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Howdy.
My '88 (or is it a '90.5 (88 w/ 93 trans = 90.5)) SPG has been a handful recently. The last month has been quite trying, but this weekend, Eric @ Viking Auto in Damascus, MD and I went through the car and really were only able to come up with one issue and that was a missing bolt on the downpipe allowing it to rattle. Once reinstalled, no more 1st through 3rd gear rattling. Yeah.
Meanwhile, the 9000 CSE rims I ordered from eEuroParts had arrived and on Friday night I spent hours cleaning and repainting them. They looked pretty good when I was done, if I do say so. Anyway, while Eric was pulling off the SPG rims to hold for consignment, I painted the brake calipers bright red. Probably put 20-30 coats on per caliper (maybe more), but they look great.
Bad news: 2 of the 4 CSE rims are so bent that they are not usable. We tried anyway, but the ride was pretty awful. Off they came and I was pretty frusterated with eEuroParts. I e-mailed Todd @ eEuroParts and told him about the problem and he addressed the problem to my satisfaction. In fact, he was great about this, as he provided me several options on potential resolutions and I picked the one that worked best for me. Now I just have to get them straightened... So the SPG rims are back on my car for a little bit longer.
Next up, Saturday I tried to pull the passenger seat out of the car, but the two bolts holding it in place are quite stuck, so I'm going to hold off on that (Eric, next time I see you, can you???) So... what to do next (I was in a baby the SPG mood this weekend)? I decided to modify my front grill. It took hours, but I now have a lovely black mesh backed grill! The time consuming part was cutting out the black fins and then using a dremel to grind everything smooth. You can still see where the fins once were, but it's not terribly obvious. The look generally is pretty cool. It cost me about $3 in wire ties to hold the mesh in place. This is a good mod for no other reason than it probably allows a tad more air through to the radiator and it certainly protects the radiator better from pebbles and other such things as they bounch there way through the grill.
Anyway, the car's running pretty well, shifts great, the stereo sounds good, and it's MY car (i.e., a great deal of my time and effort (of course, if that was all that determined ownership, then Viking Auto would be an owner too (hee hee)). Let's hope for a couple of trouble free months.
Upcoming projects: rims (of course), Vacuum distributor advance mod, SPG9 stage 2 box?, clean, dye and put in replacement carpet, passenger seat heater switch... Maybe paint it next year? Suspension upgrades?
Thus, Saab ownership, as we all know is a bumpy, sometimes painful ride. On the other hand, it's a fun car that is so practical I can't imagine what would replace it...
Have fun all.
-MichaelG
posted by 63.98.159.1...
, Mon, 12 Nov 2001 16:02:01
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