RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

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RadioFlyer
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RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby RadioFlyer » Fri Nov 30, 2012 2:47 pm

Figured it was about time to start the build thread.

I found this beast on a Saabnet classified about a year ago and fell in love. Aquamarine 1980 900 Turbo with 87k original miles. Actually built in Oct '79 for the '80 model year. I fell in love with the inkas and the light blue old paint. And the price. And no rust.

It was up in Oregon and the owner was in Washington DC. Said he would be home for a brief visit and was selling the Saabs that he had in storage. Since he couldn't send many pics - only the one below (mine is the blue one in front). He said it had sat in the high desert for a long time before he rescued it and had the motor, turbo, and alternator rebuilt. The exterior was sandblasted from the desert and the interior was crumbling, but he had a whole near-new set of original '80 blue seat skins that he had purchased and had sent from a guy in Australia and never installed!
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Since the owner couldn't send pics until he got home and would only be home for a couple of days, I figured I had might as well just meet him there. The car had not been started in a year and had sat outside under a tarp, so I wasn't even sure it would start let along make the 14 hour drive back to Utah. I figured it was worth a shot! I bought a bus ticket and packed as many tools as I could fit. I rescinded declaring them as tools when the bus ticket agent said you could not bring tools on the bus. I told him they were ... uh ... toys? He said that worked.

I hopped the bus early in the morning and called an old room mate when we were on the road. He was going to school in Portland and was down to let me crash that night on his couch. He thought I was nuts for going so far out to buy that car expecting it to not only start, but also make the 14 hour drive, but he knew I was always up for a random adventure. He had seen me do crazier things when we lived together in the country outside Santiago, Chile.

On the bus ride, I sat next to this crazy dude who looked like a druggy. Turns out he had just gotten out of jail (drug related) and had realized that he did very well as a business owner (aka drug dealer). He wanted to turn it into a legit business by growing medicinal marijuana in Oregon. He was high the whole ride. I had helped a number of people with drug addictions, and it actually seemed like a good idea. So I said "Good for you" and told him to go for it.

Anyway, we arrived, I crashed with my friend, and the next day called the car owner. He seemed like a great guy and said he had already tried starting up the car and it fired right up! He drove it down to meet me the next day. The car was gorgeous! A true survivor with all the original parts. She drove great! The brakes squeeked like heck, the interior was terrible, and the headliner had to be torn out from in front of my face, but man the turbo was awesome! I paid cash and took off for home.

Driving along the Hood River, I let her open up. She held great boost and lots of power. Steering was tight and the clutch and tranny were really smooth. I stopped at a rest area to check the fluids and a guy pulled up in a new mustang. "DANG!!!" He said. "That thing is FAST!! YOu flew by me!! WHat kind of car IS that???" I told him it was a 1980 Saab 900 turbo. He started combing over the engine, commenting on the mechanical fuel injection, rebuilt turbo, weird sideways engine, etc. I already had a fan. I kept going and according to my GPS, she made about 34 miles per gallon all the way back home. I got back at about 1am dead tired, but couldn't wait to go through the car the next morning. It felt like going to bed on Christmas eve. Here are some pics from the next day:

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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby SwedeSport » Fri Nov 30, 2012 3:16 pm

Keep at it man, you'll get her back to former glory.

Looks pretty clean!
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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby Geoff » Fri Nov 30, 2012 5:30 pm

This car is awesome.
I probably said before but I had an identical (but super rusty) one as a parts car that I bought from RallyHo 10+ years ago. The body was shot but the interior was perfect. Then the mice got at it :(
The kind of dirty that doesn't wash off :eyebrows:

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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby hutch » Fri Nov 30, 2012 6:06 pm

Yeah that thing is awesome, are you planning on keeping it the stock color I assume?

Not every 900 looks good with them but that thing is screaming for a set of louvers out back.

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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby RadioFlyer » Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:43 pm

Haha, funny you say that, Hutch, I said the exact same thing. I had a set for the SPG, but it has the rear brake light cutout. So I wanted to keep that on the SPG and find an older set with the straight fins. Didn't take long. I had a free '85 SPG parts car that i was picking at for a while and soon after I got the '80, I sent the '85 shell to the crusher. The tow truck driver turned out to be a Saab addict! We talked for hours about the Saabs before he took off. Cool thing is that as a tow driver, he always keeps an eye out for Saabs. He turned me on to a private yard outside Salt Lake where he said an '83 resided with a set of unplucked louvres! I went and snagged 'em. Pics to come soon.

Anyway, the plan is to respray it the original color and add a set of "Saab Turbo" rally stripes - 99 style. Body is straight and the only rust is on the roof and can be rubbed off with a finger. The thing is, it looks like such a survivor with the paint how it is. I get people coming up to me in parking lots all the time and asking how much I want for it.
Last edited by RadioFlyer on Fri Nov 30, 2012 9:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby RadioFlyer » Fri Nov 30, 2012 8:51 pm

It was time to start the interior. The seats had been re-skinned in the early '90s, I believe, with really bad custom skins. When I got to them, they were faded out and about ready to crumble and peel off. Here is the before shot:
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The PO had searched all over for a replacement set of original '80 midnight blue skins. After looking for over a year, he found a set and bought them from a guy in Australia. Awesome condition! He never put them on, but they were in a box in the back when I bought the car, so I went right to it. Here is the after shot:
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Much better! My favorite part is the giant rear seat headrests.
Last edited by RadioFlyer on Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:37 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby RadioFlyer » Fri Nov 30, 2012 9:02 pm

Next was the headliner. The original foam had come off and sagged down all over me and across the windshield when I picked up the car. I had to rip it all down to drive. When I took the frame out back home, I found that it was a bit different than the c900 headliners that I am used to. Instead of being made of that thick cardboard-like stuff, it was stiff foam. Same with the C-pillars. So I came up with a cool idea...

