1985 900 Notchback

[hutch]

Red 900s with gold wheels represent early '80s awesomeness, and mullets.

I originally did a wheel in blinding GOLD but decided it was a little too bright. Good point about sandblasting them, when I stripped them I did the same method, heavy paint stripper and a wire wheel but didn't bother getting the lips perfect. I got them looking pretty respectable but they used some serious paint on those wheels back in the day and some of it was just impossible to get off. Like I said, I'll probably try this experiment all over again down the road but for now I'm happy with the level of 80's-ness going on at the moment.

[Geoff]

I got them looking pretty respectable but they used some serious paint on those wheels back in the day and some of it was just impossible to get off.

Patience Daniel-San! I was able to get all the paint off by leaving the stripper on for a long time and doing a second round of paint stripper when I needed.

So do you have a cassette player in that thing?

My dad's first SAAB was a red '74 99 3dr with gold GLE (soccerball) wheels and an eight track player. It was awesome.

[hutch]

Oh I gave it my best on the stripper( ?), I'd leave a coat on for a few hours, wipe off, wire wheel, start over a couple of times. Even pulled out the pressure washer a few times. It did get the majority off but there were just a few little pieces here and there that refused to budge without the help of a dremel and I didn't really feel like doing that to the wheels. Then of course the first set of tires that gets put on managed to mess up nearly every wheel.

And no the car does not have a radio, mostly because I hadn't bothered to put it back in. My cousin said it just stopped working one day and I haven't really looked into why that may be. Could be as simple as a blown fuse but I just haven't explored around yet. Perhaps I should add an 8-track to it, my friend has a pretty nice collection that I'm sure I could borrow.

[Geoff]

Other people have told me it's hard to get the paint off Shelby wheels. Maybe I just had a good strong batch of paint stripper...

Don't forget to get a CB with a brushed stainless face. Gnarly dude.

[hutch]

So over the past week pretty much everything has come in to finish the suspension overhall, brake lines, fittings, pads, rotors, tie rods, ball joints, and I even got a new fuel filter for it since I was replacing the one in my 9-3 anyway. I'm hoping it will ride quite well when all is said and done but I also noticed the right rear of the car is sitting about 1/2" lower than the rear left so that was a little disconcerting. I'm hoping I'll notice something is obviously busted or it will go away when I swap out the rear shocks to match the front bilsteins. The nuts for the shocks are completely rusted together so I don't know how I'm gonna get them off, I'm thinking I'll have to chop off the whole top of it because it doesn't look like its going anywhere and it just spins when I try to loosen it.

Now that I have everything here I'm going to try to mount all the brake stuff up to the hubs so all I'll have to do is bolt it up to the control arms and plug in the brake line. But I had a question about what is needed to bolt the front wilwoods up to the hub, looking through old threads I noticed luke said:

It seems that the saab bolt spacing is based around an old english lockhead/AP standard that was used in a lot of cars of the period and happened to develop into one of the standards for racing calipers. The only thing that needs to be done is the mouting ears need to be chased out from 1/2 to 9/16 and an 1/8" spacer needs to be fabricated to get the offset spacing correct.

Is he talking about the mounting ears on the caliper or the hub? I had never heard anything about the 1/8" spacer either so maybe this was an old set of wilwoods? In other places people talk about them like they bolt right up so I was a little confused.

Other than that I'm just waiting to hear back from Penndot with my plate so who knows when that will actually happen and I can drive this thing around

[Jordan]

You have to open up the caliper ear bolt holes... they come 1/2" and the stock bolts on the hub are 9/16" (or metric equivalent)... just drill them out.

Also, to get the caliper spaced correctly over the rotor, buy some SAE 1/8" thick 9/16" ID washers. to space the caliper back a bit. You could make a plate and drill holes in it, but washers are easier as long as you don't take the calipers off often.

[SwedeSport]

Some springs have a right, and left side. Also take into consideration the weight of the driver when measuring ride height.

[hutch]

You have to open up the caliper ear bolt holes... they come 1/2" and the stock bolts on the hub are 9/16" (or metric equivalent)... just drill them out.

Also, to get the caliper spaced correctly over the rotor, buy some SAE 1/8" thick 9/16" ID washers. to space the caliper back a bit. You could make a plate and drill holes in it, but washers are easier if as long as you don't disassemble them often.

Cool thanks for the insight, I'm gonna try to document everything I do and make a little how-to for all the noobs like me wondering how this all works

Some springs have a right, and left side. Also take into consideration the weight of the driver when measuring ride height.

Hmm I hadn't thought of that, the springs are Intrax and I don't think they had any markings about side to side, just part #'s, but to be honest I don't think I've taken too close of a look. When I drop the axle (assuming I actually get the rear shocks out) I'll try swapping them and see if it changes.

[SwedeSport]

You can also add or subtract the 1/8 inch shims to fine tune the ride height. There are also a few different rubber isolator thicknesses used over the years.

