(Re)-pairing and (Re)-storing:
[n] Improvements and Enhancements to the Front End
Stage 1 -
Genesis of the ProjectIn addition to this, I've become acutely aware of how poor the factory skid-plate is at protecting the underside of the engine/transmission from damage so I also decided to order a brand-new 'rally-style' heavy-duty aluminium skid-plate that's made by Saab Tuners!
| Initial Stages | ||
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| Bumper and factory spoiler removed | Comparing factory spoiler and brand-new sporty one! | Radiator grille seperated from old spoiler |
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Stage 2 -
Repainting Rusted Front Chassis and Radiator MountingThis was basically a case of removing all flaking paint and loose rust with a stiff wire brush, cleaning the loosened material away with an air blower running off my air compressor, fully washing the area with hot water and car washing detergent to remove as much of the left over dust, dirt and grease/oil from the surfaces to be repainted as possible, then getting ready for the re-paint.
| Repainting in Preparation for Mounting/Securing new Spoiler | ||
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| Trial-fitting new spoiler before repainting | The completed repainting | My 1985 900i keeping the 900S company! |
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I decided to use White Knight's Gloss White 'RustGuard' paint in an aerosol can for the repainting job. The aerosol made it easy to get good, even coats without having to borrow anyone's airbrush equipment, and the paint has rust-prevention additives included. Being a gloss white, it's an ideal match for the existing Cirrus White paintwork, and as it'll be mostly hidden behind the bumper, the fact it's not the genuine shade of white is irrelevant. 8-)
It covers all the rust-affected areas I can get to without removing the whole front end 'upper member' (which would require complete disassembly and removal of the radiator, A/C condensor, hood, headlights, etc.). The front-end upper member is quite badly rusting but I can deal with that in much the same way as the white areas since I also purchased a tin of Matt Black 'RustGuard' to use for that and I'll brush-paint it as I plan to get a new front-end assembly if I can find one and then I will completely strip down the front of the car to replace the rusted front-end upper member (Saab # 69 37 254) supporting all the components along the front of the car.
Subsequent investigating using good old Google has revealed Auto Body Parts in the USA lists the part as a stock item! Their price (US$223.75 in August 2005) is quite heavily discounted on what the US list price is (their site quotes the USA list price as US$474.99), but freight will be a killer! With luck local Saab parts dealers will have it at a competetive price.
Stage 3 - Adding
Mesh to the Radiator GrilleAfter picking the colour and type of mesh then the fun of cutting out the piece, bending it in the right place to match the horizontal angle of the grille, and figuring out how to secure it starts!
I went with blue-anodised aluminium mesh for use behind the radiator grille because the blue colour suits the existing blue/grey/white styling, particularly with the metallic-blue hood swapped from the donor car! Being aluminium it is easy to work with and will stand up to the elements that wreak most of their havoc on the front end of any vehicle. The mesh was sourced from an Australian Ebay seller, but almost all auto parts stores and performance parts outlets will carry some type of mesh.
To bend the mesh along the horizontal axis so it conforms with the 'angle' of the rear face of the grille, I used a piece of 1.5" stainless steel tubing I had on hand and gently 'wrapped' the mesh around the tubing at the right point until it had roughly the same angle as the back of the grille.
To fit it properly against the back face of the grille, a lot of careful cutting out of small pieces around the edges helped it sit snugly around the plastic mouldings extensions where the grille's securing lugs at the top and bottom are located. The mesh has been cut so that a small amount overlaps the left and right ends and this was carefully bent and pushed into the opening in the back of the left and right side main vertical part of the grille moulding. The picture(s) explain this better! 8-)
The grille moulding has a set of four holes which I presume are intended to use for attaching something, but they're unsuitable for what I'm doing as there is no way to get at one end of the fastener with the mesh fitted. I've used small stainless steel bolts with suitable washers to secure the mesh at each corner using holes I carefully drilled through two folded mesh 'diamonds' on each end. Also, I ended up cutting the mesh just slightly too deep for the bottom edge and 'folded' this into the opening in the back of the bottom edge moulding.
The grille has a horizontal angle that we already know about but it also curves slightly to make it concave at the back. This can be used to advantage so that the mesh will stay pressing against the back of the grille moulding with a small amount of flexing in the mesh.
What annoyed me the most with all this wasn't working with the mesh to get it right, but trying to get the connectors for the foglight wiring to seperate. I'd never been able to get them apart since installing the foglights and wiring kit so I guess they're never going to come apart. In the end I worked out that the foglights can be disassembled and the wiring removed by pushing in the wiring grommet which seperates allowing the wires with spade lug sockets to be slipped through the hole in the back of each foglight housing!
