SAAB story of happiness

Bonus! In my search for a very reasonably priced DD, I happened across a really nice 91 SAAB 900S convertible. With beautiful all original black paint,new black cloth top,manual trans,heated leather seats and cold AC. A nice straight rust free Georgia car. A little miley at 172K but purrs along,no smoke screen and no leaks. Bought it from a mechanic at a heaven like British Sports Car resto shop in Watkinsville Ga. It is pretty seriously unfast though and needs some love inside. Pics are in my garage. Thoughts on helping it in the spunk department?

I only see fiero pics in your garage

Just finished uploading.

In reply to ls1fiero: Beautiful car. He must have detailed it.

Very Pretty

just a warning about that engine. They do like to blow the headgasket somewhere between 200,000 and 225,000 miles (depending on service)

Not a hard job.. not an expensive one if you do it yourself.

Thanks for the compliment and info! I may have spent a couple of hours (ahem) cleaning it up. It is always easier when they are nice to start with. Next is to search for some Panasports and a rear bumper cover.

Unpossible! All stories about Saab's are saab stories...

Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week

My mom had an 89 or a 90 hard top turbo. It was a decently fun car.

The HG blew and she paid like $1000 or $1500 to have it fixed, a few weeks later it burned to the ground in our driveway. Fire started in the dash.

She got a couple hundred more then she had in it, so it was pretty awesome.

Then she got a nissan maxima....which is why im a nissan fan now :D

~Alex

Nice buy. Looks very clean - great paint, and you could eat off that engine!

I've heard that on a 16V N/A car, the OEM turbo exhaust system yields a nice power gain, (and a throatier note).

Forum member procainestart was also a great help when I started asking questions about my 900 turbo.

Eg,

procainestart wrote: Performance shock choices are limited in the U.S.: either Konis, which are expensive, or Bilstein HDs, which are cheaper but also somewhat stiff in compression, so the ride comfort isn't as good. If you get Konis, set the rears on full stiff. Another option, which I don't recommend but which is cheap, is the white KYB shocks (not silver), which are very stiff in compression; I can't wait to get rid of them on my daily driver. The front swaybar can be made considerably stiffer by switching to polyurethane bushings at both the outer and inner attachments. Buy poly outers from anywhere Saab parts are sold (I prefer www.eeuroparts.com); buy the inners from www.sasab.com, in Oregon. Perhaps most important up front is the alignment. The cars come with 0 or even positive camber from the factory. Get some spare shims from a junkyard car and dial in about -1 to -1.5 degrees camber, and set the toe to close to zero, slightly toed in. You'll like that mo' better. Oh, but before you start messing with that, inpsect the RH upper control arm bushings to ensure they're not failing, which they tend to do due to heat from the downpipe. Don't bother changing the lowers or the LH uppers (VERY hard with the engine in the car). Also make sure that the ball joints and tie rod ends are in good shape before an alignment. If you need to replace ball joints, DO NOT buy the cheapest ones, which are made in China and are junk. I buy Moog/TRW stuff and have had good luck. (It looks like eEuro is selling only cheap or OE; try RockAuto for more sellection.) The rear swaybar bushings die but are very expensive to replace from Saab. IIRC, you can get poly for them but they, too, are $$$. Inspect the upper control links at the rear axle. The rear upper link bushings at both the front and, to the lesser extent, the rear, fail. Scantech, which makes lots of aftermarket stuff for Saab/Volvo, sells some that are crap but will last a couple years. OE will last longer but for mo' money, of course. ...I would also change the brake fluid, including the clutch circuit, if you don't know the last service. Coolant, too. Geeks use spendy Saab coolant (blue crap from Europe), but the point is to change it -- it's more important for the 2.1L motors 91-93.

Very nice car.

Not much to be done for more power except put a turbo on it; there isn't really any aftermarket for non-turbos. You can run a low-pressure (5-6 psi) system on it pretty easily, using a donor Turbo car. If you want to go that route, I can post up a write-up I did some time ago. I am by no means an expert, but it should give you the gist of what's involved. Basically, though, nearly every single part simply bolts on to your 91. I did this to my '86 in Readers' Rides.

Re: the headgasket on your car: 91-93 (+94 convt) non-turbo had 2.1L engines that were prone to issues. The problem supposedly is, when the headgasket goes, the acidic coolant from exhaust contamination tends to take out the block as well (a new gasket won't seal, due to acid eating the block). So, the coolant service is important, along with running a slightly cooler t-stat (82*C) and fan switch for a little margin of safety.

Don't be paranoid after reading all of the 2.1L-related info here, but be aware of the potential isues: http://townsendimports.com/Web/cooling_system_folder/cooling_system_docs.htm I have seen plenty of wrecked B212 blocks but they're not all bad (just picked up a spare at the pick-and-pull with 200k that looks great).

Finally, that car was not designed to be a ragtop, so even with all the reinforcement, it's pretty flexible, and perhaps not best suited to super-stiff suspension, etc.

I love those year Saabs. Back when they were still funky and weird which by the way is a compliment. Good score.

IN case you didn't know.. the Convertable is based on the Sedan, NOT the hatchback

Nice looking car. They are getting very hard to find in nice shape.

Based on my experience, be nice to the transmission... when they go, it's bad... and they do go... often.

The car in question is NA, change the oil in the trans and you should be good.