1980 99 GLi

[Geoff]

This thread is for my '80 99 GLi which I've owned since March 2003.
Below is a picture of it at the 2003 SAAB Owner's Convention in Hershey, PA, alongside a younger sibling '79 99.

(I took the image from Jon Williams' page, thanks Jon )

The history as I know it:
I first saw the car in the fall of 1998, parked at a gas station in the town I grew up in. At one point I saw one of the talentless wrenchers outside messing around in the trunk so I stopped and tried to talk to him. Of course all he could mutter was, "It's an '80" and "There's a gas smell."

A few years later, fellow SAAB Rallyer Mike White bought the car from the owner who lived in Milford, NH. The owner lived part of the year in NH and part of the year in CO. The 99 was his NH car. Mike fixed the gas smell and drove the car for a year or two (including winters) and then bought his brother's '78 99 EMS/Turbo because the '80 wouldn't pass NH inspection due to rust. I looked at the car and decided it would pass MA inspection if I covered the rust since it was mostly in the wheel wells and the rest of the body looked good.

Before I brought it home I spent a few days in Mike's garage rebuilding the waterpump (which was leaking), replacing the headgasket (also leaking), and installing a freshly rebuilt head I happened to have laying around. I drove the car until around January when I got a 900 for winter/daily use.

The next spring I got a race engine from Mike's rally car which had been over-revved and broken the cam carrier, smacking the valves into the pistons. I put a new head on, inspected things and installed it (the original engine which now had somewhere near 275 or 300K miles on it and had some blow by). But... the engine had a noise that sounded like valve lifters. I was working an hour and a half away and then moved closer to work and parked the car at my parents house (an hour and a half away) so I didn't get to work on the car much. I did tear down the engine, rebuild it, and look for issues over the next few summers but I never resolved the noise. Then I saw a free B engine and transmission on SAABnet so I picked that up and installed it. I had to replace the slave cylinder and also had to do the waterpump on the new engine:
http://saabrally.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1552

Current setup is:
Stock engine
Header with short primaries (good low end torque)
Custom exhaust (two glasspacks)
Stock 4spd (chillcast housing)
Porterfield A4-S Pads w/ new rotors
OMP springs
Bilstein Shocks
Ronal 8 Spoke Wheels

I've been driving it off and on in the summer, but never for long enough to require an inspection (less than 2 weeks after registering). I'll be fixing some things so that I can get it inspected this summer and drive it a little longer since it's just a real fun car to buzz around in.

[99Super]

I'll be fixing some things so that I can get it inspected this summer and drive it a little longer since it's just a real fun car to buzz around in.

And nap in too, apparently

Sounds like a fun car, just about a perfect setup for a street 99!

john

[sjones]

It must be really interesting to have a 79 and 80 side by side and just see the similarities and differences. The body shop where my car is in 'jail' at suggested I paint my cabin air intake cowling black citing "they're all like that". :) Mine will be the same as the rest of the body.

[Geoff]

It's interesting to look at the year to year differences. '80 was a change year in that the cars got the big 900 bumpers, flat black cowl cover, extra lower windshield supports, front seats with adjustable headrests, black plastic rear decor panel, plastic gas tank, and probably a few other things that I'm not thinking of. The 900 rear axle (which the '79 also got) is nice, especially because you can easily add a C900 rear swaybar - which I forgot to mention this car has. It also has the '81-'87 non-vented front hubs.

[Geoff]

The car is in the garage for some rust repair work. The body on the car is interesting. It looks good in most places until you get under it, especially in the wheel wells, especially in the rear. The only parts of the body that look bad when just standing around it are a crunchy LR wheel arch lip, a bunch of small dents caused by acorns falling from an oak tree, and some funky stuff going on with a respray that the car had years ago.

However, I need to fix some under-body issues that the car has had since I got it. The worst spot is the right rear inner wheel well. When I first got the car, I painted some rust with some rust-stopping paint, pop riveted in a few pieces of aluminum, and painted everything black so it would pass inspection.
Here's the top of the wheel well:

Viewed from inside the trunk:

Back of the wheel well:


After removing the "inspection covers"
Top:

Back:

Front:



You can also see that the shock tower has been rebuilt in the past.

[SwedeSport]

One of my buddies has a bunch of vehicles for his tree service. He told me the trick is to take a plastic spray bottle and fill it with diesel fuel or home heating oil. Spray the chassis and undercarriage with it before you park it for extended periods. He sprays his snow plows and buckets for the front end loader with the stuff too. The oil in it acts as a rust inhibitor. And it wicks into rusted areas and joints.

The obvious down side is that the car smells like diesel when you pull it out of storage. But it beats having your ride rust out from under you.

[Geoff]

Yuck. I looked at a few former heating oil company vans when I was in the market. After smelling two of them I didn't care how good of a deal they were.

The weather has been strange, 4' of snow earlier in the year but it all melted. Temperature swings of nearly 50°F. It seems to be coldest when I want to work on the cars...



However, I was able to get a little work done.

I took the axle out so I could easily access things from all angles


And found a little more rust


I'm working on dropping the gas tank out too so I can get to the rust in the trunk.

[Jordan]

Yuck...at least looks like a lot of flat panels to patch up and nothing too conspicuous.

[sjones]

car cancer .. I wish you the best of luck with it.

[Geoff]

Its warmed up a bit outside which has helped me get back out to the garage more often over the last few weeks, though I haven't made too much progress. I've dropped the gas tank out, found some more rusty sections that the tank was obscuring, cut out some rusty sections, and cleaned a bunch of rust with a knotted wire brush on an angle grinder (which only hit my face once).

I have a few options for the rusty sections in the inner fender.
1) Cut out the rusty spots, quickly fab up some hideous looking replacement parts and weld them in
2) Cut the whole inner fender out and replace it with this:

3) Cut out the rusty spots and cut sections out of the new sheet metal (above) and weld that in.

I'm leaning towards #1 or #2

[Crazyswede]

Wowsers...dont think I have ever seen a replacement panel for a saab like that.

[Geoff]

I picked that up at one of the owner's conventions a few years ago for a nice price. It's a correct 99 sedan piece and has the later shock tower reinforcement. I also bought just the outer section (same corner) for my SPG at a dealer back in '97 for way too much $.

[Rallyho]

I say do the big repair. Butterscotch deserves the best.

Do you think the rest of it is repairable?

[saabfan9]

WOW kudos to you keeping the saab alive.. def. would have walked away or maybe a parts car

[SwedeSport]

Save that nice hunk of stampings for a primo car. Unless you plan to keep it forever I would just patch it with bits of sheet metal. Was that cut from a car, or just a factory spare assembly?