Stage 4 -
Mounting the New Front Spoiler and 'Meshed' Grille
Whenever possible I try to replace any original fasteners with stainless steel ones unless I can't get the right ones in stainless steel and the originals are not corroded. That way I'll get as many of the rusted fasteners out of the car and further reduce the problem of rusting which is difficult to control but any way to remove and reduce rusting will help make the car body last longer.
| Installing the New Spoiler + Re-installing the Grille and Foglights | ||
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| Start of mounting new spoiler - comparison with bumperless 1985 900i | Holes to secure wing of spoiler near charcoal cannister | Corresponding holes in wing of spoiler |
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| Set of holes for securing other wing under washer reservoir | Tips and advice for securing the spoiler wings | |
 | I used 16 mm long stainless steel 6 mm bolts to secure the spoiler wings. On all Saab C900's except pre-1981 models the pairs of 6 mm holes are pre-existing from the factory, otherwise they need to be drilled using a template supplied with the spoiler kit. The wings are meant to have clip nuts pushed on over the securing holes so that bolts can be passed down from inside the bodyspace but my kit didn't have them, so I put a single 6 mm stainless steel washer in the space where each clipnut should have gone, passed the each bolt up through the respective hole in the wing from underneath, and secured them with 6 mm nylock nuts and a washer on the inside of the bodyspace. If you use this method you'll need to hold the bolts steady from underneath (you'll need to hold the spanner in place just by feel unless you have elastic arms!) with an open-ended 10 mm spanner while securing the nylocks insde the body. It's extremely difficult to tighten the nuts if you don't remove the washer reservoir from the right side, and the charcoal cannister from the left side. | |
During the fitting of the grill and new spoiler I decided to dump the headlight wipers. They're a pain in the ass and fitting the spoiler was much easier with them removed (along with the metal 'stop' plates screwed up under the outside bottom face of each headlight unit).
You should have saved the special clips from the original spoiler which fit over the moulded fingers that attach to the chassis near where the bumper mounts are located. There should be a blind rivet fitted to the crash member either side of the radiator and A/C condensor supports and that metal clips slide under the respective rivet to provide much of the spoiler's stability. If the blind rivets are missing you can use appropriate sized nut/bolt fasteners.
Also be careful about inference with the headlight assemblies - you might need to cut a little piece of the plastic away so that the top edge of the new spoiler clears the headlight casing when pushed into place with the special clips holding the spoiler in place.
| Completion with Bumper and Foglights Re-installed | ||
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| End result with bumper and foglights re-installed | Underside view showing all the fasteners | View Showing relationship of new spoiler to pre-existing foglight positioning |
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| Top view showing profile of new spoiler | Additional notes for this stage of the project | |
 | In the second picture above you can see all the fasteners holding the various sections of the new spoiler together. The small bolts are 4 mm stainless steel ones which screw into captive 4 mm nuts attached to the main section of the spoiler. The four small right-angled brackets came from a local hardware store and were the closest thing I could find to matching the brackets that are supposed to be in the spoiler kit - the instructions say 8 brackets should be used but the hole distance from the edge on the brackets I bought was a little too deep for the other four bolt locations so I just used four brackets instead of eight. The three large bolts are the ones supplied with the new 'rally-style' skidplate I bought from Saab Tuners. The front of the skidplate attaches to the front chassis member (which is different to where the factory skidplate mounts). | |
Stage 5 -
Removing Old Skidplate in Preparation for Mounting the New Heavy-Duty
Skid-PlateI decided on the heavy-duty 'rally-style' skidplate from Saab Tuners because it's much larger (see the pictures below for a comparison) and much thicker (5 mm aluminium).
| Replacement of the Skidplate - Phase 1A | ||
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| Up in the air on some ramps (with safety blocks!) | Close-up view showing the existing skidplate and front mounting bolts for new plate | Comparison of standard sized skidplate with the one from Saab Tuners |
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| My 'security guard' 4 year old daughter! Come on - lets have it out right now! 8-) | Additional notes for this stage of the project | |
 | In the second picture above you can see the existing standard-sized skid plate and the three large bolts which will secure the front edge of the new skid plate. Between this and the next picture above you can see just how much larger the heavy-duty skidplate is! The rear of the skidplate will bolt to the central cross-member under the engine (a little further back than the standard skidplate's rear bolt-up point). This might be an issue in the longer term when it comes to jacking up the car from under the middle of the engine but I'll deal with that if/when it needs to be sorted out. | |
The small (brand-new) galvanised skidplate shown in the pictures above is destined to replace the existing one on my 1985 900i which is also pretty sad. The early style steel skidplates seem to have been much lighter duty that the more recent versions.
The bolts (fitted from the bottom) holding the front of the old skidplate in place had badly damaged heads but they fitted a 12 mm socket after all the crud was pushed off with a flat screwdriver. The metalwork for the bottom body plate that the bolts attach too has a pair of captive nuts and the bolts came out fairly easily (they were not at all fully-tightened but also weren't so loose that they'd undo without a spanner).
The rear of the old skidplate attached to the front 'lip' of the central member under the transmission (which can be used as a lifting point). This end of the old plate was secured by bolts fitted from above and were also not fully-tightened, but the nuts are not captive. The bolts have flat heads however I think they are allen-key bolts but there's not enough clearance from the bottom of the transmission case to get them out so when I put the new plate on they would have to stay so I saved the nuts to enable them to be re-fitted and tighted up again.
