Menno van Rij Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 Hi all, I've been busy this week (had to work...) but the painter has been in touch a few times this week. He's started with the preparation of the paintjob: in short: sanding and making things smooth: several coats of primer, guide coat, sanding in between etc. The painter suggested to paint the inside of the tub, the engine bay and the bottom of the car first. After finishing that job, the chassis and tub will be put back together again (I think that the automotive word is 'marrriage'). After installing the chassis and tub, they will assess the fitting of the panels (again, they went through that process also when the tub was welded). After that, when all panels fit evenly, the outside of the car and the panels, doors and lids will be painted. All this is to prevent damaging the fresh paint when they try to trial fit various panels. Quite a job, glad I've obtained a fixed price for this job earlier in the restoration project. Photo's will follow asap, together with an update on my website. As always, I'm really interested in your suggestions! Even more, a lot of your previous suggestions are taken on board! (Is this the right expression or is this just translating plain Dutch into English...) (During all this, I've obtained a 'new' car for everyday's use. A classic car off course. A 1970 Saab 96. Original car, not welded, no respray, no rust; 53000 kms (33000 mls) from new. The car is from North Sweden). Regards, Menno Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kiwifrog Posted January 10, 2008 Report Share Posted January 10, 2008 (edited) (During all this, I've obtained a 'new' car for everyday's use. A classic car off course. A 1970 Saab 96. Original car, not welded, no respray, no rust; 53000 kms (33000 mls) from new. The car is from North Sweden). Regards, Menno Hi Menno, Having lived in Sweden for a couple of years a few years ago I can only think your new car must have spent an awfull lot of time in the garage during winter if it is rust free. The amount of Grit/salt they use there is immense . Then again 53000 KM in 36 years does suggest that most of its life was spent in a garage . Ps is it a 2 stroke ? I have always loved the look of saabs but have never owned one Alan Edited January 10, 2008 by Kiwifrog Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Peter Nyberg Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Hi Menno, Having lived in Sweden for a couple of years a few years ago I can only think your new car must have spent an awfull lot of time in the garage during winter if it is rust free. The amount of Grit/salt they use there is immense . Then again 53000 KM in 36 years does suggest that most of its life was spent in a garage . Ps is it a 2 stroke ? I have always loved the look of saabs but have never owned one Alan In Sweden salt is used to melt the snow and ice down to a temperature of minus 12°C. Since it's (at least used to be) colder in the northern parts of Sweden, salt is rarely used. The Saab 96 was available with the 841cc 2-stroke engine up to 1968. The Ford manufacured 4-stroke 1498cc engine (from the German Ford Taunus) was available in the Saab 96 from 1966. In Sweden the latter is often refered to as "Saab V4" to distinguish it from the 2-stroke Saab 96. Peter Nyberg Linkoping (Salty part of Sweden) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BrianC Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Menno, Seems as though your car is being painted/assembled pretty much as mine was. I opted for having the underside and wheelarches stonechipped and overcoated in body colour. This really didn't add much to the cost and has the advantage that it should be easier to clean the mud off those areas with gloss paint on rather than if they were just left stonechipped (don't even think about underseal). My car is intended for all-year use, so I'm not concerned about originality, just good protection and ease of cleaning off any salt . (May need to invest in a pressure washer soon). I haven't waxoyled it yet, but would like to get both cars done professionally this year (can't face doing this disgusting job again and it needs the right equipment to be really effective). It's probably more sensible to get this done during the rebuild/assembly, but I forgot about it until it was too late. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Trevor S Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Menno, As ever your written is English excellent, and as you ask, you used the expression "taken on board" entirely correctly. If your doors are original to your car which I believe they are, you probably won't have the problem I have had, but one point I would mention prior to painting of the doors is to trial fit the door trim panel to the unpainted door and fit it to the tub to make sure it closes properly with the trim panel fitted. I am working on a long door TR2 but was forced to use different doors to the originals which were too badly rotted at the bottom. The doors used were re skinned & fitted up in bare metal and were a perfect fit and were hence painted. However on fitting the door trims which I made and covered much like yourself, the additional thickness of the trim board and vinyl meant that the doors wouldn't shut properly and I am going to have to shorten the bottom of the trim to stop at the top of the threshold plate over the sill join. I realise it is something I should have thought of and might be worth bearing in mind yourself. I would also trial fit your boot lid with the boot lid gasket trial fitted as well prior to final painting as I found the new gasket held the boot lid off the body too much with too much strain on the hinges. In my opinion it is worth trying to sort this out before the final paint coat is applied to reduce the chance of scratches. Regards Trevor. