saablog

You may recall from reading earlier blog postings that my brother bought me stripes for the 900 for our birthday. I received them in the mail a few weeks after the birthday, but never put them on because I didn’t know how, and I wanted to not be in trouble with my brother if I messed them up since he’d bought them..

Erik and Katie flew in to town last night, and this morning our mom dropped him off at
7:15 this morning to pick up the 900, which he’ll drive this weekend while they’re in town. He was pretty disappointed that the stripes weren’t on the car. He insisted we get started with their installation immediately.

The first step is to clean the paint with glass cleaner or Formula 409, to clean any residues or waxes off of the paint. Then you just have to line up the stripes, then peel off the backing slowly while smoothing the stripes onto the car. After the stripes are adhered to the car, just peel off the backing and you’re done. Simple, right?

We started striping on the hood, since that is where we presumed it would be the most difficult to locate the stripe properly due to the contours of the bodywork. We placed it 5.5 inches offset from the centerline of the car, which was easy to find on the hood due to a slight crease in the hood’s center.

You can open a little bit bigger view of the photo by clicking on it.

The ends are tricky to stick on properly, but we did pretty good. We next worked our way back on the roof, first with the section between the windshield and sunroof, then the sunroof, then the roof behind the sunroof. It took until about 9:30, so a couple of hours. We ran out of stripe after doing the roof, so we didn’t finish by running the stripe down the back hatch yet. Erik ordered more stripe so the stripe can be complete.

 A lot of people have expressed some skepticism about putting stripes on the car. Pretty much every woman (like Ani, Katie, and Sue Frank) are horrified by the idea. I’m happy with how they turned out, it looks better than I had expected. You can look at the photos and decide for yourself. I’m thinking the stripes add a few HP. Let me know what you think!

Below is a comparison of Erik’s graphic representation in March, compared to the final product! I’ll bet you can’t wait to see it in person!

When I returned home from
Portland and went to move the 900 out of the garage, I found one of the horn buttons from the steering wheel on the floor of the car. It had actually fallen off on Saturday at practice, and I’d replaced it. Obviously I didn’t do a very good job. When the button is missing, there’s an exposed copper horn contact, which to me looks like an electrical safety hazard.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that the button is designed with four clip-type tabs on its backside, and two of the clips were not in place. They were still in position on the steering wheel. Of the two remaining tabs, one was cracked and half-way falling off. Now I know why I’ve seen horn buttons for sale on Saab parts sites. I decided it was time for some heavy-duty glue.

I got some Elmer’s brand gorilla-style glue, and glued the three tabs back on. After a few hours curing time, the button went back just as it’s supposed to; an easy fix. We’ll see how long it lasts.