Since my last foray into European cars went so well... How about an old Saab?

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Yeah, I've been waiting for a good time to work that in there.  I did get a great eye-roll and groan from my daughter a few weeks back when I told her not to go yaking to all her classmates and co-workers about what we were doing with this car because nobody wants to sit around and listen to her Saab story.

(insert rimshot here)

Really the only reason that Taco Bell tacos are worth getting is that they're fast, available, and they'll keep as long as we're talking about soft tacos.  Tack on the extra buck or whatever to turn them in to chicken soft tacos and it's really not bad.  I've had some that I've kept in the fridge for a day or three and after microwaving (uhm.  or, you know..  not..  when I'm really hungry and can't wait) they're not awful.  But I think it's really like Taco Bell tacos:real tacos::boxed stuffing:mom's stuffing.  They aren't really the same thing as the tacos I make at home or that you'd get from a sketchy truck operated by a guy that doesn't speak a lick of English, but if you classify them as a discreet food that are related only in name, they're not bad and kind of scratch a different sort of itch.

Oh, and I think the heater control valve is leaking which is why the driver floorboard is wet and the heat takes forever to switch on and off.

I am curious to see how the top install goes, I need to put a new one on our  05 9-3 and have been putting it off.  I ended up getting a cover that just covers the top, it works well but I would rather not have to use it all the time.

In reply to Aaron_King :

I'm curious too!  It looks like there's a lot of stapling and glue involved. 

Also, the water on the floorboard is probably not the heater valve because it's definitely not coolant, just dirty water.  The search continues.  It could be coming through rust holes under the carpet.

The new top arrived yesterday and we got started with it last night.  To be fair, the only thing we've done with the new material is unfold it and ooh and ahh over how nice it looks.  This is basically the cheapest option that seems to exist out there and it's from Auto Tops Direct. 

Naturally, I bought mine last week and this week they have a 15% off code.  Oh well.  Any way, the manufacturer offers the following helpful information under the "Installation" tab for the product:

Townsend Imports has a set of instructions for top replacement that I'm going to follow.  Last night we started with the process of getting the old top off and, frankly, the page from Townsend needs to be rewritten a bit.  Not to take anything away from their guide, because it is helpful, but let's see if I can't help to make it a little more clear.

This is what we're starting with:

The top is really four pieces:  The top itself that covers the passenger compartment, the rear window section, the headliner, and the frame.  The only part that I'm going to be replacing is the main top section.  The rear window is glass and the attached material is in good shape, so it will stay.  The headliner is disgusting, but cleanable so we're probably going to remove it to clean it and put it back.  We might clean it in situ but I'm not that step yet.  The frame is good, but it does need to be cleaned up a bit.

With the windows down and the top unlatched - there's a lot of up-and-down here - we started by removing the screws in the trim panel that's under the rear window and pulling that tim panel off to reveal the staples:

Step three states: "Remove the two weather strips that are above the rear windows[quarter windows]".  I don't find that to be clear enough for someone who's never done this.  Let's rewrite that step as: "Lower the top just enough to relieve the tension on the fabric - about a quarter of the way through the lowering process.  On each side, attached to the frame above the rear window, there is a metal bracket that holds the weatherstripping for the top of that window.  It is attached to the top's frame with two 8mm nuts in the front and an 8mm cap nut in the back.  With age and corrosion, it is possible for the studs to spin with the nut, so you may need to exert downward pressure on the weatherstripping frame (down and away from the top frame) while turning the nuts. 

When those nuts are removed, use a nylon trim tool to pry the metal weatherstrip bracket away from the top frame."

Step 4 is to peel the top fabric away from the frame where that weatherstripping was.  I didn't find that necessary.

Step 5 was written by someone with a poor command of the English language and caused us much angst trying to figure this one out.  The spoiler is in three sections: the section that goes along the back of the car, right above the trunk lid and two side sections that are bolted to the quaterpanels on either side.  The two side sections need to be removed in order to access the staples that attach the top to the car.  There are three attachment points.  Starting from the rear of the car, the first is a wingnut at the end of a plastic tube that looks more like a plastic rod when you first see it.  To access this, you will open the trunk and find a small access flap in the side carpeting underneath the lift spring:

It's a very tight fit and the wing nut will be very hard to turn initially, but you need to remove it and do so carefully because I'm not sure how you go fishing to find that wing nut should you drop it.  This portion can be performed with the top up or down.

