I'm looking forward to playing with this thing tonight. Should be a good time.

Powar wrote:I'm looking forward to playing with this thing tonight. Should be a good time.

I giggled

Powar wrote:I'm looking forward to playing with this thing tonight. Should be a good time.

Sig line material right there

I bringing this thread back from the dead. Because... I bought the car.

I've actually had it for a while now. I drove it around a bit over the summer but now it's time to sort out some issues before next summer.

The car when I got it:

I'll bet she fits right in at your place!

That thing is way cool!

RadioFlyer wrote:I'll bet she fits right in at your place!

It fits in because it's an old SAAB but it does stick out a bit because it isn't a 99! It also has the lowest mileage of any car I've ever owned.

There are a lot of little things to fix or improve. My plan is to slowly fix things that make it less-fun to drive, make it more reliable, or that are simply needed for inspection. I'll also attend to some cosmetic details if they make sense to do. That way I can drive it and enjoy it for what it is for a while. I'd like to do somewhat of a full restoration at some point but that would take more time than I want to put into it in the near future.

The first thing that was making it less enjoyable to drive was that it had the original 50 year-old shocks in it. So I put in Bilsteins all around.

The fronts are used units from a 99 that seem to be in good shape. The rears are new.

The car came with a set of later wheels (painted black as shown) with some Kumho tires that were cracked and leaking. To pass inspection the car needs new tires. The car came with original steel wheels that had been blasted and primed and were pretty much ready for paint. So I started looking at vintage tires in the correct 155 (or is it 145?) series size.

Then I started looking at pictures of stock bullnoses. Unlike this car, most of the cars were shiny and clean. So then I started thinking about the possibility of putting some other wheels on the car, perhaps something that would contrast against the two-tone paint.
Options included:
Soccerballs from a Sonett

Sonett Cromodoro (if they could be found and if I wanted to pay a bunch for wheels)

10-spoke Ronals (similar to Minilites) again if they could be found and if I wanted to spend some serious $

Get the stock wheels widened


Or I could search for rare 4-bolt hubs or build wheel adapters and run some of the 99/900 wheels I have.

A benefit of running wider wheels is that there are a number of modern tires available in the 175/65/15 size which are intended for some of the smaller cars now available for the US market. I've driven a certain other bullnose 96 with 185s on it and it handled pretty well.


I took the wheels off one side of the car and started leaning available wheels against it. I decided that I like these Shelbys that I had stripped down years ago and painted a pearl white color.



Other thoughts that I passed off included Incas (too '70's), SPG wheels (too '80's), Shelby Goldveins (too Subaru).

Goldveins....to veiny

So how to fit the 4x114.3 wheels onto the 5x170 car? SAAB made 4x114.3 hubs on some cars but they're difficult to find and can be expensive. I decided to go with aluminum adapters. I designed some in SolidWorks and started thinking about building them on the mill (Bridgeport) and lathe (South Bend) at work. As I thought about it I realized how long it was going to take to build them and the cost of the tapered end mill I'd have to buy to do the job. So I outsourced them.



The nice thing about the large difference in PCD in going from 5-lug to 4-lug is that none of the holes overlap so the adapters can be made from one piece of aluminum. On most any other car they have to be made from two pieces (increasing the cost).

how thick is the aluminum adapter? is it 6061? I always think that aluminum would be too soft for the adapter but have never actually done any maths to figure out the forces.

Most wheel adapters out there in the car world are aluminum.

Nice Job Geoff ! Perhaps you would consider out sourcing a set or 2 for others? I have a 66 2 stroke wagon that I would like to use 4 lug wheels on too. Don't think you would get rich selling 1,000 of sets , but a fair profit would be OK on a few sets. Think about it.
I have a set of those 10 spoke Rare Ronal 5 lug wheels, but have not yet cleaned them up.

I too would love a set of adapters if you would be interested in having your source make another set or two. I have had many a dream of my Yield Sign Orange Sonett rolling on a set of Incas…

Seriously interested

This very much makes me want to go get my Sonetts back!