85 rally car rebuild

[321go]

Thought I'd start a thread on the rebuilding of our rally car that got wrecked back at Ojibwe last summer. It sat for awhile since I was tied up with the planning of 100AW. After that, was working on a road race RX7 to get back on the track. Now that's done we started tearing into the rally car. We bought an '88 900 parts car, which isn't ideal since not all the parts match and some were damaged when it was wrecked, but the body parts match at least. We have stripped that down to the shell but still need to do the metal cutting to get the rear quarter. Still need a front bumper and not sure where we'll find that. Do have an entire interior from the parts car in good shape if anybody is looking for anything. I might start a separate thread on that later.

Also need to replace the rear axle on the rally car, which is where I'm hoping you guys can help. Wondering how hard it is to swap our 85 hubs onto the 88's axle. Or do we just need to find an whole axle and hubs from somewhere? Hubs don't look like they come off easily, but maybe that just all the rust and grime on there. Tips?

I'll get some photos up of the various things. Here's what the car looked like in good shape.


And after Ojibwe



More damage at the front too. And bent the rear axle. We deliberated a lot on whether to rebuild this or go to another car, but this will be the cheapest option. Just maybe not the smartest.

[Crazyswede]

I still think that looks like very minor damage. Bending rear axles is easy to do on these cars...sliding sideways into a ditch or embankment does it all the time. I certainely wouldn't go and build an entirely new car based on the damage shown in that picture.

a new hatch, a hammer, and a block of wood and you can probably straighten a lot of that out. It didn't break the side window or the tail light so things cannot be that skewered.

[SwedeSport]

I can testify to how well they straighten out.

Just bolt on a new axle.

[Luke]

The rear hubs from an 85 and 88 don't interchange, the bore of the bearings are different, the early bearings are much larger. You'll need to find a rear axle from a 79'to 87'.

[87 n/a]

I have a nice 87 rear axle sitting on my back porch. If you can figure how to get it from me in central florida, let me know.

[321go]

Thanks Luke.
So far we've found axles locally from two 88's and a '76. Might look into getting the one from FLA. I'd guess shipping would be cost prohibitive, but I'll see. Thanks for the offer. Does it have hubs and brakes attached? We have too many wheels for the current bolt pattern to upgrade to the newer style.

The hammer it out method has been mentioned, but I just hate how they look all beaten up with a hammer. I want it look almost as nice as Luke's :) I always say if you can't be fast, at least have your car look good and that's always been my approach to racing
It will need a frame rack to straighten out the front. Have a new core support for the front as that's all mangled as are all the mounting points. Hood and pass. door won't close. Front fender is a little messed up too, but probably livable as is.

All of our non-Saab friends keep telling us to scrap it and get a Subie or something with parts easier to find. All of the Saab friends say we have to keep on the road, which we will be doing.

[87 n/a]

My axle still has hubs, rotors, calipers, dust shields, pads and brake lines attached.
Folks are always going on road trips to Disney so maybe you can just kick somebody some gas money to pick it up and bring it back to you. Just let me know if you want to go in that direction.

This was from the 88+ swap....

[321go]

Couple more photos




Got the rear axle off of the rally car. It was a fiddly job, but now we now how.

[RobVonSAAB]

I have an 82 900 three door, it has a complete rear axle thats rust free, a good hatch and a super nice front bumper,rad support and hood.

[321go]

Whereabouts are you? Got a hatch from the parts car in the photo.

[321go]

No turning back now :)

[sjones]

Ahh so that's how you get to that vacuum line! ;-) Interesting to see the extent of the damage this way. Are you going to move the filler up higher?

[DrewP]

Holy crapoly. You are reminding me how much I hate body repair.

[321go]

I'm not sure this thing will ever run straight or ever have all the doors/hood/hatch ever close correctly again. We can probably get it back on the stages, but not sure for how long. Maybe we should just turn it into a crapcan racer, dunno. I'm losing interest in getting it going, but others are wanting to help us, so fixing this is still the cheapest option for future rallying.

[RobVonSAAB]

I'm in Northern NJ