The middle fastener is 100% impossible to see without an endoscopic camera or something.  You'll access it through the trunk by putting your hand along the side of the car towards the top of the trunk and into the area where the top sits when it is retracted.  There's kind of like a built-in vinyl bag that holds the top when it's down, and you're going to be working between it and the side of the car.  Feel along the side of the car, following where the spoiler itself sites, and you'll come across a 10mm nut on a stud.  It's really hard to get to but I found it pretty easy with a regular 10mm socket on a 3" extension with my electric ratchet.  Again, be really careful that you don't drop that nut, because I have no idea how you'd ever find it.  This nut has to be removed with the top up.

The front-most fastener is located right around the seat belt pillar and must be accessed with the top all the way down.  It's pretty easy to see and easy to get to.

Once all three fasteners are removed, you can use a nylon trim tool to persuade the spoiler section to come off the car.  You will have two smallish studs and one long stud-on-a-wire.

With the top back in the raised position, we'll move to step 6 where we'll take off the trim strip that's on the back of the top, right before it angles down to the rear window.  There are two small metal caps on the ends that are secured with a single screw each.  I screwed this up a little bit and wound up prying the whole thing out:

What I think you're SUPPOSED to do is to somehow remove the fabric-covered portion from the aluminum channel that is screwed in to the rear frame and then unscrew that frame.  I'll circle back to this later.

Step 7 is to lower the top about halfway and drill out the rivets that hold the cable in at the front corners of the top.

Step 8 is to remove the cables.  I didn't do that yet.  This is also the part where they come back and tell you to remove that front-most nut on the side spoilers.  The error here is that step 5 starts with "Remove the side spoiler sections" which would leave the reader to assume that in that step, the side spoiler sections will be removed from the car.  This is not correct.  The instructions then go on to tell you that there are three fasteners and then only describe two of them, with no indication that you're coming back to that in step 8. 

Steps 9 through 13 are to remove the leading edge of the top.  Put the top down all the way and pull the screws out of the weatherstripping on the leading edge of the top and then peel it back, being careful not to damage it:

Next, you want to remove the bit of canvas stripping that is the wind stop to get to the top fabirc itself.  They want you to draw a picture, but I though snapping some photos would be better:

Now you can peel the fabric off the front bow and then put the top back up.

Step 14 is a two-parter.  The first part is removing all the staples.  There are a lot of staples.  I mean a lot a lot.  Since I'm not replacing the glass section, I'm leaving the staples in that are just for it, and pulling only those staples that go through the forward top section.  These staples are along the quarter panel, where those spoliers where, around the corner to the back where the forward section meets the window section, and then there are also some that were under the rear trim bit on the top that was removed in step 6.  These may be hidden under sealant, so you might need to go digging.

Once the staples are out, you can peel the fabric forward.

This is where we stopped for the night.  The other half of step 14 is to remove the 2 springs from the corners by the rear windows.  Not sure what they're talking about there, but on our next edition of "Put Your Top Back On You Slut", I'll figure that out and provide photographic evidence of their existence.

I think I missed where you figured out the wiring issue and got it running correctly, what was it?

docwyte said:

I think I missed where you figured out the wiring issue and got it running correctly, what was it?

Uhm...  witchcraft?

The best that I can figure is that the pin in the connector that provided the +12V to the left side of the gauge cluster was not making proper contact with the terminal on the gauge cluster.  By de-pinning and re-pinning the connector, I managed to adjust the positioning of that pin so that there's is now good voltage there.  That and a few drops of Stabilant on the terminals.

Okay, let's revise some of the instructions.  Way back on step 3, the weatherstripping that you need to remove is not the one above the rear windows.  It's the one to the back of the rear windows.  That's the one that's held on with 2 (not 3) 8mm nuts and a long zip tie.

Really, these instructions are maddening.

Going back to step 14, the two springs that they're talking about are basically invisible from outside the car.  The part you're going to see are a couple hooks.  If you pull on the back part of the roof fabric, you'll see the little hook.  It's under a lot of spring pressure, of course, so you need to be careful about pulling it out of the grommet on the top fabric and then not losing it.

