blackboilersuit

So… the story is thus. Having had a desire for a Saab ‘vert since my last one, once the Nova was condemned to a mass weldathon I knew I wasn’t the man to do it. So an agreement was made to sell, meaning I had the money saved plus the sale cost burning a hole in my pocket. My intention was to buy a nice 900 or 9-3 convertible… or maybe another MX5 or maybe something else.
What I actually ended up buying was a cheap 9-3 which needs a little attention… 
I actually looked at two on the same day, one which was purportedly in very good condition and well cared for. It was rough, and had DMF rattle… no thanks. Then we went to look at the cheap one on Anglesey because it was within an hour and we like a day out to the island. Turns out this one too was a little cosmetically challenged… but the old lady who had owned it for a number of years was charming and knocked the price down further when we discovered the roof was not working… MrsB is a pretty good judge of these things and was very much in favour. So we did a deal for less than half of the asking price of the first one we looked at.


As mentioned, the main issues are in-op roof. Now this was working before winter, so the fuse seems a good bet. If not for the price I might either get it repaired or just use it manually.
Other bits are mainly cosmetic, the front bumper has taken a clack, and someone appears to have broken in on the past, so the passenger door has some quirks. 

Broken glass under the seats shows recent break in attempt. 

Nod to its flying heritage! 
 
However, despite all these minor things, it drives spot on, pulls well and is very very smooth… if I can get the roof working it will really have been a good deal! 

Made it!

I took the Amazon out a test drive after putting the suspension back together. Seemed mostly OK but I was concerned that the alignment seemed very off. The steering wheel was around 90 degrees to the right and there was a strong left pull.
Had another look.

I didn't notice it from above with the wheel off, but from the front you can see that tie rod doesn't look quite right. Since that was noticed during the Christmas shutdown, I parked it up, ordered a new part and forgot about it.
Just got round to looking at this today, and you can see how bad it is.  Presumably the wheel being shoved at an odd angle has bent the rod.

As straight as Ricky Martin that is.
New part fitted, along with some new poly drop link and anti roll bar bushes as the whole lot was a little bit sloppy.

While I was under there I noticed a small drip from the radiator so the test drive has to wait until I sort that.
In the meantime I've also run into snag with the front windows in that they feel a bit loose and occasionally they don't want to wind down.
Here's why.

The glass retainer has rotted out and no longer grips the bottom of the window.

To fix that I chopped the retainer section off and made a new one.

That's meant to be held to the window with a rubber grip, but in the absence of those I just epoxied the glass in which seems to work well.

Speaking of 911s i needed to get the engine stripped down and ready to go off for a rebuild.
In case folk wonder how the other half live, here's how us 911 owners like to work on our engines 

If you look really closely you can definitely* see signs of the £10k rebuild 5 years ago...


It's stripped down and ready to go to Hartech in Bolton later this week. Eep

All I have been able to glean from these "clues" is that Fowler's and Juular's accounts have evidently been hacked by hairnet and tooSavvy. 

There is a freshness to the air.



I better have a decent breakfast before sorting things.

New alternator arrived, so I can give @320touring his back.

Stuck a 60A fuse in line to the alternator as it just seemed the right thing to do.

The OD problem was caused by the solder joint on the OD solenoid acting like a structural joint. It just gave way.

Simple enough fix there.

To stop this happening again the wire was cable tied to the body of the solenoid so that any tension doesn't get put onto the solder.
Next on the list, an obnoxious exhaust blow that started last time I drove it.

This looked decent when I reassembled the exhaust. Oh well. Out with the welder. Again.

I really, really couldn't be bothered here and the inside of the pipe looks like kerplunk.
The downside is now it's so clean it doesn't want to fit properly in the mid silencer, it's a bit loose. The solution for that was to create a new.. ahem.. exhaust gasket. Out of mig weld.

One last special touch. 
£20 for a throttle linkage bush? Get it round you.
6mm fuel hose.

Have some videos.
Cold start.
Jrive.
 
 

Random bits done.
Needed a new speedo cable as the non overdrive one won't reach the longer gearbox. Here's a comparison.

While under there I took a photo of the finished underside since I hadn't done it yet.

Went to refit the bonnet catch. Used a triumph release cable that was lying around but it didn't have a cable barrel stop on it. Made one out of an M6 connector nut with a hole drilled in it.

