to a two thousand pound paperweight.
I brought the thing home and parked it in the driveway, and considered my plan of action. I decide that I was going to make it a project car and rebuild it from the ground up.
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That Which Was Supposed to Come
I had begun the process of completely rebuilding this car from the ground up, a plan which was going to be very time consuming. I had already stripped the interior down to bare metal- gone were the seats, the carpeting, the center console and the steering column covers. I stopped at doing the dash because of the sheer complexity of that job.
When I ripped the carpeting up, I found another issue that needed attention- a foot long by two inch hole in the passenger side floor. This was added to the list of body repairs that I would need to have done.
In October of 2002, I removed the old SOHC engine with the help of my Haynes manual and a good friend. It took three days to get the hood off, the support structures out of the way (remember that they were damaged in the accident!), get the old engine out (a bear if there ever was one) and dispose of it at my local junkyard.
I had a list of repairs and upgrades that I have already completed and was going to do, which is now a moot point. Take a look at it to see how much time I had invested in this car:
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Cosmetic Needs |
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As you can see there was a lot to do on the car. What really gets me is that I had already purchased almost all of the parts needed to do the work on the car. C'est la vie...
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This page last updated at: 2:57 PM 13 August 2009
Page validated: 2:57 PM 13 August 2009