Once we did that, we had this:

There's a lot of corrosion on the front bow.

We started cleaning the bow up a bit, but it got late so we called it a night.  There's also a plastic tack strip along the front bow that is riveted in to place.  It's where the staples go to hold the leading edge of the top in place.  You can see in that photo that it's cracked in a few places and the rivets are all rusted out.  I need to drill those rivets out and remove the strip, finish cleaning up the corrosion, paint the bow, and then come up with something to use to staple the top fabric to and rivet it on.

For now, though, the old, nasty top is off:

Before I painted the front bow, I needed to get the remains of the tack strip out.  It's riveted in so a little bit of drilling did the job.

I didn't really know that steel rivets were a thing for this type of application.  The new ones are going to be aluminum.  Unless that's a really bad idea, in which case I'll use aluminum.

Once the rivets were out, I had this pile:

I'm going to make a PVC strip to replace it and rivet that back in to place.  But first, primer:

And with new paint:

I'm just brushing on Rustoleum Grey Aluminum Primer and then coating it with Rustoleum oil-based Satin Black.  This will be almost entirely covered by the new roof so I don't really care that much about how it looks, I just want to try to protect it a bit.

While that dries, the headliner needs to come out.  As of right now, my plan is not to remove it all the way, but it may come to that.  Because of all the water intrusion through the top, the headliner is covered in mildew and mold and is pretty nasty.  Being cloth, I should be able to clean it up and have it looking like not-quite-as-old.  The instructions say that if you remove the headliner entirely, it can be difficult to get it back in to place, so I'm going to see if I can use the upholstery brush on my carpet cleaner to clean it up as it hangs from the front bow.  If that doesn't look like it's going to work, then I'll revisit this plan.  Even if I did not need to clean the headliner, however, it does have to be dropped down in order to replace the top.  The two bows that go across the middle of the car have thin steel strips that go through loops in the top and then get screwed down to the bow.  The access to those screws is hidden by the headliner.

The headliner itself is held in to place with three interior snaps: One at the top of the roof in the center of the glass window and one on either side of the car, towards the back at the bottom, sort of down in the compartment where the roof sits when fully retracted.  I used a little nylon trim tool to pop the snaps loose:

Yes, there is a bit of mildew on the rear window section as well.  That's on the list to be hit with the carpet cleaner.  It may be permanently discolored at this point, but I do want to at least make sure there's nothing left living in there.

Anyway, with those three snaps released, there are a series of screws that are on the back of the headliner.  There's a plastic strip that is at the top of the roof, just inside where the rear window piece descends from the top.  Remove those screws.

Once all the screws are removed, the headliner needs to be peeled off of the bow.  It's attached with some sort of adhesive, so carefully pull it back, making sure not to tear it.

Moving forward, the headliner is attached to the two middle bows with a plastic cap that has been fitted over the bottom of the bow.  To avoid cracking anything and to put a little elasticity into the equation, I heated it up with a heat gun on a medium-ish setting.

I also took the staples out of the cloth runner that goes down the right side so I could move it back to access the strip.  Using my trim tool again, I levered it off and peeled it back.

The screws were pretty tight and I had to be really careful not to strip them out.  Two of them on one bow absolutely refused to budge, so I wound up drilling them out.

When that bar is removed, it will look like this:

The new top will have a sleeve that the bar will slide through.  When I removed the old top, I wound up just tearing it loose from those, so that image shows the strip with the old sleeve still around it.  I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to line it up so that the various holes are aligned, but that's a problem for Future Bill to worry about.

Next steps are to thoroughly clean the headliner, the rear window section, and the vinyl bag into which the top retracts to make sure nothing else has to be removed.  Once it's cleaned up, the process of putting the new top on will commence.

I had about 15 minutes over lunch today to work on the tack strip.  Looks like this bit of scrap PVC pipe I had laying around is the right thickness:

Time to employ a cosplay trick for getting cheap and free PVC plastic sheeting.  Step one was to use one of those oscilating multi-tools to cut a slit down the pipe.  Next, I applied the heat gun:

Starting at one end, I'd get it kind of loose and then spread it apart while wearing my welding gloves.  Once it was spread out almost flat, I used a scrap of "wood" flooring to hold it flat which I heated the next section of the pipe.  Repeat until it's mostly flat:

To finish it up and get it more flatterer, I'll get something nice and flat to put on top of it and weigh it down, then heat it up again and put the, uh, two ton..  heavy thing on it and when it cools, it'll be flattish enough.  Then I can trim and bend to fit the groove in the front bow.