My wife wanted to learn together to reupholster furniture. She really wanted a "deep victorian button" couch. So I decided to figure out how to do it on something a little more straight forward than a couch. This was a perfect opportunity. Deep victorian button headliner!

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I found on sale for $4 per yard a roll of brown antique-leatherish vinyl that matched the spare tire cover. Also purchased a make-your-own buttons kit and went to town. I measured it all out, stuffed the inside with batting and drilled and threaded the buttons through with thick waxed string. I tied them down to spare pieces of vinyl on the back side so they wouldn't pull through. Then to make sure it would all stay up, I tied in two thick magnets to the under side to stick it right to the metal roof once it was in. Also took the spare vinyl and did the C-pillars and sunroof to match. When it went in, i just pushed up lightly and heard the thud of the magnets as they stuck to the roof. No problems at all since then. Here was the result:
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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby RadioFlyer » Fri Nov 30, 2012 9:04 pm

After all that, I needed something simple. Decided to clean up the engine bay. Here's the before shot:
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And after:
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For this one, I didn't even take out the valve cover. Just taped, masked and covered things with paper. Sanded, polished, and painted it all in situ. Since then I have gotten around to most of the rest of the engine, like the exhaust manifold and heat shield, so it looks even better now.

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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby 99Super » Sun Dec 02, 2012 3:45 pm

That's a great car! Nice find! The NOS skins are amazing.
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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby 99sven » Sun Dec 02, 2012 9:53 pm

Great find!! My buddy had that exact car. We had a mint green '80 900t as a family car through the '90's until it was clobbered in Van, BC. Surprisingly fast car and quick spool up with no intercooler. Way to preserve an original.
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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby SwedeSport » Sun Dec 02, 2012 10:10 pm

Is that an 85 900T sedan in the background?
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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby RadioFlyer » Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:32 am

Decided to take on the dash next. It was really bad. Like grand canyon cracks and warped. I figured it was a perfect candidate for a refurb.

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I figured I would need a filler that was expandable and foam-like. And cheap. I bought some Gorilla Glue and went to town. It filled in nice (though I had to fill in the air bubbles a few times). I leveled the top with a razor and did a lot of sanding to get it smooth. The warps were still apparent (they can't really be fixed completely), but definitely better than before. I finished it by spraying with a thick layer of cheap truck bedliner. Looked great when it was done!

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Note on the re-installation - be very careful not to flex the dash too much. Fine cracks showed up when I tried to push and screw the fascia bolts back in. I could overlook fine cracks. However, it only took about a month before the original cracks opened up again. Not sure exactly why. I'm thinking it must be that the foam was cracked all the way through and continued to flex while driving and with the heat of the sun. The cheap bedliner didn't help either because it was brittle and not flexible. Kind of like eggshell.

I took out another spare dash with less cracks and tried a different approach. This time I used flexible bumper epoxy from Autozone and a better water-based bedliner. The bedliner was harder to work with - a lot more messy - but it settled out pretty well and looked good after sanding down and painting with Duplicolor Charcoal Bumper paint. I installed that and it was a little more durable, but again the cracked opened up. I think this time because the flexible epoxy was too flexible.

At this point, I was going to take out a third dash when an ad came up on the classifieds for a $20 dash cover. I bought it and stuck it on over the old really cracked dash and called it a day. Problem with this one was that it doesn't quite fit the speaker grille holes and it is very difficult to get them out once installed. So maybe just a temporary fix. We'll see how the next dash repair turns out.

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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby RadioFlyer » Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:35 am

Hey SwedeSport - I think that was an '85T in the background. Gorgeous car, very clean. Uncracked dash and great condition seats. He was selling that one at the same time, so it must be sold by now.

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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby 87 n/a » Mon Dec 03, 2012 12:36 pm

Progress is looking good. I had a 1980 900T as my first car. Many man hours into that one.

I know another Saab nut down here in Florida who did the same think to his headliner, but in black material.

As for the dash, I have seen then successfully refurbed with stretching some typed of ultra-suede type fabric over them.
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Re: RadioFlyer's 1980 900T

Postby SwedeSport » Mon Dec 03, 2012 1:30 pm

Looks good. I thought about trying to repair a dash, but would grind out the cracks and fill with epoxy. Then sand it flat with a slight concave at the cracks. I would use the bumper bondo too, but then I would find glue a vinyl material over top to reskin it.

There is a company called "Just Dashes" that specializes in recovering them. They are a bit expensive, but a perfect dash is like a crowning jewel in a Saab.

If it were closer I would have been interested in the 4 dr. It's probably nicer than my 89 sedan patina rod project.


I plan to do the dash in my 84 Notch racecar. Ill fill the cracks and smooth it a little, but I am going to attempt to do a Flocked dash in it.

BTW, the later dash is thicker, and while it still cracks like a dried up mud puddle, it doesn't warp and distort like the early one.
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