Soundwave's accumulated automotive arse-gravy

[Soundwave]

Now you'll have to clean the interior so it matches.

Or marinate the new visor in a bucket of grime so it matches the rest of it...

[AMCrebel]

I have a real soft spot for the exact era of 9000 - before they spoiled it by making the headlamps smaller. Some of the best headlamps on any car I have had. Mine was the hatch and had a surprising amount of room - the removable parcel shelf felt like it was made of 18mm marine ply, not compressed fag packets like most. By far the best seats too.
All round a very likeable motor.

[Soundwave]

Put the new sunvisor in. No pictures because... it's a fucking sunvisor, you know what one of those looks like. Just imagine the previous picture, except instead of on a box, it's on a car ceiling.

Buoyed by this two-screw success, I decided to move onto fitting the new exhaust I'd bought, as the one on the car was blowing like a hooker.

What appeared to be a simple procedure turned into a complete pain in the cunt, as is often the way.

The exhaust system is in four sections, and all four had been repaired at some point, but the front two were still holding up OK. With that in mind, I decided to just focus on the absolutely rotten rear two sections, which actually make up the bulk of the system's length anyway. After ordering the parts and waiting an extortionately long time for the factory to make the backbox, because apparently nobody stocks 9000 boxes any more and they had to make it especially, I was ready to begin.

Removing the old exhaust was piss easy, since I'd opted for the "destructive component removal" method. Whereby I just took the grinder and sliced every fucking thing off. The bolts were too rusty to remove with a spanner anyway, and I frankly couldn't be arsed wrestling the hangers out of the rubbers. So off they all came, and out dropped the exhaust.

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Then came the arseache. Like an dozy cunt, I just assumed everything would fit in as it came out, so I started with the mid section, got it hooked onto the rubbers and then connected the front end pipe. Turns out this is NOT the way to do it, mounting it onto the rubbers before the front pipe will hold the mid section flat. But it turns out the mid section actually needs to be canted to the left slightly, or the end that goes onto the backbox will be in the wrong place. I discovered this after nipping up the mid section and finding out the fucking backbox wouldn't line up. At all. The red mist descended a bit at this point and I forced the bastard thing to go on, whether it wanted to or not. The end result was an exhaust that blew at both joints despite copious quantities of fitting paste, and exited under the rear bumper instead of the exhaust cutout. Fucking marvellous.

Decided to back away, sleep on it, and try again in the morning.

Disassembled the entire thing again the next day (today), which was a lot tricker this time as I had to grapple with the fucking hangers and rubbers - I couldn't just use the grinder this time, plus I had to use my Chinesium Dremel knockoff device to remove all the fitting paste from the mating surfaces. After doing this, I started from the backbox and worked forwards instead. Using jacks and stands, I got the backbox roughly where I wanted it... then attached the mid section to the backbox... and then put the backbox on the hangers.

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Having the backbox attached and where I wanted it meant the mid section was now being held at the correct angle, so I moved the jacks and stands under the mid section and apply the same policy - get it lined up, attach to the front pipe, and then worry about grappling with the hangers and rubbers. The rubbers were more of a pain to get on using this method, but it was worth it. All in, all lined up.... the only blow being from a slight pinhole I'd made in the mid section silencer from being a bit heavy handed with the jack. A glob of paste soon put that right, and now I have an exhaust which doesn't blow and fits correctly! Fucking finally!

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Sounds so much better, and is so quiet at 50mph now, all I can hear is the intrusive thoughts! Just goes to show, sometimes you just need to walk away and come back the next day.


Between my various struggles with the exhaust, I was browsing eBay for 9000 parts. In particular I was looking for a passenger side wing, but hadn't had much luck. Wings for this year of 9000 are hard to find, and are usually very expensive when they do come up. There's one currently up for sale which, with postage, is well over £200, and would need painting as it's a totally different colour.