I had to stop by the shop after dropping kids off this morning so I could get my multimeter.  Apparently electrical gremlins aren't finished with me yet - but this time it's the dryer.

Since I was there anyway, I spent a quick couple minutes prepping the material to make the strip.

The plastic bit is straight.  The bow is very curved.  With some heat and working out from the middle a little spot at a time, I started to bend the plastic.

Not only is it curved from side-to-side, it is also curved from top to bottom.  I just heated up the plastic and pressed it in to place.

The plastic was a little bit too big and was hitting the bow in places that made it not fit right, so I heated up the corner and gave it a rough trim with the tin snips.  Now it will lay in its spot a little bit better.  With the right side done, I clamped it down and moved to the left to repeat.

And that was all the time I could afford to spend this morning.  When I have time to go back, I'll add more heat and more clamps so that the plastic matches the contour of the bow.  Then I need to mark the width and cut out the bit I need.

I learned a couple things today.  The first is that if you need to cut PVC, an angle grinder is effective but exceptionally messy.  I don't know that I'll ever be able to clean up all the staticy powder it created.

The second thing I learned is that PVC is just a little bit too hard to accept staples from the staple guns that I have at my disposal.  So in order to get the staples to sink, I'm going to need to heat the strip up first, then shoot the staples.  The staples don't seem to loosen up once the plastic cools, so that should be an acceptable situation.

Before I got to those discoveries, though, I first had to cut the strip down a bit.

To get the strip to match the contour as exactly as possible, I clamped it down in the center, where it was already matching the curve of the bow, and then heated up the ends and clamped them in to place.  Once it cooled, the strip was basically the right shape.

Then I went back to the oscillating mullti-pass to trim the strip down to size so that it will rest in the channel.

Now that the strip is right, I need to get the 3M Weatherstrip Adhesive so I can put the strip in place, then drill some holes and rivet it in.  Once that's in place, I can heat it up and staple in the leading edge of the top.

Using the 3M Weatherstrip Adhesive, I glued down the new tack strip just to make sure it wasn't going anywhere.

Once that had cured for a couple minutes, holes were drilled and rivets were installed.

Now we're back to the regularly scheduled top installation instructions.  I put the rails back through the sleeves on the inside of the top and set them in to the center bows.  Starting to look like a car again!

I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to get the screws aligned with the holes since the screws are suppoed to go through the fabirc.  But it turns out that the bar that goes in to the sleeve is just slightly longer than the sleeve and the two outboard screw holes are not covered by the fabric.  If you put those two screws in first, the rest of the screw holes are lined up for you and you can just zip the screws in.

Once the bows are in place, you run the cables through the sleeves on the sides of the top and screw it in to where it was originally riveted.

Next you have to line the top up so that it's centered left-to-right and the rear of the top is lined up with the top of the glass window. 

Tape the fabric to the glass to hold it in place and then pull the front of the fabric forward and down over the front bow.  Using a bit of soap or chalk, mark where the fabric goes over the bow so that when it's all relaxed and upside down, you can put the fabric where it needs to be.

With the top fully lowered, use the 08011 3M adhesive to glue the fabric to the bow.  I screwed up and got the 08008 adhesive, so I'm pausing operations until I can take it back and get the other stuff.  Apparently there's a pretty big difference in how well it holds.

(Oh, to be clear:  I bought two tubes of the adhesive.  I'm not going to take back the tube I already opened and used, but the other one that hasn't been opened.)

With the right tube of adhesive, I slathered it on the bow and the fabric.  I let it dry and then used a couple clamps to hold it down.

One of these is a piece of E36 M3.

Okay, it's word time.

Once the top fabric was glued down to the front bow, I had to trim the fabric back a little bit to keep it out of the way of the weatherstrip.  Once it was trimmed, I could put the wind stop on.  That gets adhered to the fabric that has wrapped around to the inside portion of the front bow.  It goes here:

Once it was on there, it was clamp time again.

