saablog

Team BS/OS Fans in the Portland area-

The interior refinishing projects are done, and it's time for a road trip! Don't miss your opportunity to see the Team BS / OS car and it's driver Kevin in the Portland area, October 1-4. Leave a comment or send an email to set up your time to check out the car and chat up the driver!

I've just been looking over our car insurance renewal documents that came in the mail. Our policy renews on the 30th of this month, so 2 days from now. Our rates haven't changed for this 6-month renewal period, they're the same as we paid for the past 6 months beginning on 30 March. In any case, I have a hard time believing some of these figures:

The crazy question I need answered is this: Why does my  underpowered 15 year old Saab 900 cost more to insure for liability than my 3 year old sportwagon with 300 HP? And why is Ani's basic 9-5 sedan more expensive than either of those?

The fact that the 9-5 costs the most for Personal Injury Protection is ludicrous. I can see why the Volvo would be cheaper, because it provides more occupant protection in the form of curtain airbags. But the 9-5 has far better occupant protection than the 900, which is cheaper to insure.

Comprehensive makes at least a little bit of sense, as the vehicle worth the most money costs the most to insure. But the discounts are off... there are more airbags in the Volvo than in the 9-5, but the 9-5's discount is greater, and the ABS discount should be the same for each of the cars which is ABS equipped, but it isn't.

I think I'm going to direct my insurance agent to my blog. Perhaps he can post a comment on the crazy rates. Also, maybe my dad will have some words of wisdom, having retired a couple of years ago from a long career in the insurance industry.

After getting much of the car disassembled last week on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, I took the seat bottom skins to the Shoe Repair/Leather Sewing store. I got them back on Thursday for $15 plus tax, so $16.79 total. Great.

On Wednesday I also cleaned off the headliner shell. First I peeled off the old headliner material, and then I used a deck-cleaning brush to get all of the old adhesive off of there. It was a yucky mess. I'd scrub, then vacuum, then scrub, then vacuum.

ON Thursday afternoon I after picking up the seat covers, I came home and decided to glue the headliner material on myself, without any help from Ani. The spray adhesive didn't come out as cleanly as I would have liked, it was more of a stream rather than an evenly-dispersed spray. (When Ani came home she said my results would have been better if I had somehow cleaned the spray head to better disperse the glue). It was a bit of a mess, and I got some wrinkles around some of the more contoured edges, but overall it came out pretty good. About what I would have expected with me doing it... I ended up using my office stapler to staple the material around the edges on the back side, the fiber shell was thick enough that the staples didn't come through.

After doing that, I decided to do the same for the C-pillar trim, as I wanted to reinstall the headliner but the C-pillar trim is what holds the headliner up in the back. Ani arrived home while I was gluing the second one and raised her eyebrows a bit at my nonconventional taping of the material on the back side (as well as the glue pattern) but it came out OK. She helped me get it installed that night, enough that it would stay in place.

Luisa helped me put the rest of the fittings (visors, handles, seatbelts) in on Saturday morning, then we went to Cle Elum. On Sunday afternoon I trimmed out the sunroof opening, and on Sunday evening I got the skin back on the passenger seat. The driver seat is going to be a bit trickier since the upholstery wire tabs have ripped off of the bottom of the seat.

The last big sticking point will be upholstering the sunroof panel. The upholstery is held on at the front and rear each by one long plastic clip which is sewn across the length of the sun roof. The front clip is broken, and both of them are very brittle so I'm afraid they won't stand up to the sewing machine. I may have to reassemble it without upholstery for a while until I can source the clips.

Yesterday I started my headliner replacement project. I was tired of my head rubbing on the mildew-colored fabric near the driver's door opening each time I got in or out of the car.

I picked up Luisa from daycare, and we stopped at the fabric store and bought new headliner material. They had several colors (black, maroon, dark blue, dark gray, forest green, tan) but tan was the only suitable color for my taupe interior. Luisa was pretty interested in the fabric store but she was trying to touch every fabric in the entire store and it drove me crazy.

After dinner, Ani had to go to school for Open House, and Luisa helped me begin taking the headliner out of the car. It consists of a foam-backed material [poorly] glued to a shaped fiberboard backing. That means it can be removed from the car for recovering. The first step was to remove the grab handles, sun visors, rearview mirror, and light. Then the C-pillar and B-pillar trims needed to be removed as well, which required removing the upper seat belt guides and the rear window latches. I'll recover the C-pillar trims too since they are of the same construction as the headliner, and are also sagging. Luisa took this picture of me.

