Crazyswede - yep, it's a modified Chesapeake 17 handmade with a cove and bead cedar strip deck and rudder setup with internal cables and a whitewater fit-kit. I made it for long river and coastal trips, but lately have been using it to get to work a couple of times a week.
http://www.saabrally.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1900&start=120


TBudapest- tires are 205 55 15 on 7" 3-piece Epsilon rims. Probably going to switch back to 195 60 15s pretty soon for better drivability and more accurate speedo. The 9sport panhard rocks. Not sure I feel any difference in drivability, but it's a cheap, satisfying upgrade and nice to know that it works much better back there whether I feel it or not.

REINFORCED SHOCK MOUNT:

So this happened a couple of weeks ago. The one time my wife drives my car. The passenger side front upper shock mount busted out. Though I do have to give her credit - it looks like most of it disintegrated a long time ago and a previous owner had glued a washer in there to help it along. Probably lasted another 20 years like that. Well, it was time for a fix to help it along the next 20 years!



I took out the shock and drove it over to a good friend and professional welder to borrow his rig. Surprisingly, the car drove very well without the shock. We lathed a fresh washer and welded it to a small bracket to cover the gap that cracked out. Then MIGed the washed all the way around. Not the prettiest job, but I definitely think the new mount will not be what kills this car.

Fantastic vintage look!

HATCH SEAL REPAIR

The metal on this car has been shockingly clean since I bought it sandblasted in the Oregon desert and had it repainted. I had removed all of the glass and seals from the windows and doors before leaving the car at the painter, and they had agreed to paint or repair all of the edges under the seals. Didn't happen. Now, after a year and a half, it was coming around to bite me. Every time it rained, water leaked into the rear floor from the hatch window. It was getting bad enough that I would fill the seal weekly with silicone, but it was not enough to keep the water out. Finally I decided to take it apart and see what was going on. Turns out the old hatch glass seal was holding water and had eaten through the metal. It was seriously in need of attention. I confiscated my dad's wood shop and went to work.





With limited time, I removed the glass and rubber seal and took a rotating flap sander that hooks up to an electric drill. That cut through the rust very quickly and left quite a mess. Luckily, I had taped everything off so that it wouldn't get too deep into my car. Once I had the majority of the rust and rot off, I filled with a bit of bondo to leave the metal shelf flat for a good seal before spraying it with rust-eating bare-metal primer and topping it off with an off-the-shelf metalic aquamarine blue metalic that was actually pretty close to original. I cleaned the rubber seal out by hand with Purple Power cleaner - looked near new when I was all done. And now no rust and no leaks!

Nice job Sam!
Now, about that boat...

Thanks Bill! Yep, that's my dad's old mid-50's mahogany Whirlwind. Restored it a couple years ago. Its fast enough to ski!

I'm envious of that shop. And that mega BBQ and Old Town canoe(??) hanging there. Somebody is having fun with all that cool stuff including the '80 c900!

Definitely having fun. We've taken apart a lot of Saabs in there and built and restored a lot of boats. Also grilled a lot of meat. Dad just bought an industrial sewing machine, so that's the new hype - he's making all sorts of cool stuff. Might take a week off at some point to work on some projects there, including reproducing a set of Sport and Rally corduroy seat covers...

Great work as always Sam! This summer we ARE getting together, haha

ALIGNMENT WITH LOWERING SPRINGS

Finally pulled this beauty out of storage a month ago to get started on some upgrades. Found a really cute little family living under the hood pad. As much as I love the fanfare, we decided it was best to relocate them.

Stuck in a new Maval steering rack from Eeuro (happily had my indy install it) with new tie rod ends. When I took it in for an alignment, I had them do the camber as well to accommodate the lowering springs. I had them align it to the specs of a 1990 SPG and bought some spare shims from ebay. Turns out all of the upper control arm bushings were shot (see pics), so I did those while I was in there. With the power steering pump out, it goes pretty quick. I did the driver-side motor mount while I was in there too, and it was definitely due. I could move the shaft around pretty freely with my hand once it was out, so the rubber was pretty much jelly. She drives super quiet now.

One point of interest was that it was difficult to find someone willing to do the alignment. I called about 10 reputable shops and when I mentioned that it would need to be re-shimmed, they all backed out. I guess they only wanted the easy jobs. Alpine Motors in Windsor, VT was the only shop that was up for it. They were happy to see that I had a set of shims and suggested the removal of the steering pump to make it easy for them and save me some cost. Total price came out to $112 for both sides, both camber and castor, which was a lot less than I expected. I highly recommend them if anyone is looking for a full alignment.

Good to know they did a good job on that for a decent price. I've been getting away with doing my own alignments with a $40 bubble-level camber/caster gauge. http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/product/1934/Caster_Camber_Gauges and a cheap toe tool but I don't really know how close I get it. It would be good to get at least one car checked/aligned to see how good/bad I do them myself. It put a smile on my face to see your car there when I went by last week!

Ha. I was actually planning to do my own alignment as well until Alpine agreed to do it.