After a little while, it was time to staple down the wind stop.  The wind stop is a couple different layers.  There's the thicker section, wrapped in the top fabric, with a plastic strip that runs through it.  The idea is to pull back the top layer of the top fabric to expose the plastic strip and shoot the staples through the plastic strip, through the bottom layer, through the actual top fabric, and in to the tack strip.  I had to add a step of applying some heat in order to soften up the PVC tack strip.

Once that was stapled down, the weatherstripping goes back into place.  It gets some contact adhesive again and then there are screws that secure it to the bow.  In the process of using the heat gun to get the old adhesive off of the back of the weatherstrip, I did a dumb and put a hole in the headliner.

Grr.  Anyway, the weatherstrip is secured in to place and the fabric is tucked under.

Next step is to bring the top up and put some 2x4s between the top and the top of the windshield.  I've also put clamps on to help the contact adhesive bond on the wind stop.

I forgot to get pictures, but you now want to go grab those springs on either side by the back-seat windows and hook them on to the grommets on the new fabric.  I recommend putting a small Vice-Grip on the cable itself and using that to manipulate them in to place.

With the top almost all the way up, the instruction is to pull down on the back sections of the top fabric that are at the rear to either side of the back window.  Once you've pull it down about as much as you can without using any tools, staple the fabric - but not your fingers! - to the car along the same line that the back window section is stapled.  Then you can move along the sides and staple the side flaps along where the side spoiler will cover later.  Then you can check it by removing the blocks (and the clamps!) and latching the roof down.  Mine did this:

I had two problems.  First is that the Bostich electric stapler that I bought is hot garbage.  Second is that I think I was pulling it just a little too much.  So I let the top back and stapled again, but this time I used my old Arrow Powershot manual stapler.  That worked much better.  Now, it closes and looks like this:

Yeah, it ain't pretty.  But the top is centered (enough) and doesn't look too bad:

Before putting the rear-seat window weatherstripping back in, I needed to attach the fabric to the rear bow.  That's held on with this overly delicate aluminium strip which is covered with a rubberized trim that's wrapped in fabric.  I just reused the original one since it's really close to the new fabric and I'm lazy.  The top came with a strip of fabric that I assume is to be able to recover that, though, so if that's your jam this would still work for you.  I didn't know how to take that strip off before, so I just pulled it out, yanking the screws out with it.  Once it was off the car, I was able to pull the strip off the aluminium channel, but in the process of trying to bend that channel back, I managed to break it in to two sections.  Since it's going to be covered anyway, I decided to go with it.  I put the strip in place and drove the screws in.  Then a little more contact adhesive to seal things up and I started working the fabric-covered trim strip in to place.  I'm not quite finished with that step yet, though, since I had to head home to clean up for Mass.  I may go back out tonight and try to finish up, but here's where I left it:

Are those staples on the back going to stay there and not get covered up?  All this work is showing me that if I ever need a convertible top replaced, there's no freaking way I'm doing it myself!  Wow, much respect....

docwyte said:

Are those staples on the back going to stay there and not get covered up?  All this work is showing me that if I ever need a convertible top replaced, there's no freaking way I'm doing it myself!  Wow, much respect....

I think it depends on the car.  My Miata top was annoying to replace, but nowhere near this bad.

The staples will be covered by either an aluminum trim strip or the side spoilers, depending on where they are.  But no visible staples should remain unless I've done something really wrong.

It really hasn't been that bad of a job.  The part that was the most difficult and time-consuming was making that new tack strip.  In retrospect, I should have picked a different material or just bought one that was the right thing if it's even still available.  It would have been easier if the instructions had been a little clearer.  I spent more time than I should have trying to decipher some of the wrong things.  For example, I spent a lot of time trying to follow the instructions to remove the trim above the quarter windows because when they wrote "above" they meant "behind".

I was always a little freaked out at the idea of doing a top replacement, but after having done this one I wouldn't hesitate to tackle re-topping a vert again.

The top is (mostly) done.

I pulled some of the staples out of the rear since I was up a little high and interfering with the aluminum strip.

Getting that trim on the rear bow was pretty easy when I applied some heat:

Came out looking pretty good

The new top came with new end caps for the strip, but I assume it was to be used with the replacement strip instead of the original one:

I just re-used the original ones.

The window weatherstrips went back in without any drama.

And the top looks pretty darned good.