After Luisa went to bed, I returned to the garage and set to work removing the sunroof. The inside of the sunroof needs to be removed as well since it is also covered in sagging headliner material.  Removing the headliner and sunroof gave me access to the sunroof drains, so I cleared both of the front drains. The front drain hoses had been reinforced with and internal plastic spiral-wrap, which really reduced the inside diameter of the drain hose and also created an internal corrugation for debris to get caught in. I decided to remove these silly things from both front drains. Here is a phot of the removed headliner- yuck.

The sunroof interior panel was pretty difficult to remove, as the instructions in my guide and online didn't show me how to loosen the rear guides after loosening their mounting bolts. Oh well, it's out now.

This morning I decided to pull out the seats and have the both front seat bottom skins re-sewn. The center section of the driver's seat ripped several months ago, and the side sections of the passenger seat recently began to rip out. Taking out the passenger seat allowed me to see how the skins are supposed to be installed, and I discovered that a portion of the driver's seat attachment was embedded in the driver's seat pad. Knowing that, I removed the part so I can properly reinstall the skins after they are sewn. At the same time, that embedded attachment hardware had severed one of the seat heater wires, whch is why the driver's seat heater doesn't work. I will repair that damaged wire in the hopes that it will restore functionality of the seat heater.

So far I'm $29.93 into this project. I still need to have the seats sewn, and I need to buy the adhesive. The next part is going to be the messiest- removing the old headliner fabric and its disintegrated foam backing from the form. I'll be sure to write about it after it is done.

OK, in my hunt for the new stereo I was outbid in the last 7 seconds. How does that happen?

You can click on the image to view the screenshot larger, and see that I was outbid by a first-time bidder four seconds after my final bid was placed. How does that work? Any eBay experts want to give me some advice on how to win an auction?

Yesterday morning Luisa and I washed the 900, then we went to the UPS store to get a package that had arrived from my office. The other thing that had arrived was my package from eeuroparts.com.

You'll recall I recently ordered new spark plugs and wires from them for the 900. I also ordered new wiper blades for all three of our cars. The two Saabs are getting Bosch Icon blaces, the new "flat blade technology" type. I haven't yet installed them, so I'll report on their effectiveness later. I will tell you to AVOID RAIN-X brand wipers. They suck. Two weeks after installing them they were already streaky on the windshield.

After Luisa and I got home, we had a snack, then grabbed Ani and the three of us headed to the Scanwest Autosport Customer Appreciation Barbecue. Scanwest is the independent shop in Seattle's Greenwood neighborhood where I have our Saabs serviced. They had invited the Northwest Saab Owners club to come as well, and there were many interesting Saabs in attendance. Luisa really liked Dan Morley's blue Sonett, Ani really liked a burgundy 99 GLE 3-door which was in stunning condition. We all really liked the blue 9-5 Aero wagon. Luisa also really liked their hot dogs. We got license plate frames for the 900, looked at the cool cars, ate, and left.

When we got home, we put Luisa down for a nap and I got started on the spark plug project. I had chosen the "hard use" spark plugs for the car, which were NGK Iridium IX BCPR5EIX. At $26.90 for the set, they cost 4x as much as the standard plugs, but since the car is used for (a) short trips, (b) stop-and-go traffic, and (c) autocross, I figured that the car actually does see hard use so it would be appropriate to get them. These plug wires were the only ones offered on the eeuroparts site for my car, but they incorporate "Precision Engineered Opti-Layer Mag Wire." Sounds impressive, if unintelligible.

After reading the maintenance instructions in my service manual, I began by removing the spark plug cover from the engine, then pulling off the wires from the spark plugs and setting them aside.

Then starting with plug number 1, I removed and replaced each plug one at a time. Plug 1 was very difficult to remove. All of the plugs were in pretty ugly shape when I got them out. I used a feeler to ensure that the new plugs were gapped properly, between 0.6 and 0.7 mm. They seemed to be factory set at 0.7 mm, so no adjustment was required. Reinstalling the plugs required applyng a bit of clean moto oil to the threads ( I used some remaining drops of my Pennzoil Platinum 10W-30 from last week's oil change), hand-starting the plug, and using my torque wrench at it's lowest calibrated setting. It is rated from 20 ft-lb, and the required torque on the spark plugs is 18-22 ft-lb.

