It's worse than that, she's dead, Jim.

Well.

Rubbish.

After a cold night poking and prodding the car for the final list of Things That Will Make It Fail An MOT, we found the mother-lode.

After a chat with the excellent and knowledgeable chat at our local Saab indie, we have had to pronounce her only fit for Tesco burgers, so its off to the mechanical equivalent of the glue factory.

The silver lining? We get to go car shopping again! Thankfully before we blew any of our budget on fixing Lake Saab.

If anyone has an interesting car to sell for 500 quid or less, please feel free to get in touch.

I don't like experts.

Spoke to our local Saab indie today to get an idea of any real show stoppers we need to look out for. I have a shopping list of things most serious among them is that the Bulkhead/Firewall and wing on RHD NG900/9-3's have a tendency to part company.

This is an MOT fail and about 800 quid to repair (dash, steering wheel, rack, break servo out, weld on some brackets, then put it all back). Before Saab decided to call it a day they were doing repairs at some or all costs covered. I suspect we have missed the boat on it though.

Currently we have on our job sheet the following....

• Front & Rear calipers
• Front & Rear disks & pads
• Spark Plugs
• Rocker cover gaskets
• Power steering hose
• Air,Fuel,Oil & Cabin filters
• Oil, Hydraulic & Brake fluids
• Tyres
• Interior courtesy light
• Head unit & CB
• Windscreen Wipers
• Tonneau cover
• Roof mechanism
• Headlight and indicator bulbs.

I think that's it..... Once the weather eases up we shall get out and check the various issues that could catch us out, who knows we could have a gem underneath all the "minor issues" we have found so far.

Every Day* I'm Tinkering

Some more things have happened to the car!

Firstly we got it off the front drive as it was somewhat in the way, especially when you have half the interior spread around doing a solid gold likeness of an exterior piece. It now resides pride of place on the patio.

This week we also gave it a once over and counted all the jobs we have remaining. The biggies are still the brake system and the roof. In our discovery process the battery is repeatedly dying and the low pressure PAS return hose has perished. Additionally, there is oil in the tops of the spark plug wells, which we believe is coming from the rocker gaskets, we shall know more at the weekend when we whip the head off.

Good news, some fumbling with various motors has allowed us to resurrect the tonneau retention clip system, this will be going back in this weekend, and will hopefully allow us coax some non-manual life out of the hood.

If not I have a plan, it involves a large number of relays and some very questionable wiring.

What could go wrong?


*lies, its like, once a week at best!

Damn you mother nature.....

Just to keep everyone (all 1 of our followers currently) updated....

Mother nature isn't giving us much leeway to get out and work on the beast at the moment.  Hopefully we will either get access to a garage space, or have a break in the weather and we can make some progress.

I did get a European driving kit for Xmas (from the "in-laws" :) ) which was greatly appreciated.  We now have spare bulbs, light adjusters, a hi-vis jacket, and a warning triangle. Along with a guide to driving in Europe and a 2 pack of disposable breathalysers.  Very handy.

Anyway, more news as it happens.

Striptease

YATTA!

We did it, finally we got her to take her top off.....


.....oh and the roof finally came down on the car :)

It took several hours of delicate arms-length wrangling that James Herriot would have been proud of, but we managed to release the final parts of the stuck mechanisms and were finally able to see the Saab in all her topless beauty.

The shot from the rear end isn't nearly so flattering. The image of WK "emerging" from the boot will haunt me forever. I will never be able to watch the rhino scene from Ace Venture without flashbacks and a rubber room.

The poor girl is not without some battle scars, most of the motors are totally seized and at some point the  tonneau cover motor has put so much stress on the system its actually twisted what appears to be a solid steel bar.

Now starts the process of ripping out the faulty guts (its for lightness, honest!) and bodging together a working system from what's left, bailing wire, and probably enough gaffer tape to cocoon a medium sized family home.

We'll let you know if we set it on fire or anything fun like that.

Now, where did those bits of plastic fly off too?.........

And so it begins....

So, by way of a mechanism of documenting our downfall, I have fired up a blog to detail the progress of our scumrunning.

Myself Adrian "WhiteKnight" Bawn, and Gregg "Cabe" Bond will be taking part in the 2013 scum run along with a couple of friends (Mike Jenkins and Adam Withers).

The idea of the scum run is that you buy a car for under £500, and drive to several predetermined targets around europe and then come home.  The catch ?  A) you dont know the destinations until the day.  and B) we will end up doing up to 3000 in about 4 days.  Should be amusing.

Our weapon of choice is currently a 1995 Saab 900 2.5L V6 Convertable.  Its in a bit of a state, but hopefully we can bend it to our will in time.

Picutres will follow in due course.