What did you do today?

[mercrocker]

The old car club I belonged to in the mid 80s used to generally refer to a popular Japanese saloon as the Elsan Blueturd.

[captain_70s]

Moved the Dolomite up the street a bit to get it within extension cord reach of the flat. Obviously being BL it is fucked so I towed/pushed it with a rebadged Honda.

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I did try pushing it myself but it was going uphill and contains 1.5 cast iron engines so I had no joy. I do have some video footage to put up this weekend. So, can you tow a fucked Triumph backwards along a one way road with another fucked Triumph? Yes. Should you? Probably not.

In other "things you shouldn't bother with" content, I fucked about with some 8-track players. (They're shit).

[youtube][/youtube]

[Nibblet]

I looked hard at the photos of your street before I saw what was wrong/right.
No double yellow lines/parking boxes.

[Nibblet]

Got that Jetex exhaust on today. It was very easy to fit, the result was a really rather quiet Saab. I'm amazed at how smooth that V4 runs now, seems clean too, no trace of smoke on starting.

[Nibblet]

Need to replace bonnet, get a seat in it and replace the calipers, hopefully I replaced the clutch correctly and I'll be able to have a drive. She still won't idle at the prescribed 800rpm, below about a grand and starts to hunt, even whilst fiddling with the idle jet. Either the carb is jetted too rich or I need to replace the points and get the dwell angle right. I believe these V4s are drinkers so she might just run rich anyway. Perhaps a hotter spark plug? Someone remind me- hotter plug is more electrode showing and hotter burn, so higher number. She's running the equivalent of an NGK BPR6 now, maybe I should go to a BPR7

[mercrocker]

I haven't had that much to do with Saabs but I do recall about 30 years ago a couple of us were trying to revive one in a vicar's garden in the New Forest (I know it sounds like a bad BBC sitcom). I had new points with me which were duly fitted but something in the back of my mind keeps muttering about dwell angle - we had a bugger of a job getting it to run cleanly and I'm sure one of us conversant with V4 Fords from banger-racing Mk IVs said or did something about it.

Not much help, I admit but there we go. It was a green 96 like yours, too.

[SiC]

I think I said this before but my mum's side of the family owned and ran a scrapyard in Northampton. My uncle used to love running the big magnet and claw that dropped them into the bailer. He was telling me that the Saabs were the only car that you could pick up and regularly have a virtually rust free bottom. Most stuff was completely holed.

They also did a pull your own parts on Saturday. However that got stopped after an incident where a car was picked up to go to the bailer and thankfully in time, the crane operator realised someone was still in it.

[mercrocker]

On a similar vein and in tune with your own recent purchase.....I have a friend who was apprenticed in the garage trade in the Sixties in a big BMC dealership. It was however a well-established local business that catered for a wide area and repaired anything that was brought to them.

He reckons the only car he could remember that could safely be jacked with doors opened and be able to shut them again once raised was the Landcrab.

[Nibblet]

Old Saabs are bloody strong- as are Landcrabs, when the latter came out it was known for the rigidity of its body shell. If you do much welding to 70s tin you find out just how floppy much of it is.

[captain_70s]

On the subject of seldom rotten cars...

I went out today with the wire wheel and the angle grinder to sort out some of the Doloshite's inner wing engine bay surface rust. While setting up I noticed, due to the wheel being at full lock against the kerb, a rather grotty looking bit down by the subframe mount in the wheel well.

A compulsive desire came over me, I knelt down beside the car and gently pressed my thumb against the rust spot... There was a damp "crunch" and my thumb disappeared into the chassis. Marvellous.

I'll do a full write-up in the appropriate thread tomorrow but by the end of play today I could stick most of my hand into both of the chassis legs at the front end of the car.

I'm now in talks to acquire a MIG welder...