Saab 9-5, third times a charm with struts

[rainagain]

I cleaned up the carriers, whilst doing this I found a shim had fallen off one of them. I don’t know which one it came from! Does anyone know what the function of the shim is and how to determine where it should go? 
 

After a good bit of wire brushing they were treated to vactan.

And then black paint

As I couldn’t put anything back together whilst waiting on the bump stops I also treated the chassis rails.

[rainagain]

The wheel arches were quite badly rusted inside and around the fuel filler. This all got wired brushed and vactan applied. 

Both of them had a hole at the top of the arch where a fixing for the arch liner used to sit. I don’t have a welder nor did I want to have to rip out all the sound deadening foam to weld it, so I bodged two small glass fibre patches to cover the holes. It was great fun having resin drip onto you as you try and apply it to a surface above your head. 

[AnnoyingPentium]

9 minutes ago, rainagain said:

I then tried TMS motor spares in Rosyth.

We've got a TMS down here. I've never had any issue with them, nor have I had the wrong parts (I'm looking at you, ECP!).

[Split_Pin]

I didn't realise you were just over the water from me.

[Wgl2019]

55 minutes ago, rainagain said:

shim

Bottom left on your earlier pic I think? 

[rainagain]

FFs I’ve got I picked up the shiny new bump stops tonight

However I opened up my new springs and went to fit everything only to find the springs are too big at the bottom.

This is the part number for them

[rainagain]

From looking at eBay I’m not the only one with this problem 

[grogee]

Aw baws. Any other affordable alternatives? I found with eBay some (but not all) of the sellers list critical dimensions, which may help.

[rainagain]

4 minutes ago, grogee said:

Aw baws. Any other affordable alternatives? I found with eBay some (but not all) of the sellers list critical dimensions, which may help.

I can find plenty on eBay but I’m now going to have to wait for delivery, again. I’m getting pretty pissed off with the whole job tbh. I just want to get it back on the road. I’m almost tempted to give eurocarparts £100 a spring for some Sachs ones. 

[grogee]

1 minute ago, rainagain said:

I can find plenty on eBay but I’m now going to have to wait for delivery, again. I’m getting pretty pissed off with the whole job tbh. I just want to get it back on the road. I’m almost tempted to give eurocarparts £100 a spring for some Sachs ones. 

I know the feeling, stubbornness in refusing to pay ECP/GSF prices just means you're off road for five more (working) days. Been there, done that.

Have you got alternative wheels?

[stuboy]

21 hours ago, Wgl2019 said:

looks simlier to vectra rears

[mintwth]

12 minutes ago, rainagain said:

I can find plenty on eBay but I’m now going to have to wait for delivery, again. I’m getting pretty pissed off with the whole job tbh. I just want to get it back on the road. I’m almost tempted to give eurocarparts £100 a spring for some Sachs ones. 

£100 a spring? 

Have you called/had a look at the following to see what they have and can get to you: Saabits,  Partsforsaabs, GSF, Eibach, Abbot Racing

[Wgl2019]

Set of Eibachs are highly recommended, slight lowering but progressive so actually make the car ride better on small bumps. £150 on eBay https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/1625302491

[rainagain]

I checked Saabits and partsforsaabs, they had nothing listed. I found four matches on the GSF and I used the lesjorfors catalogue to get the right part number for sport suspension without self levelling.

I went to order them and this happened:

When will it end?!?!?

[rainagain]

Found the right springs on neo bros, does anyone have a discount code for them?

[Vantman]

10 hours ago, rainagain said:

Found the right springs on neo bros, does anyone have a discount code for them?

@rainagain The last code i used was UKS2021 but obviously it might be 2022 or 2023 by now.

[rainagain]

59 minutes ago, Vantman said:

@rainagain The last code i used was UKS2021 but obviously it might be 2022 or 2023 by now.

Ah bugger I just ordered them literally two minutes before you posted that! 🤣

[rainagain]

13 hours ago, Wgl2019 said:

Set of Eibachs are highly recommended, slight lowering but progressive so actually make the car ride better on small bumps. £150 on eBay https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/1625302491

I just ordered two rear springs from neo bros, with express postage this comes to just under £120. After I placed the order I just realised for £30 more I could have gotten two front springs as well! Doh. No doubt one of the fronts will snap in the next couple of weeks. 

