I accidentally a cheap Saab and decided to keep it...

@Matt: I'm not sure I'd drive it atm, both because there is a lot of stuff hanging down in front of the screen (including that big plastic panel thing). Additionally it has no insurance and is still SORN. :lol:

As for the wheel, the only issue is on the other side; the whole way round looks like this.
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I took the headlining material off the biscuit (didn't know it was called that :p) leaving this.
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The biscuit needs a bit of strengthening then some new material; should cost about ?35 on materials and glue and hopefully I'll get it right first time :lol: I called up a few breakers in the area but no-one has any sign of one. Even the nearest Saab specialist didn't have one, although they said they'd just got rid of a 900 3dr but hadn't taken the headliner out. Doesn't seem too hard to DIY it anyway.

I also put the boot back together along with the new (2nd hand) boot floor. Seems much better now. I also fixed the sunroof motor, which I broke by unscrewing a screw that I thought was part of a plastic surround but was in fact a screw holding the motor housing onto the gearing :lol:

Also;
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I think that looks pretty awesome. Shame the Kangoo has 4 bolts (and would be a different size anyway) or i'd shove the 17ers on for lulz :lol:

Edit: Just tried to order some headliner material and glue online; wouldn't let me as I don't have a credit card (only debit). I'll call them tomorrow which also means I can order a more specific amount (online only does 1, 2, 3 metres etc; on the phone I can specify 1.6m as thats all I need).
 
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Well this week has been pretty good with the car.

Firstly, I solved the problem of the faulty fuel gauge. As the DTE and warning light worked fine it (thankfully) pointed to the gauge and not the sender. So out with the instrument cluster it was, which meant taking half the dash out. Alas after even unscrewing the back of the cluster there was no damage to the contacts, so I plugged it back in and sure enough bingo. A faulty connection with the plug in the back of the cluster. Worth doing though.

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Biggest pain was retrieving the wires for the plugs once the dash was in. Its always easier to take something apart than put it back together. Not looking forward to putting the headliner back in.

I also ordered the headliner material, which arrived today. I'll have to wait for a dry day to do that; as the only place we have enough space is on the drive :lol: Same goes for the wheels. I bought some spray paint for them, and gave them a clean today.

Additionally I replaced the faulty cabin fan resistor; which when broken causes the cabin fan to only work on setting 4 (a common problem on Saabs apparently). This involved removing the windscreen wipers, then the plastic covering under that, then another plastic covering, then you're supposed to remove the wiper motor, but I couldn't find the right tool so I worked around it. Remove the filter then hidden down by the bulkhead is a resistor. Twas a massive pain to unplug and remove, but the 2nd hand replacement now works great.

As for the leak, today we had some heavy rain, and as I looked outside I could see drips inside the car. Kinda weird, but it pointed me directly to the problem, which was pretty much a faulty seal above the window. Something I wouldn't have seen if the headlining was still in :) Remove what turned out to be an easy panel to remove; two bolts and two screws and it comes right off. Solution = some silicone adhesive filler gunk. Et voila reassembled and sprayed at point blank with the hose and no leaks.

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I have found plans to add an MP3 connector to the radio with parts that will cost about ?3. Probably worth doing :lol: Does mean taking the radio apart though; how hard can it be?

Maybe tomorrow I'll get insurance then tax for it. Then the open road awaits!

Edit: Its official; I've spent more on the car than I did buying it. Just over ?4 more currently. Alas it owes me just over ?444. :lol: I've spent more on it than I'd want (so far) but I'll live. This means I will have to sell the 15" wheels that came with the car to claw back some costs, but it doesn't need 2 sets of rims anyway. If I could get ?100 for them I'd be happy as thats what I paid for the 17"ers.
 
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Good to see you're getting through those little jobs, it'll be a minter in no time.

Those resistors are a pain in the arse, we had the same problem on my dad's Rover, got a repair kit to replace the stupid coil resistors with proper ones and even that didn't work. We ended up getting one from the scrapyard to keep it going until we eventually scrapped the car.

I can see you making a bit of profit on this should you sell it, Mike Brewer style. :)
 
^ Yeah I don't want to install another one. Amusingly I've now found the right spanner to take the wiper motor off. But tbh it was easy enough as I think unless the resistor is located on the other side, the motor would be very much in the way on a LHD car. Hoping for a decent enough profit to bring back some of the insurance/fuel costs :lol:

@Adu; I do want to keep it but alas I can't really afford to. Sure its been a very cheap car; less than ?500 at the end of everything hopefully, but after this summer I will be much poorer as I'm going on 3 trips (charity drive to Bratislava, Ringmeet, Slovakian mountains (flying not driving :p). Essentially I should hopefully have a bit of money left over if I sell the car.

And I have changed the ferry booking; Matt and I will now be coming to the Ringmeet in this. It may or may not be multicoloured with a blackboard bonnet.
 
Well I figured as the bonnet needs re-spraying, I could blackboard it for the charity trip etc, then strip and spray it for selling on. :lol: I wouldn't do a Clarkson and do the whole car though... Also I found out that my mate can spray stuff, so as long as I provide some paint then we can get it done, and it won't be rattle-can-tastic. :p
 
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Actually, a vinyl might not be a bad idea just to protect the paint from getting any more damage, although I don't know if the vinyls would do any damage to already damaged paint.