[Mezzanine]

Is he talking about the mounting ears on the caliper or the hub? I had never heard anything about the 1/8" spacer either so maybe this was an old set of wilwoods? In other places people talk about them like they bolt right up so I was a little confused.

As Jordan says, you have to drill out the caliper mounting ears. The spacers are needed to get the caliper centered over the rotor- this only has to get close. I dont have my notes in front of me, but I do remember that it was not an exact 1/8"... I bought an assortment of shims in different thicknesses from McMaster Carr, and managed to get the spacing really close.
I made it work with some combination of these shims (just can't remember which! ):
1 97063A111 1 Pack Wide-rim Plain Steel Shim, .048" Thick, 9/16" Id, 1" Od
2 97063A122 1 Pack Wide-rim Plain Steel Shim, .075" Thick, 9/16" Id, 1" Od
3 3088A513 1 Pack Steel Shim, .125" Thick, 5/8" Id, 1" Od

[hutch]

Got a call today from AAA and my plate came in, woohoo! I just got back from driving around for a half hour or so just having some fun with it.

I also stopped by the hardware store for a 9/16" drill bit which is apparently a very strange size because I could only find one brand that had it. Because it was such an obscure size I couldn't find any 9/16 washers so I figured I'd just get some 5/8 but they didn't have any of those so I ended up with 16mm. 9/16"=14.2875mm and 5/8"=15.8750 so I'm afraid it will be a little big but it probably won't be a big deal once its all bolted up but I'll see. Once I get the stock stuff off I'm probably going to replace the bolts with some new ones anyway so I might take that opportunity to get some different washers if it doesn't work and I guess order them online since it seems to be difficult to find locally in that size.

[hutch]

Long, crazy hot halfway productive weekend of wrenching. I have put on about half of the "silly plastic bits" but I'm waiting a bit to finish off the back two panels because I don't like the way they are supposed to mount. You can see I have the one rail in but I think I'll end up taking it off as I wasn't pleased with how the panel sat with it so I'm going to go to with a plan B.

However in doing all of this I found more rust than I would have liked in the rear wheel fenders, mostly on the passengers side but a bit on the drivers too. I don't think its terminal but I'd still like to get it fixed soon even if this car won't be seeing any salty winters anytime soon.



So as you can see I dropped the rear axle to get the Wilwoods put on, I wire brushed it and am going to stop off and pick up a can of black rustoleum to put on because we all know painted parts=new parts. I'm also getting the rear bilsteins on which have fought me tooth and nail every step, first I had to cut off the top nut because it was completely frozen and then I've also had to cut the bottom off because that was also completely frozen stuck. I ended up cutting off the bottom mounts of the OEM shocks and then cutting through the frozen bolt and I was able to pop them off. I might hit these with a coat of paint too before putting them on but it doesn't really seem necessary so I'll see.


And then of course I'm also running into some problems on the front hubs, everything is off except for this tie-rod end. The nut will just spin, and its not the bolt itself that is spinning, the nut turns like its loosening up but it just isn't 'biting' into anything. I don't really know how I'll fix that, probably some sort of cutting plan as well but I haven't quite envisioned how it will work the best so I'm going to put that off for a few more days. Here it is getting my impression of this little guy


Anyway if this weather dies down a bit I hope to get the axle back in with the shocks in by mid-week and maybe get to the front brakes by the weekend.

[hutch]

Well after a bit of a hiatus (depressing to see my last post was in July) the spg kit is on as are the wilwoods.


I am having a problem with them though and I can't decide if it's an issue with bleeding them or it's something else. For anyone else with wilwoods, am I correct that I just bleed the top two valves on each caliper,ignoring the bottom, and follow the usual pattern, or do I need to bleed them all? That's what the Internet said but there were some mixed thoughts in some instances as well. I bled all of the top valves and it still feels like there's some air in there or I'm having other problems. The stock brakes also felt like there was air in there but since everything was so old and rusty I never felt the need to try and bleed them them since they were getting replaced anyway. Now I'm starting to wonder if the booster is on it's way out because I bled them the same way I've bled them the same way I've done other brakes and I'm still having problems. With the car off if I pump the brakes the pedal will stiffen up some but when the car is running no such luck.

So what do you all think, I'm gonna try to bleed them again this weekend but if that fails, do you all think the booster could be going out?

[SwedeSport]

That thing is starting to look pretty sharp.

[hutch]

Yeah right in time for winter and salt in PA

The old single stage paint rules though, this car hadn't seen a garage for years but I gave it a good polish and wax a few months ago and it still looks pretty great. I used some flat black bumper paint on the spg kit because I always liked those early spg's with the black panels. I just wish I had gotten the brakes in order for a little more driving time this summer. I'm really having a hard time convincing myself to want to drop the turbo engine in because I just want to drive the thing for a while and not mess with it for a bit but I need to replace an upper control arm and that 8V engine is painfully slow so it really should happen.