Probably stronger than the original.

None of the door locks really worked right, which was a straightforward remove, free up, grease and refit job. One of them needed the linkage adjusted slightly.

One of the rear passenger doors wouldn't shut at all and would just bounce off the catch. Turns out it was clipping the sill on the bottom. This only started after I welded the new sill on which made me think maybe I'd aligned things wrong, but looking at the panel gaps I noticed that the door was simply on squint. 
Not sure how this happened as there's no front to back adjustment on the hinges, but it's possible I damaged the hinges as I was removing the doors.
The only way to close up the gap is to remove material from the hinge itself.

That was a finger in the air guess but it worked perfectly. Door now snicks shut and the panel gaps are spot on.
Meanwhile @MrsJuular made some nice new door cards to replace the ones I melted. Those will look great on the car.

Windae washers. The car has the older style washer nozzles on the scuttle panel. Unfortunately I only had one nozzle.

I did however have one later style dual nozzle from the donor car. This goes in the bonnet after drilling a hole.



Skooshy.

The car didn't come with any mirrors (they were a dealer option in 1960s South Africa!) so I added some Lucas style ones.
Marked out and drilled.


Finally, I couldn't get the charging system working. I'm not sure whether it was the dynamo or the regulator but solving that particular problem is expensive and the end result still fairly shit.
I decided an alternator conversion was the way forward. @320touringkindly lent me a Lucas alternator from his spare engine so that I could make brackets and get it working before I shell out for a new one. This is a good choice of alternator as it's widespread and cheap while looking period.
I overcomplicated this in my head. It's not a big project. Here's the alternator next to a spare dynamo bracket to check fitment.

Solution : a couple of bits of angle iron bolted into the dynamo bracket.

A length of threaded bar on the rear mount.

On it goes. Used the original drive belt and bracket with a small extension on the bracket.

And that's it. Voltage regulator binned off, then the remaining two cables on the car's loom get shoved up the alternators bum.

That's better!
Enjoy some night shots of POWER.

What a dash at night.

then took mighty for a drive

Wheels off to get tyres done.

Redid some of the welding from last time as it was awful .

Chassis rail cleaned out and welded.



That's all as I ran out of wire and need a cuppa.

Productivity less than hoped.
Made up a patch panel for the inner arch. Obviously needs a run over with a flap disc to get rid of the flash rust but it's close enough.

Then went to go out to get some diesel for the BX and another calor gas bottle for the van.
Not today you don't..
It did rain quite a lot last night.

That rescue took a fair amount of time, but I will let the cylinderses enjoy telling you about that.

That's a white rattle can away from being finished.

Over the past few weeks I've been fixing some niggles and giving the car some (more) attention.
While driving the fuel gauge and the temperature gauge would randomly drop to empty or cold then right itself. After a poke around I found a faulty voltage stabilizer. Replaced and all is working well so far.

Another fun thing the car would do while I was driving was pop it's glass fuses out. I considered upgrading to a more robust fuse box but nah. Just bought a new old stock and shoved that in. The old one fell apart when I removed it so it was a good call.

The electronic ignition was a bit of a mess and was wired in a way where it wasn't getting a steady 12v. The car would randomly stop allowing you to accelerate (without any warning) and had to be restarted to get use of the accelerator again. It would run fine then just not. It got a bit tedious after restarting it around 30 times on a 5 minute journey (mostly motorway).  I rewired all the ignition and gave it a new coil (as the old one was destroyed from restarting it constantly) and a separate ballast resistor instead of the ballast wire.

I sprayed the rocker cover to match the car and made up some new HT leads (also to match).

The car got its first bath.

It's first polish. Thank-you @blackboilersuit for the loan of the polisher. Now all my panel's are all the same shade.

And lastly, some added decor to the already full collection of stickers it has (the car is well travelled and I would like that it was remembered in some way).

I've got Ewan McGregor stuck in my head now narrating over an Iggy Pop soundtrack.......
Choose Shite,  Choose Korean Cortina's at the other end of the country. Choose pre-booked MOT's and tyres borrowed from a bloke on the internet. Choose eating chips on the hard shoulder waiting for recovery. Choose fuel starvation and forty miles an hour up the motorway through the borders. Choose 3AM and nae fuckin' wireless. Choose collection of the year and immortality on a forum nobody's even heard of, choose Shite.