Look how nasty the old spark plug looks...

After that was all done, I replaced the spark plug wires one-at-a-time, to ensure I didn't incorrectly connect them at the distributor. It wasn't too easy to install them onto the distributor cap. It turns out I probably should have ordered a new distributor cap and rotor, though mine appear serviceable (though with some black marks on the contacts) It was a bit tougher to replace the cable from the coil to the distributor, but I finally got it done.

With the ugly old parts replaced, it's off to the garbage bin with them!

With that done, I tested my work by starting the car to ensure that I would run. It did, and it seemed immediately to be idling more smoothly than it had before. Hmm.. maybe those spark plugs and wires do have an effect on how the car runs. Then I reinstalled the spark plug cover and was done with that maintenance.

 Next it was time to put on my new Scanwest Autosport license plate frames. Luisa helped me. First she took my picture (yes, she really took it, my screwdriver is screwing in the front license plate screws on the 900):

Then she got the screwdriver and helped. She was very interested in the bodyside vent and the gas tank, and she kept trying to unscrew them, though her Philips screw driver wasn't having much luck on the Torx-head screws.

I'll try to report later this week on driveability and fuel economy.. we'll see whether the new plugs and wires have an effect on either of those aspects of the car's performance. Also I'll keep you posted on the search for a replacement stereo. Scanwest didn't have one in stock, but they work with a place in California that can get them.

No matter how many vehicles I own, no matter how fancy they are, my 1995 Saab 900 coupe will always stand out as a fondly remembered favorite. That is the vehicle that fit me best, that I was most comfortable in, that I've gotten the most enjoyment out of.

I bought my black 1995 900 S coupe in October of 1996, one year old with 30,000 miles on it. The previous August, my parents had purchased their 1995 900 SE coupe, a beautiful black turbo coupe with black leather interior, manual transmission, three-spoke wheels, and every option box checked.  It was my dream car, but when it was time to buy my own I didn't have quite enough money, so I got the lesser S model, with it's non-turbocharged motor, cloth seats, manual climate control, and no sunroof. I loved both cars fiercely, in the way that one can love such machines. I was saddened when my parents traded theirs in, and was devastated after I sold mine.

Today Ani, Luisa and I went shopping at the Target store at Northgate. We drove her black 9-5. When we returned to the parking garage, a black 1995 Saab 900 SE turbo coupe was parked next to our 9-5. It was in stunning condition. Shiny paint, rich leather upholstery, few dings, original wheels, spoiler... flawless for a 12 year old car.

As Ani and I struggled to get a fussy Luisa into her seat, I kept glancing at that 900. Ani knows how strongly I feel about the car, especially in a black-on-black combination with three spoke wheels. While we can't go back in time, we can surely relive memories, and I have been reliving plenty of them today after my encounter with my favorite Saab. I'd love to have a black '95 3-door again, preferably an SE turbo coupe just like my parents had. For now, I'll have to survive with the memories.

A parting shot, showing the subtle spoiler. Images courtesy Saab, via my dog-eared copy of the 1995 900 sales brochure.  Hopefully my parents will grace the Saablog with their comments about their stunning 900 SE.

I’ve been driving my 900 to a client site in Burlington, WA , this week, which is about an hour north of my house. This trip is the breadwinner for the 900, I get about 130 miles/day which is good for about $60/day. When I filled up last night, I had achieved 28.79 MPG over 335 miles.

I’ve always felt like it’s fun to drive my “race car” for work, it always stands out from pretty much every other car. Until now.

Yesterday I went  out for lunch and when I got to the Visitor spots, a REAL race car was parked two spots away from the 900. It's a rally-prepared Celica AllTrac Turbo, from back in the days when Toyota knew what an interesting car was.

Totally cool. Probably a bit noisier than the 900, though, as the entire interior is stripped down to sheetmetal.

I lost the bid for the stereo system in the last 2 minutes of the auction. I need to become a little more eBay savvy, I guess.

It looks like the seller has re-listed only the CD player. Perhaps the person who beat me really only wanted the head unit.

 I'm watching a couple of other auctions right now for similar stuff. One is for WAY too much money. One is in Madison, WI, so I could have my brother get it for me.

 I'm a bit disappointed, but I'm still pursuing the equipment. I'll keep you posted.

So far I'm the leading bidder on this fine electronics package:

The auction ends in 1 day + 21 hours.  Hope I win it. Hope it works.