The headliner was a royal pain in the ass to put back in.  The middle bows weren't too bad - a little bit of heat and they clipped right on.  The rear bow, however, was awful.  The headline goes up and under a plastic trim which is screwed in to the back side of the rear bow.  So you're working behind the seats, above your head, and the rear window is pushing against you and you can't get a regular screwdriver in there.  But, after a decent amount of cursing and persistence it's back in.

The only things left to do are to clean the headliner and the storage area and come up with some way to secure the back part of the right side spoiler.

Before driving it home, I also swapped out the fuel pressure regulator.  Hopefully this stops the flooding.

Well, a quick 50mph drive with the top up and it didn't fly off, so that's progress!  Also, it started right up this morning with no need to invoke flood-clear mode.

We're supposed to get heavy rain this morning, so that'll be the real test.

Hmm, somehow I've got the rain rail/weatherstripping on the right rear window incorrectly and it interferes with the front right door glass.  I'll have to look at that.  Good news, though, none of the rain seems to have gotten through the roof yet!

wae said:

See that weatherstrip there that's parallel to the ground there?  That's not the right way to install that.  The larger metal thing that looks like a drip rail actually goes to the inside.  But you also have to watch the angle of the ends of the weatherstrip.  The one in that picture is actually the one for the right side.  I swapped those out and now the doors open and close with the windows all the way up.

The aluminum trim rail along the bottom of the back window is also out of kilter a little.  For some reason it seems like it's sticking up a little bit on the left corner and interfering with the trunk lid. 

For tonight, I got out the carpet cleaner and some Murphy's Oil Soap and went to town.

The headliner is cleaned up from its nasty mildew staining.  I forgot to get an after picture, but this is the before:

Now that it's clean, the fading from where the front section is exposed to the sun when the top is down is really obvious!  But there's a hole in there, too, so rather than try to dye it or something, I'll either just deal with it or put a new headliner in later.

The seats got a Murphy's Oil Soap treatment.  This is a before and after with the rear headrests.  The right side headrest is done, but looked just like the driver's side one before:

With both seats completed:

Strangely, it actually looks way better in person than in that picture.

I had a couple minutes to swap out the ABS computer this afternoon and now the ABS light is off and the system works perfectly!  Woohoo!

After picking up the eldest from work, we went out and did some driving instruction tonight to put some more interstate miles under her belt.  We haven't really gotten out of town on the interstate before so this was really the first time this car has been at sustained 70mph speeds other than on the trailer.  Other than really needing an overdrive gear, it is remarkably smooth and comfortable cruising down the road.  It holds its lane without a lot of effort, there are no vibrations or anything, and the ride is great.  This won't be a bad trip to Florida and back at all.

Before that, I also took the opportunity to top off the fuel.  I filled it up right after putting the new FPR on for a good comparison.  Where I was getting 14mpg around town before it's now getting about 24.5.  Granted that's 93 octane, but still not too hurtful.  I wanted to check the highway mileage, but we needed to get home in a hurry.

Looking at the budget spreadsheet, I'm about $1600 in to this car - well, add another couple hundred of non-challenge dollars for the tires, actually.  For the money, this thing is amazing.

Last night Tim came over and lent his brain and curtain rods to the project for a few moments to correct the alignment.  The car tracked perfectly straight down the road but the steering wheel was canted about 10-15 degrees to the right.  Thanks to his wisdom and despite my bumbling around with the wrench, we pulled the right tire in a few sixteenths and got it incredibly close to perfect.

After she got off work, the daughter and I played around with some of the small interior appearance things.  The fabric on the door trim panels was coming loose so we took those panels off and glued the fabric back down around the edges with some hometown Gorilla spray adhesive.

The trim on the glovebox door was also peeling back.  I don't know if it will hold, but she heated it up with a hair dryer to get it a little more flexible and used a different Gorilla product to stick it back to the plastic.

We also took the HVAC vents out and scraped off the dust and hit a few vinyl bits with a good vinyl cleaner/protector. 

The last thing we tried to tackle was the lack of dashboard lighting.  I thought that the problem was in the rheostat so we popped the fascia panel off and while a couple of the switches have their lights working now, the lighting that just relies on bare bulbs is still all dark.  We decided to look at wiring diagrams a bit and to come back to that when it's time to install the new head unit.