Great wee cars. Clear the plastic drain funnel things in the scuttle. It's raining a lot and if they're blocked you'll get internal WET. 

Same calendar year is good for me🤣

At least you didn't procrastinate too much over the decision... 😂

Fleet update.
Volvo
Pictured RIGHT NOW.


 
I went to Shitefest in the WINNER WAGON. Roughly 600 miles as a round trip.
Down in convoy with @sdkrc acting as a rolling roadblock to prevent me from getting 12mpg.

It, once outfitted with some cardboard, a tarp and an airbed made for my weekend's accommodation.



I reckon superior to a tent but ultimately still not pleasant. I'm too old for this camping shit.
Great weekend was had, convoyed down with @davidfowler2000, @Supernaut, @320touring and @jaypee.

The following week I went on holiday in the Volvo, to the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border. Somewhere in the region of 750 miles over a week.
I even washed the car in preparation.



We went through the Yorkshire Dales, because motorways are fucking tedious.

While on holiday we saw some fancy houses.


Some trams,



Some cars,




Some seals,


And Skegness.

The car performed faultlessly. I had a less fucked tyre fitted while I was down there (booked into local garage to work out why the tracking is fucked) and crashed into the wall of the tyre shop putting a load of divots in the bumper from the pebble dashing. I think they call it "patina" or "character" or something.

Then on the Saturday was Festival of the Unexceptional.


It's now having a rest. It's grumbling from the drivetrain somewhere, same as my other one used to, probably the diff is empty or something... Will have a check.
 
Acclaim
Pictured RIGHT NOW:

Haven't done anything with this. Timing belt is still slack so it's relegated to light duties until I can pull it apart. Last tank it got 40mpg though, which is nice.
Dolomite
Pictured RIGHT NOW:

So. It was pissing oil, this was cured by retorquing the cylinder head. I got a good 90-180 degrees out of the nuts before hitting the book figure. So it was SLACK. Fuck knows how it didn't blow the head gasket.
Here's me looking like a dick taking my engine apart for the billionth time:

Then it ate it's thrust washers so has been laid up since. @GingerNuttz is gonna try and fab up some solid bronze alloy thrust washers to the exact size required on a CNC, because no challenge is great enough.
I've done a bit of sanding/polishing as the paint has shrunk back since it was sprayed, as you'd expect.



Still getting the hang of it. Should turn out well enough for a car in use.
Electricity situation still ghetto.

Actively started to house hunt with Girlfriend_70s now. Driveway is a must, garage would be nice, but rare to find on rental properties around here.

Silver Sharpie grille restoration.



To celebrate my neighbour reversed into the car while parking. I was digging stuff out of the boot at the time, she dashed off inside without saying owt. No damage, the joys of keeping a car on a public street...
I also got the Volvo's tracking sorted. Finally. 
Next jobs are the Acclaim's rad and timing belt.
@GingerNuttz has been modifying/upgrading his CNC to start thrust washer production and is pretty much there. Hopefully it'll be back running again and I can have another 300 miles of being a rolling roadblock. 👌
 

Ahh yes... summer time. When the weather is actually nice enough to do something to / with the car without being in abject misery.
The 205 has had hot start issues for a wee while now. The cure so far has been to put it in 5th, hold the key in the start position and give the car a shove to jog the starter motor off it's dead spot. It's been getting worse and on the way back from Shitefest it completely failed at Gretna services necessitating a push start from TTT Solutions ( @320touring and @jaypee) so I thought it was time to finally do something about it.
Refurb or a new one from ECP at £45? I'll take the new one thanks. Tools were required to extricate the old motor from the car so I had to go get them from the lockup in Cumbernauld...

It was warm that day. Bear in mind... peely wally Scotsman...

3 x hex head bolts. Easy eh? RONG!

Two were get-at-able but the third was too tight for my hex sockets to get to. The hex in the photo is hard against the clutch lever so I can't get the drive socket on to it. This was remedied by the judicious use of @juular's 8mm allen key just enough to crack it off. I have imperial keys and the 5/16" was close enough but I wouldn't have trusted it to start it.
     
New one installificated...

