Grille and Sides

In 1974 Saab introduced the hatchback version of the 99. They called it the CombiCoupe or WagonBack in the USA. This would become a defining body style for Saab. At the same time they updated the grille design, changing it from metal to plastic. The plastic grilles are very fragile and it is rare to see a complete and perfect grille. The grille on my car is missing the tabs which connect the headlight surrounds to the center grille and the top chrome trim piece. Additionally the paint is faded. This sounds bad, but I've seen much worse. The tab at the top of the grille is good, as are the four outer tabs. There are also no cracks or missing slats.

I carefully removed the trim and badges.

Badges removed.

I sprayed the grille with SEM trim black. Then I masked off the areas that would remain black and sprayed the silver. I also taped the chrome trim rings around the headlight surrounds and sprayed those silver. The SAAB badge got a few coats of metallic gold pain. I sprayed the Turbo badge black and then sanded off the black from the letters. I have a feeling they used a similar process at the factory because of the brushed aluminum look on the original letters. This was replicated faithfully by the choosing the right grit sandpaper. 

After reassembly it looked pretty sharp.

I still need the top trim piece. The bottom is NOS via a friend (Jeff from ePartsland), via the Trollhattan world Saab convention. If you know of a good top trim piece I am interested. 

The paint had worn off the mirrors and the silver of the mirrors was failing. 

New mirrors are NLA so I had a local glass shop cut these replacement pieces. 

SEM trim black to the rescue...

Here are the grille and mirrors back on the car. Also, the air dam is back on. Looks pretty good. Still need to work on the hood.

   

Ugh Rugs

The carpets were quite badly faded. Worse the fading was uneven making those spots stick out even more.

As it turns out RIT Burgundy Dye is a near perfect match for the original color. I decided to use the liquid version of the product as opposed to the dry mix. I followed the manufacture's recommendations based on the size of the carpet. I used the hottest water I could get from the tap.

My neighbors were throwing out two kiddy pools, perfect fit. 

 I set up some saw horses and an old ladder to dry the carpets out fully. 

After the carpets had fully dried I rinsed them with a hose until the water ran clear. I then let them dry again.

 A few weeks later when I was ready to install them.

These rear mats are from a 900, but they may the back seat area look more complete.

The front looks fantastic with the original accessory coco mats. 

The Damn Air Dam

I'm way behind on updates. The weather has been good and I pushed through to get the car ready to drive up to the Canadian Owners Conventions in Toronto. 

The air dam on the 99 Turbo is one of its most distinctive features. I think the original is made of ABS plastic. It tends to crack very easily and my was pretty seiously cracked. I found a fiberglass reproduction made by SAS as a replacement. The SAS kit does not come with the grille surrounds or mounting hardware so I recovered those pieces from the original. 

The old cracked dam in foreground and the SAS replacement behind it.  

 The hardware removed.  

Unfortunately, the grille surrounds were also cracked and would need to be repaired. Masked off the SAS air dam and taped the surround pieces into place. Where a large chunk section was missing I made walls to form a mold

I cut some pieces from the old air dam and ground up the plastic. By mixing this with some epoxy I was able to batch the missing sections. 

The repaired parts. 

I filed and sanded the excess epoxy. I sprayed primer on the air dam and surround separately then reassembled the pieces. My neighborhood pro auto painter sprayed epoxy black and a high gloss clear. The new air dam shines like the originals did when new. It also should be much more durable then the original ABS.