The method I used to hold those bolts steady was to us something like a pair of adjustable pliers (like the blue-handled ones lying on the ground in the first pic in the next table) and twist it so that it pushes on the transmission casing and into the allen key opening in the top of the bolt. Otherwise once the nuts loosen those bolts will spin around with nothing to keep them steady.
Stage 6 -
Mounting the New Heavy-Duty Skid-PlateThe problem with this was that with the extra washers, the supplied bolts were not long enough by about 10 mm, so they need to be replaced with slightly longer bolts that I don't have in my fastener stock! Ideally the plates I cut from the aluminium should really be made from steel since alumiumium is a soft metal which will bend under the forces of a tightened fastener so they've been left out and I've been careful to secure the bolt in the oval opening of the structural member under the engine so that the stainless steel penny washers I used are biting into the top side of the structural member until I can source the right length bolts!
I tightened up the bolts, making sure the new spoiler (which I secured the rear 'plate' of between the front edge of the new skidplate and the car's front chassis rail) wasn't affected too much. It's turned out that the back part of the spoiler's structure is lifted a bit too much and this is bending the bottom part of the new spoiler (the two plastic parts bolted under the main section of the spoiler) by the way it lifts up the plastic.
Next time I take off the skidplate (which will be to replace the ATF filter and it's gasket, along with drain the engine old to replace it with Shell Helix Ultra), I'll change the sandwiching order so the front edge of the skidplate is between the rear part of the spoiler and the front chassis member. That should ensure the plastic isn't put under tension in an unusual direction and should top the front bottom lip of the new spoiler from being warped at all.
To tighten the rear bolts, a spanner fits (just - it's very tight) above the central structural member to hold the each nut in place after the bolts and washers are all fitted gingerly given the small clearances, and with each nut held firm the bolt is tightened from underneath using another spanner.
| Replacement of the Skid Plate - Phase 2B | ||
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| Close-up of mid-section of new skidplate showing drain plug access holes | Close-up of the front section showing wrong angle and warpage caused to spoiler lip | Want to compare to a different approach to skidplate replacement? |
 | By way of comparision, there are pictures of the replacement of the skidplate on my 1985 900i available which show a different type of replacement skid plate being used that is more like the original but much more strengthened due to deeper folds in the steel plate it's made from. | |
The angle of the front edge of the new skidplate is not quite right and as you can see from the above pictures, and I think that's possibly caused the join of the two parts of the bottom lip of the spoiler to bend out a little far.
The other (and more important!) problem is the location of the access holes to get at drain plugs. As you can see they're not in the right places. This might be because the car has automatic transmission but I suspect it's a manufacturing error. In any case the skidplate has to come off to extend the holes.
These heavy-duty skidplates are also sold by Saab Savior at a much cheaper price that what SaabTuners sell them for! I didn't know that until someone pointed it out to me when I first mentioned the problem of drain plug holes in the wrong place in one of the Saab forums sites. Needless to say that when I buy another one to go on the turbo car I'll get one from Saab Savior instead - they seem a lot more focused on the Saab enthusiast market too.
The fasteners supplied with the skidplate were not metric and were not stainless-steel either! That's something that I will definitely deal with next time the skidplate is removed from the car.
Stage 7 - Fixing
the Incorrect Skidplate Drainplug Holes - August
2006Solving the problem wasn't that difficult, but it took a lot of hard-yakka to actually cut (well, drill and file!) the excess aluminium away to create neat-ish extensions to the pre-bored drain plug access holes. Marking out the locations was the easy part and I could do that under the car using a marking pen and closing the left and right eye sequentially to make sure I had the pen mark reasonable in line with the centre-line of the engine oil and automatic transmission fluid drain plugs.
This series of pictures shows how things progressed - I don't have any fancy drill presses, etc. so all the metal hacking was done with my trusty Metabo electric drill, and a bunch of files, etc. 8-)
When I did this, I also replaced all the fasteners with stainless ones of the right sizes, plus using some suitable large and small washers because the holes in the front and rear mountings are way too large! Also, with the rear mountings (pre-existing holes in the central engine support bar), I got rid of the first lot of washers I'd used because they'd got badly warped and I installed the aluminium 'bearer' plates shown in a picture above which I hadn't installed originally (not sure why). Those little plates sit in the well in the top of the central engine support bar and that stops the replacement washers getting pulled down into a large void that's only slightly smaller than the 'penny' sizes stainless washers.
With the drain plug holes extended so they actually give proper access to the drain plugs, doing an oil change is easy! Just remember to always use a 6-point socket/spanner and NOT a 12-point one like I did the first time I tried undoing the drain plug on the 1985 900i and stuffed it.
If you'd like to contribute any additional or updated information for this page, please let me know.
If you would like to discuss this page and it's contents with other Saab enthusiasts, please visit the Saab C900 Technical Forum at Craig's Classic Saab Workshop.