[Wgl2019]

Always the way!

[rainagain]

It was looking so good, I was hoping to get the new springs today:

But for some reason nothing happened today. 

[TwyRob]

It's unlike Bill not to get back to a customer. Have you tried phoning Saabits?

[rainagain]

Whilst waiting on the springs I treated some more rust 

the last pic has been painted in some glass fibre reinforced chassis paint that someone on here recommended. It went in really nicely. 
 

 

[rainagain]

The new springs arrived and were slightly shorter than the intact one I removed. Maybe at some point a spring has snapped and someone had fitted non sports springs?

The weather was lovely so it was time to crack on.

Just to make things more interesting whilst under the car the rear heat shield fell off as the studs securing it had rotted to nothing.

I did try and tap a new thread on them but they were so far gone it ended up being a M3 thread which is far too thin to hold any weight. I did manage to tap the one above the back box as it was less rusty. 
 

To replace the studs I snapped them off and then drilled holes into the spare wheel well, which had seen plenty of mouse action. There was also some water in the wheel well I’m not sure if I have a leak or if it’s just condensation from sitting  

I then installed some new bolts with nut lock on them to stop them coming on done. The heat shield was bolted to these bolts between large washers as it had rotted round the bolts. 

[rainagain]

I build up the struts using the springs and my nice new Monroe shocks. They do look nice in the cleaned up arches. I even washed the wheel arch liners when I had them out. I wasn’t sure what side the shin was from as I’d seen pics online showing it on both sides. In the end I just left it out. 

One question is what am I going to do with my rear subframe? It’s quite a mess, I was thinking a 50/50 mix of old engine oil and waxoyl? 
 

Also the outer skin is almost gone on my back box, anyone know a good place to get a replacement of will it last for a good while with just the one skin? 

[rainagain]

With the rear of the Saab in the air I noticed this broken wire for the parking sensors. 

It looks like the connector pins failed and someone used these crimps to bypass it, however the wire that used to connected them together is long gone. I could get to the bottom wire quite easily but I couldn’t see how I could get to the top wire without taken the bumper off. 
 

I instead traced the wiring harness up to just behind the rear tail light. I found the brown/white wire there and cut into it and added a piece of spare wire I had from the injector plug repair kit. This was fed under the car and joined to the other piece of wire. All the joints were heat shrinked to try and protect them. 

I turned the ignition on and success! For the first time I now have parking sensors. 

[Split_Pin]

I'd use some Vactan on the subframe first. Quite cheap and goes a long way. You can paint anything you want on top of that, I'm sure someone will be along to recommend something shortly.

[grogee]

7 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

I'd use some Vactan on the subframe first. Quite cheap and goes a long way. You can paint anything you want on top of that, I'm sure someone will be along to recommend something shortly.

+1 for rust converter then any old thick goop. Waxoyl + engine oil should be fine if you have some. I bought some waxoyl chassis paint that goes on quite nicely, it's quite 'clingy'.

[Wgl2019]

47 minutes ago, rainagain said:

the outer skin is almost gone on my back box, anyone know a good place to get a replacement of will it last for a good while with just the one skin?

You can just trim the remaining outer skin off with no issue. Mine was still going strong 5 years later!

[Split_Pin]

Good work on getting the parking sensors working.

The ones in the red 93 don't work as the sensors and the connectors on the loom have corroded to nothing. As I'm a dunce when it comes to electrics I bought a plain bumper insert with no sensor holes instead and just pretend they don't exist now 😂. They would come in very handy though as rearward visibility on the Cabriolet is very limited and it's still quite a big car.

[rainagain]

9 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Good work on getting the parking sensors working.

The ones in the red 93 don't work as the sensors and the connectors on the loom have corroded to nothing. As I'm a dunce when it comes to electrics I bought a plain bumper insert with no sensor holes instead and just pretend they don't exist now 😂. They would come in very handy though as rearward visibility on the Cabriolet is very limited and it's still quite a big car.

What about just fitting a cheap after market kit from eBay into the existing holes?