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Don Elliott Posted January 11, 2008 Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Menno - I was at the car races back in 1960 or so and I saw a SAAB in the pits where several people were looking at the 2-stroke engine. I voiced a remark about the design, " Look it has a single overhead fan-shaft". I don't think anyone looking there caught onto the joke. For those who are not aware of this design, the cooling fan is at one end of the engine and it is driven by a shaft from the other end of the engine, quite high above the engine itself. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Menno van Rij Posted January 11, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2008 Menno - I was at the car races back in 1960 or so and I saw a SAAB in the pits where several people were looking at the 2-stroke engine. I voiced a remark about the design, " Look it has a single overhead fan-shaft". I don't think anyone looking there caught onto the joke. For those who are not aware of this design, the cooling fan is at one end of the engine and it is driven by a shaft from the other end of the engine, quite high above the engine itself. Don, you are right about cooling the two stroke. Strange layout, but it worked. I think that the very first Saabs had thermo syphon cooling: hot and cold water created flow through the radiator... Well, mine has an V4 Ford (Germany) engine. Not a really sophisticated engine, but it does the job perfectly well, as I kow from experience. Tonight I went to see the man who's selling the car. As told before, the clutch is iffy, so that will be replaced. And he will install modern safety belts. He handed me a pile of papers; about an inch thick: the total history of the car can be traced back: purchase, insurance, Swedish MOT-certificates, bills etc. It even turns out that it's a one (!) owner car from new 'till the moment that the car was imported into Holland in 04. After that, I lost trace of other previous owners (due to the privacy-laws in our country). In 04, The odometer read 51874 kms at the time the Dutch certificate was handed out to the owner at that time. Now it's a few kms more than 53K. I have to clear my garage for storing the car, so we decided that I will collect the car late January, early February. Back to the TR: it's a very good idea to trial fit the doors and lids with the gaskets in place! I will see to it that every gasket is in place when it's trial fitting time. Protection of the underside is taken care of the way Brian wrote. In Dutch we call the stuff 'Bodyschutz' which is a very strange word in our language: body is English, schutz is German... Still, everybody knows what it is. I'll keep you posted. Have a nice weekend! Menno Quote Link to post Share on other sites
vivdownunder Posted January 13, 2008 Report Share Posted January 13, 2008 Hi Menno, Just a couple of things with the body fit up. The stainless wing beads need to be very carefully fitted or new paintwork can be damaged. We loosley fitted the mudguards, then ran some strips of masking tape along each side of the join line to protect the duco, as the bead fixing tabs are very sharp. Then we carefully fed the tabs down into the join. What you have to be careful of is that the tabs all tend to slide down and bunch up at the low point of the bead. I felt safer fitting these as a two man job with one holding the bead and one getting the fix tabs into position. We tightened up the front guards a bit more, then positioned the bead correctly at the door end. The long flat fixing strip needs to be brought along to the edge of the apron and then pop rivetted to the mudguard. I found you got the best final job if you pushed the bead hard down on the join with one hand, and bent the tabs over underneath with the other, before finally tightening up the mudguard attaching bolts. With the rear mudguards, the starting point for the top bead is hard against the tail light rubber gasket. The small vertical bead at the very back has a flat section which goes beneath the tail light rubber gasket. At the very back of the rear mudguards there are a couple of clamps that are tricky to fit up in the corner after the mudguard is on. It is worth checking that threads and bolts are all OK for these clamps before fitting the mudguards, so they will go on easily without trouble. Regarding the bonnet and boot lid hinges, I found that the paper gaskets supplied for these often leak water, which drips down onto your leg from the bonnet hinge. I substituted clear plastic gaskets for these hinges from a source such as a flexible "Tupperware" container lid, which were long lasting and waterproof. I just cut a rectangular piece of plastic, drilled the holes, placed it over the hinge bolts and cut around to get perfect gaskets. Hope this helps, Viv. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Menno van Rij Posted January 13, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2008 Viv, Brilliant piece of information (not only for me, I think, but for a bunch of people). Thanks! Menno Quote Link to post Share on other sites
gnotte Posted January 14, 2008 Report Share Posted January 14, 2008 Hello, nice informations from viv about the wing beads fitting, I was believing that you should first fix the bead on the wing and then install the wing . Is this way not recommended or not possible ? thanks for your advises. Guy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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