VID_20220726_115827.mp4 With that done it was time to do Festival of The Unexceptional. In the 740 of course!
I have already done much moaning about work but tl;dr - I finished work at 2345 after handing this cunt's arse to it as much as I could all the way from Largs. 4 mins early arrival. Would have been earlier if I hadn't caught up with the 2345 arrival from Wemyss Bay...

Straight down to the car park, got changed, drove out the said car park at 2355 and went direct, non stop to the hotel in Peatboghorror arriving at 0451...

Bed for two and a bit hours then up at 0830 to meet @320touring, @jaypee and @blackboilersuitfor breakfast before heading for a day out...

We did a touristy. British Museum, Covent Garden, Camden High Street and Regents Canal...
       
Back up the road to Peebo where we were joined by @Skizzerfor dinner in Middleton's Steak House.
Fuck. Me. Sideways. Best dinner I've had in years.

Then across the main square for a wee night cap...

FoTU was the next morning. We were joined by @Kiltox for breakfast and @rml2345 shortly after (who had left at 2300 the previous evening!) for a convoy to the show to be further joined by @juular and WOMAN_juular as well as @captain_70s and WOMAN_70s, @dollywobbler and WOMAN_wobbles and a few other shiters that we bumped in to. I forget everyone who was there. I won't bore yous with my photos. There's plenty YouTube show reports and photos on other threads...
  
We came prepared this year...

But a 7 hour day always gets the best of most folk...

Time for UP EH ROAD! Convoy with @captain_70s, @rml2345, @blackboilersuit and TTT Solutions. Stopped at Blyth for FUEL_70s (see my services thread... here), Ferrybridge for dinner...

...and Southwaite for a tea. Southwaite of course being WOMAN_70s' FAVOURITE services in the entire world.

So that was done. Oh and the following week, Mr @Talbot was in the locale so stopped by to go in to Glasgow city centre for dinner and the obligatory run on the Subway back to my bit...

I think that just about covers everything.
---ENDS---

So as many of you may have noticed, I dragged this auld tub to Festival of the Unexceptional last weekend where it wasn't even the shonkiest car in attendance. 
Thanks to a tipoff from @juular, four brand new Bosch injectors had been bought and I spent a jolly Scottish summer afternoon fitting then and generally tidying the old bus up.
In other words I got fucking soaked. 

That used to be an alternator mount.

Old and New injectors.
Unfortunately despite the extensive* preparations the trip was not without incident. Somewhere on the A1 north of Grantham it decided to jettison the entire nearside indicator/sidelight unit. Bulb holders, the lot. Of course I had no idea of this until stopping at Grantham North services for a pee and to find out which indicator bulb had blown.
Arse.
So it was a desperate double back and search along 10 miles or so of A1 that I'd just traversed but quickly gave up hope of ever seeing it again.
Then spotted it in a lay-by, miraculously mostly intact. Even the bulbs had survived it's 60mph sojourn into the scenery. Duly reunited it was a quick blat to Peterborough and rendezvous with the other Scottish contingent.
And thus to the show.

More bad news though. @Skizzer, who was following in convoy noticed a worrying lack of brake lights. Sure enough it turned out the brake light switch had died and there was no prospect of getting a replacement in a field full of 80s cars. Not without being noticed anyway...
However thanks to the combined knowledge and assistance of Autoshite, and some wires kindly supplied by @blackboilersuit I was able to wire the brake lights up to the foglight switch instead of just living in Lincolnshire for the rest of eternity.
New switch and we're back in business.

On the plus side, it averaged about 35mpg over 680 odd miles. Handy as I'm going on holiday in it next week.
Wish me luck. 

So with no time to lose, the doctor (not that one) printed out the internet and started pointing out potential purchases. 

 
He didn't seem to know fuck all about old cars so I just took a prescription for tramadol and said I'd sort it out myself. 

I have just discovered that if you hold down the open button on the Saabs key fob, it opens the roof.
Life changed.

Heater blower got a good ol' rattle can resto.



 
The shed also got reorganised for better storage, it's primary use...





Most of that is the Volvo's own interior which can't go back in until it stops filling with water.
@jaypee kindly dropped off the water pump courtesy of @juular. Now just waiting for a day that isn't freezing/raining to fit it...

Ye of little faith.
I have shit planned...

I'm going to be checking that end float a lot I reckon. 🤣