Why was I looking for a wing? Well, one of its many previous owners reports that a few years back, the car had an issue with a front balljoint. It separated while the car was driving and led to the car trying to run over its own front wheel. This caused damage to the lower part of the arch, as seen here:

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I'd initially asked a metalworking acquaintance if they'd be able to make a new lower section for this wing, so I could cut out and replace the damaged sections rather than the whole wing. Further investigation revealed this wouldn't be practical; even the seemingly undamaged parts of the wing were bent, as can be seen from the swage line and the tapering panel gap. (Wing below, door above)

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In addition to all this, it was rusting heavily around the front.

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Imagine my surprise when I found this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/195855049182

Cheap? Reasonably local? A similar colour? Not a bent and rotten piece of scrap? Sold to the shortarse with the stupid beard! So went over to Derby yesterday to collect...

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An extremely close colour match, I think it's meant to be the same colour! Exactly how close will really only be clear once it's on the car. It does have some scratches from storage...

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... but I'll take scratches over bent and rusty any day of the week! Absolutely made up than I managed to find a decent wing for a comparatively decent price. Next job will be getting this on, but that's a story for another day, when I can be arsed. At the moment I'm just going to bask in my victory with the exhaust.

[mercrocker]

Thanks. You have just reminded me why I will never fit another exhaust system myself. I might have forgotten and tried it again....

[Soundwave]

Thanks. You have just reminded me why I will never fit another exhaust system myself. I might have forgotten and tried it again....

It's an important lesson. The only reason I did it myself this time was because none of the local fast fit places would touch it due to the lead time on parts. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered, it's a complete arse ache.

[Soundwave]

Off to FOTU next weekend, so decided I should probably get the Saab's scabbier front wing changed over, having already purchased the part.

Jacked up and wheel off, so I can get at the arch trim/arch liner bolts... bodyside trim is already removed, as I've swapped it onto the replacement wing (it came with a slightly later trim which doesn't match - luckily the mountings are the same).

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All of which came out easily enough, bar the one in the rearmost corner of the arch which decided to be a bit of a cunt and required additional persuasion*. Mind you, that corner is the mangled corner, so that's hardly a surprise. We'll see just how mangled in a few moments. Prised the outer trim away to release the liner, and... yeah, the arch has seen better days!

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I removed the structural gaffer tape at the bottom of the wing, and found... grot. Grot and bodges.

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Including soggy paper that some cunt had stuffed behind the arch liner, presumably to "repair" the wing rot/damage... fortunately this all seems to relate to the wing and none of the car's inner structure, which is sound.

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Wing off... actually came off with a lot less resistance than I was expecting. Unfortunately, some of the fixings didn't survive the removal process.

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Let's take a closer look at the wing I took off...

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... yep, that's thoroughly fuckered! Offered the new wing up, colour match looks very decent and it's definitely the correct panel. Just need to sort out some fixings before fitting it properly.

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[paulplom]

The air filter looks really accessible*.

[christine]

The air filter looks really accessible*.

It's a Saab , in winter you rotate that horn, as its actually a snow blower . There's one the other side too .

[Soundwave]

Mercifully the air filter can be accessed from the engine bay too, it's not a wing-off job to change!

So, what's been going on? Got the Saab wing fully reattached...

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... took it to FOTU and incidentally parked it up with some of its 90s rivals...

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... and then SORNed it, as its MOT is up soon and it needs a few bits. Dug my Rover out of storage, as that's got a bit of MOT left on it.

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And after months of searching and a not-inconsiderable spend, sourced an unused decor panel for the SAAB, which are made from unobtanium. The current one is very broken, and lashed together with years of successive bodges by myself and other owners. I'm unreasonably pleased about this, in a "NOS parts saddo you'd avoid eye contact with at a car show" sort of way.

It's not staying NOS though, it'll be going on the car. Imported the fucking thing from Germany, damned if I'm going to that hassle then leaving it in the box because NOS.

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[Hooli]

NOS ruining oddball!