White '73 99LE Notchback

[DrewP]

Sooooo I picked up another one!

This one is white over green.

I bought this one for my brother as a present, he was lamenting that the yellow race car was following me around, and that he wanted a 99 too....

This one was built about 2 months after my yellow car, the serial number is about ~7200 higher than the yellow car. They are probably both in that photo of all the '73's fresh off the boat, along with Joe's yellow car.

Highlites are:

-Clean pretty rust-free body
-Original paint
-GREEN interior (who doesn't love that??)
-Headers
-Soccerballs
-Mudflaps
-Original SAAB AM/FM radio
-Early EMS steering wheel
-EMS tach
-Crack-free windshield was replaced once, other 5 pieces are the original green tinted glass









As far as I can tell it was last run in 2000 or 2001, it's been sitting since then.

Lots of work was done to it before he stopped driving it, he claims:

-Rebuilt gearbox
-New water pump
-Headers (he told me he made them, I don't recognize them as someone else's so I think that's true)
-New clutch, TO bearing, cylinder seals
-New D-jet injectors
-'Tweaked' the D-jet box some

...But this was also 10 years ago.

Clutch pedal has pressure, brake pedal holds pressure, steering turns free.

Engine bay is a little mousy, but doens't look like anything got chewed up.

He said he stopped driving it when the fuel pump started leaking, I think I still have my bag of seals from when I fixed the pump in my yellow car.

It's really filthy now, and not sure what the timeline for getting this guy cleaned up is gonna be but should be pretty straightforward.


























And getting introduced to little brother!

[sjones]

Does that radio have the WB? I like those head rest inserts in the older head rests.

[99Super]

Nice score!

john

[DrewP]

Alas, this one is AM/FM only, but it sure does look proper:

[sjones]

The one I have is quite similar but says '99 FM' on it. I think that maybe the WB was on the later 8 track version for the GLE. Both that white and yellow cars look promising. Is the yellow car in better shape?

[Luke]

Awesome, I love seeing pictures of these finds in the -before- state. There's something so intriguing about them "as is".

Looks very solid at the core.
I wonder how tar like the gasoline has become?
It may be due for some serious fuel system flushing.

Just looks like it need a new lease on life and it certainly landed in good hands!

[SwedeSport]

Nice! cant wait to see what you guys do with it.

The other 99 looks pretty good sticking out from under the tarp too!

[Geoff]

Nice! One of those as a daily driver could make your commute much more enjoyable!

[GOLFGURU]

WOW another 73LE...Two monthes younger than mine..Tell the bro goodluck!

[Edward]

Where do you people keeping finding these things??? I have to travel halfway across the country to drag home cars that looked more restorable in pictures than in person.

Texas blows when it comes to finding vintage Saabs. All the good ones were crushed long before I was old enough to drive.

[saabfan9]

right..nothing in chicago either (had mine shipped from cal. to the tune of an additional $700)

[DrewP]

We finally made some headway with this car.

Before the Xmas holidays we gave it a bit of a bath (still filthy though, needs a good scrub with pretty concentrated Simple Green to cut through all the crud). The good news is it looks like the paint will come back nicely, and can't find any evidence of a re-paint. I'm sure it was parked outside for longer than the guy I bought it from admitted to, so we'll see what it looks like scrubbed clean.










David pulled the interior out while I fiddled under the hood, looks pretty clean! Seats need help, but most of the foam seems useable, might get away with not too much effort on that front. We'll probably put a bucket in for at least the driver's front. Passenger's front seat is decent, but driver's seat and rear seat are pretty shot.













There is some corrosion on the trunk floor, but nothing all the way through:




I think the only place that might have perforated is just behind the driver's front seat against the sill. This strikes me as a weird place, (at the bottom of this photo) since it's not even the low point of the floor, but it is dented up, might have been damaged in the past and rotted in from the outside, but the underside looks clean. I won't worry about it too much for now.








I got the engine cleaned up and pulled most of the nests out from under the hood.

Drained a bunch of sludge out where the engine oil was supposed to be, rinsed it with a 50/50 mix of diesel and cheap motor oil, checked through all the electrics and hooked a battery up and most things light up correctly.

Couple little issues, but I got it to at least turn over with the starter, but with starter fluid in it I got some nasty backfires out the intake.

Filled up the cooling system and after cranking it over I got a nice stream out the weep hole in the block - water pump rebuild time!

I just ordered the parts from McMaster from Geoff's awesome thread of standard parts to re-seal the pumps:

SaabRally - B engine water pump rebuild using standard industry parts

Since I didn't have my timing light with me I had to stop for the day, but I'm glad it's not seized up.







Next to tackle:

Clean up the interior panels, clean out the inside, & reassemble
Re-upholster / replace seat fabric?
Scrub exterior
Pull engine out to get powertrain and engine bay real clean, replace water pump seals and square everything away
Figure out why fuel pump doesn't get power when cranking
Troubleshoot D-Jet
Troubleshoot chassis issues we don't know about yet. I think it's likely it'll need brake cylinders rebuild from sitting for so long, we'll see.

[Geoff]

Looks like you could get it going relatively easily, depending on how the D jet stuff behaves. That surface rust on the top of the trunk is strange. Maybe the rear window was leaking and getting the carpet wet?

[DrewP]

I thought it was weird too, I probably should drop the tank out and make sure it's not corroding in from the top either.

[Geoff]

You probably need to clean out the tank anyway... Hit the top of the floor with a wire brush on an angle grinder to clean it up and look to see if anything goes through.