Saab 900 Turbo Commander | The Beginning Of A Rusty Journey 

Challenging work, but a deserving car, and we love your enthusiasm for it!

Thanks for keeping this beauty on the road!

Irony is, the best rust prevention is making holes to let the water out, same for electrical stuff that resides in "sealed" boxes that somehow fills with water, a simple drain hole and it stops things being eaten by the tin worms... :)

Excellent work. Don't forget to re-weld that captive nut for the swing arm mount.😎

As a 30+ year Saabist, I could watch you for hours. Thank you so much for such entertainment.

Perfect timing, just after spending all morning welding my BX D turbo, this video shows up during my lunch break 😎

Great seeing the Commander getting some love! I'd say the rust level actually looks pretty good for beeing an OG900, bodes well!

It is always a nice feeling to have caught the rust before the job became much worse, Great video- thank you.

When the episodes about Saab stopped coming out, I thought you had stopped working on it. It's great to see that you're restoring it. I am a Saab owner myself and am very pleased to see someone extending its life.

Great work!

Oh a tip for you, Svenska Saabklubbens Reservdelsförsäljning has newly made shields for 99/900s in stock right now, not very cheap at 950 SEK (79-87 model front) a pop. They also signed some deal in 2023 to start producing new spare parts for older Saabs.

Had to do this myself last year, but mine was not so bad. I made up my own replacements, I didn't bother grinding down any welds either, figured leaving them adds strength. I fill the inside with oil regularly. Linseed oil.

Very nice work so far! Be sure to replace the ball joints also - they will fail sooner or later.

I'm at the same point with mine , mines a bit later as it's a rear handbrake but same story , the coil spring came out easily with standard compressors, but previous owners paid to get cheap welding done which of course left old metal in place. I'll look forward to next vid. Good luck.

That brake caliper is an evolutionary design of the ones fitted to the BMC/Leyland ADO16 cars (Austin/Morris 1100/1300 etc) - for Saab they added the handbrake function. Was made by Lockheed.

Very nice, I'm learning a lot, being an amateur mechanic :)

if this is the worst of the rust, its mint :D

Saab99 panel pieces will fit

I would find it very instructive if you would film how you go about sealing that repair up. Actually doing some rust work myself for the first time and it's not the welding or the panels but all the paint and protection stuff that makes my head spin.

That looks excellent. I love the way nothing seems to faze you.

Great work! It's never easy to repair and weld but it's always nice to see when somebody makes it look so easy.

Amazing work!

Nice start. A very deserving car for all your effort.

Nicely done

Excellent work.

The Saab owners worse nightmare. Lots have been scrapped because of it. You're doing a nice job and I hope it convinces others that it's worth doing. Nice to see that there is a very useful repair panel. I hope it is generally available. As the saying goes, perhaps, not a lot of people know that.

That is a common rust point on the 79-93 and 94 CV cars. Since the right front wheel does the driving, it throws all the snow, slush and salt/sand in that area. A few tips for my fellow SAAB enthusiasts. Old ball joints make great suspension spacers for unloading the coil spring tension. The section that slips into the control arms is the same thickness as the factory spacer tool. Cut the ball stud end off of old ball joints. Get a carriage bolt and some nuts and pass them through one of the retaining bolt holes. Set the spacing and tighten the nuts to hold the ball joint stubs from flopping around. Paint the spacers white so that they are visible. I've lost a few factory spacer tools over the years as I forgot to remove them. When having to remove the steering knuckle/hub assembly, it is easier to remove the two bolts that hold the ball joint into the control arms rather than wrestle with the ball stud nuts and splitter tool. The ball joints will slide out of the controls arms. If the bolts are stuck in the ball joints, there is a space on the underside of the control arms where the ball joints are exposed. Heat the area where the bolts pass through with a MAP gas torch and use an impact gun to rattle the bolts. They'll eventually break free. During reassembly, coat the ball joints and retaining bolts with anti-seize compound. This makes removing or replacing ball joints a breeze the next time. The grease on the inner axle joint looked watery. The factory J Grease is too thin for the inner joint. The exhaust pipe passes close to the joint and the heat melts the grease. Clean the inner tri-pod and driver cup and regrease with high temp bearing grease. This holds up much better to exhaust heat, especially on turbo equipped cars.

Well done buddy!

Great job, I must take a look at that area on my 99turbo: out of sight, out of mind.

I think Svenska Saabklubben sell the dust shields, but they're probably bloody expensive.

Wuhuu rust work! ❤

I have just picked up a refurbished set of Inca Wheels the same as you have. I'm going to put them on my 1986 8v 5 door turbo. I am going to fit a set of Lessjofor (spelling??) Lowering springs and Bilstein B4 shocks. Can I ask what size tyres you have fitted to yours?

Get Saab 9000 front parts if others not available.

I'm sure there are dust shields available in Europe lol, I'm not going to mail you one from the parts car in my driveway lol

Those calipers look very similar to the calipers on my Allegro. I wonder if there's any overlap because getting anything for those brakes is a nightmare.

Would it be worth drilling a 10mm hole in there so that trapped water can get out?

Was this car garaged at the bottom of the ocean? It's more shipwreck than car under there.

👍🎞🧎🏻‍♂

14:18 Why not drill a small hole in the bottom section? So water cannot stay in the lower area.

💘 "Promo sm"