And here I was proud of myself for doing work about 1/10th as hard as what you've done, and I had plenty of help. Nice work :thumpsup:

[Insert unintelligible sentence about "manky an' leaky ol' interiah" here]

/Mike Brewer
 
Vinyl's not a bad idea no, and Captain_70s need not apply because it's not that vinyl. :p

Chalkboard black is pretty awesome though and we could write our own slogans on it...
 
^ Because I don't have enough money and we have a tin of blackboard paint in the garage. Same goes for Carbon Vinyl - standard coloured stuff is cheaper. This unfortunately isn't a project I can keep spending loads of money on, or keep. :(

And it may be simple two tone rather than multicoloured (although I'd prefer multicoloured :p); Focus ST orange (or some other bright colour) on the lower half with the bonnet, roof and boot in the green. And then the bonnet blackboard covered.

And thanks Der Stig; I wouldn't class this as spectacularly hard work but it does feel good to do something on the car. Makes me more connected to it and I haven't even done anything under the bonnet.

And its now insured, but I need to wait for them to update the Motor Insurance Database before I can get tax. Which might be tomorrow despite the insurance people saying its updated automatically as soon as the insurance starts. Ugh stupid DVLA. However it was better to SORN it because now when I come to sell it it'll have a good few months left on it, wheras the old tax would have run out before the Ringmeet.
 
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Good luck with the DVLA!

Matt2000 said:
Vinyl's not a bad idea no, and Captain_70s need not apply because it's not that vinyl. :p

Chalkboard black is pretty awesome though and we could write our own slogans on it...
Click to expand...

We can do a shout out for Top Gear China, "Ambitious, but lubbish." /MWF :p
 
The DVLA were...well thankfully their systems mean I don't have to talk to anyone. After getting up this morning I checked the MID and sure enough it was listed as insured! 5 minutes on the DVLA's website and tax has been done and done. Tax disc should arrive within 5 days but they do allow me to drive it on the old tax disc, as it was SORN.

Its also got breakdown cover; full UK and European cover until the end of the year (added onto the parents' policy) at a cost of about ?40. A new policy would cost about ?80 so not bad :p

Also I got a wire wheel brush thingy to strip the paint off the wheels, and yeah its going to take a while. Spent a good couple of hours doing the inside of one of the wheels. I also need to take the wheel weights off of them, and I guess I will try to put them back but it would cost ?24 for me to get all 4 re-balanced, which I am thinking might be worth doing. And getting them to use sticky weights not the annoying clip on ones.
 
Yeah I guess you're right. For the sake of less than ?30 (the garage my parents regular at with their cars charges ?15 per wheel :eek:). Also I've lost where one of the weights was, so I couldn't replace them if I tried. :lol:

Took it out for a bit of a drive today; I need to get used to the clutch all right. Carpark driving was...juttery. :p It was nice to warm everything up and clear the brakes a bit.

Was weird driving around without a headlining (I screwed the rear-view mirror on temporarily) but it will be better with it. I just need a dry day. And I've nearly finished stripping the first wheel. Needed some smaller wire brushes so they've been ordered, but I can get on with the main bits of the other wheels already. Going by this effort the others can have a little more primer remaining on them...as long as its not flaking it'll be fine right?

And I checked out 'We buy any car' (main sponsor of Topgear on Dave - they buy any car) and they'd genuinely offer me ?50 for it. Uh, no thanks. :|

Total amount spent on the car is ?106.29, plus ?128.56 on the wheels. Frankly, considering I've sorted pretty much everything except for the bonnet with that, I'm doing pretty damn well. However that doesn't include ?220 per month for insurance, ?118 for 6 months of tax, and ?44 for European breakdown cover until the end of the year. That's the expensive side of things.
 
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We Buy Any Car are a bunch of cowboys. They would take that ?50 back off you as an admin fee anyway. Wheels should be fine with some primer left over, mine still have some crap on them when I stripped them and repainted them and all the new paint's still on 2 and a half years later. Yours won't get as much abuse either. :lol:
 
^ they are complete jokers.

offer you over the odds for your car, then when you get there they low ball you and hope that, as you've come all this way to chop your car in, you'll just give in and accept their offer. A family friend took his car in to them after the website offered ?22k. They offered less than ?20k when he got there and managed to talk them up a bit, but they wouldnt budge past 20 citing that they need a regional manager or some such to write out cheques over 20k. Which is plausible, but I would assume no one was going to be in a hurry to fetch the man.
 
Yeah by no means would I sell a car to them, but it made me laugh. The website even says ?350 for the Kangoo :lol:

Edit: There's a common upgrade on these cars in the shape of the steering rack brace/clamp. Replacing it is very well hailed as both greatly reducing torque steer and handling precision but also protecting against a common cracking bulkhead problem (which I need to check mine isn't cracked - luck says it will be :p). The downside is with my tight budget; the kit costs ?100. It also requires the front of the car to be raised, which I could do, but only with 2 spare wheel jacks - it doesn't require going under the car though.

With my estimates at how much I'll be able to sell it for lowering I'd like to obviously keep spending well below the ?300 odd budgeted, but then again I think that included said kit. In which case I didn't budget for the wheels.

Also I'm going to need another (at least 1 probably 2) wire wheel brush for stripping the rims; the one I got is completely fuxxored after about 1.5 wheels. Expected I guess. :p
 
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