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UPDATED! – ‘before’ pictures now added.
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Fellow Tassie Saabnut, Drew B, is at it again. He’s always looking for a project and many of them involve cars that other people would just pass by. Take this Saab 900 S, for example. It was a low mileage car owned by an old lady – a classic vehicular pickup – but it had also had its roof caved in courtesy of a wayward tree that got lost during a wind storm. Perfect.
I no longer have the Here are the ‘before’ photos…..
……and here’s what Drew got up to last weekend:
Drew picked up the car for a song with the intention of fixing it up for his mother to drive. It’s only done around 90,000kms and apart from the dented lid, it’s squeaky clean.
Getting the replacement roof panel was a story in itself. Drew ordered the panel and it turned up in it’s box, though when he checked it out he found that it was a 9-5 roof panel, not a 900 panel. A check of the database showed that the 900 roof panel was now obsolete and there were none in stock. A few phone calls, discussions and arguments later, it was found that the panel was, in fact, still available, despite the database showing it as being unavailable. The 9-5 panel was shipped off and the new one arrived a few weeks ago.
Back to the repairs…..
So how do you remove a roof panel? Well, it helps if you have one of these to drill out all of the spot welds.
So the roof is now off. I’m sure we’ll get some updated pics when the new roof is attached and the car is put back together. Then Drew can get on to fixing the silver convertible, restoring the blue 99……..
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13 responses so far ↓
1 Andrew Baculy
// Oct 21, 2008 at 12:46 am
I hate drilling out spot welds. I’ve never had the aid of that clamp on my drills, either.
2 Alex
// Oct 21, 2008 at 3:31 am
Am I the only one here who’s a bit surprised by how flimsy and lightly built the pillars look when the roof panel is cut away? That just seems like it’s begging to have some extra material welded in in the name of chassis stiffness.
3 1985 Gripen
// Oct 21, 2008 at 5:06 am
Alex: it’s a trade-off. More material means more weight and more expense. I’m sure Saab has structural engineers whose job it is to calculate exactly how much material is necessary for their ideal structural rigidity. At least that’s steel. Imagine how flimsy aluminum would look!
4 saabyurk
// Oct 21, 2008 at 5:56 am
Alex: Unfortunately, there’s a reason the NG 900 did so awful in the iihs.org crash tests. It’s the one Saab I would never recommend to anyone.
5 Alex
// Oct 21, 2008 at 6:30 am
Yeah I was going to say I think it had alot less to do with weight requirements and alot more to do with the NG900’s economy-car underpinnings. Compare their pillars to an 850 shell and you’ll see what I mean.
6 Drew B
// Oct 21, 2008 at 6:30 am
With the c900, roof replacement requires the car to be jigged, because there is a tendency for the car to sag when the roof is removed. Saab’s procedure with the NG900 doesn’t require a jog or bracing, and simply states to drill out the spot welds as is (ie. off the floor). The skin itself is not a structural part.
Drew
7 1985 Gripen
// Oct 21, 2008 at 6:47 am
Though the NG900 had “economy car underpinnings” wouldn’t that only relate to the platform itself (an Opel-based platform)? I would think that the pillars would be part of the SAAB-specific portions of the car which were not shared across brands.
I remember reading that the A pillar and windshield crossmember were supposedly reinforced to handle the “moose test”.
8 turbin
// Oct 21, 2008 at 7:03 am
Drew B, you are a madman. Or were you a Troll in a former life?
BTW: Please let us know via Swade when you’re selling any of your cars.
9 Tompa
// Oct 21, 2008 at 7:18 am
Gripen.. You are right.. The floorpan is equal to that of the calibra, but the rest is pure Saab and at the time the NG900 and later to become OG9-3 is as safe as it got. I´ve seen the 900 in a real life accident with a moose.. Extremely good results.. But not for the moose.
10 Markac
// Oct 21, 2008 at 9:12 am
The NG900 came at a time when there wasn’t a suitable new platform available at GM so it ended up being an amalgam of Cavalier, Calibra and Astra bits. Saab modified and strengthened all of these parts, but it still ended up as a bit of a “dogs breakfast”. It wasn’t until the 9-3 arrived that they got the mix totally right, but by then it was old and somewhat outclassed.
11 ColorCode252
// Oct 22, 2008 at 3:11 am
On my spare time, a visit to the Saab-specific boneyard, in my neck of the woods, on a Saturday, is a must. You just never know what blessing may grace you on that day, like a talladega front lip spoiler with the related hardware! As the saying goes – you snooze you lose.
The GM 900s or 9-3s, I see, have suffered the usual front, side, or rear impact. The cars held up well. About a couple months ago, I saw a 2002 Steel Gray Viggen that rolled-over a few times and ended-up in the dirt. The windshield is intact although cracked while the A and B pillars are firm. The LH driver and RH passenger doors are working. The roof is dented and the sunroof is deeply scratched but not cracked (I even sourced the Viggen towing eye from that car, for my project).
On a personal note, I survived a frontal collision in a ‘94 GM 900. I think that these cars can take a good beating; hence, I am still driving a SAAB.
12 Tompa
// Oct 22, 2008 at 3:23 am
changes made to make the OG9-3 can in most technical ways be found on the MY97 900.
Discovered that when I changed brakes on my MY97 900SE 2,3i.
And Mark.. Where are the Astra bits in the NG900? I´m not saying they are not there.. But then… Where?
13 Convertible
// Oct 23, 2008 at 7:46 am
Whatz up, I am glad I pressed harder enough until I found convertible, because this post on ’s got to be an easier way to get a convertible!! | Trollhattan Saab was extremely helpful. Just last Wednesday I was pondering on this quite a bit.