Doors

While I was waiting for my "SAAB Electrics for Everyone" book from Mark Ashcraft to arrive I set to work on disassembling the door and prepping it for resto work too.

I don't know if dingus before had gotten into one of the doors and decided it was over his head (Unlikely, I imagine he thought very highly of himself) but one of the doors was barely held together at all. I think I drilled a total of 4 rivets out of it, that was all that was holding the fiberglass to the frame. For comparison the other door had 6 rivets and hidden screws through a mounting bracket holding it on. The more I dig into this car the more amazed I am it stayed entirely together while trailoring it home.

Fiberglass and door are cuddling no more. This is the same door -the poorly assembled one- as I'm opting to leave one together while I work on the other, that way when it's time to put it together I can get an idea of what it's vaguely supposed to look like.

Eagled eye viewers will see my book arrived... Sunday night is not the time to start wiring.

Bullet mirrors, I have another loose one (complete) in my bag of parts, I think it's the partner of the non painted one. Also notice one is a parabolic lens and the other is flat in the pic above. Again we see some questionable decisions. Why would you paint a chrome mirror, and why would you put said painted mirror on when you have a pair of chrome ones? Because you're a dingus, that's why.

Documenting where stuff goes when it needs to go back.

So dirty. Don't worry, I'll fix that.

more screws, and again lots of places where screws should be, but aren't

Hello silicone, my old nemesis.

Have I mentioned how much dingus likes silicone? I think he used a whole can/bottle/jar/bucket on this one window seal. I probably cut off a pound of seal off before I could jimmy the window loose.

After everything was out of the door (window regulator, lock, latch, handle etc) I noticed that the bottom portion of this door frame was warped out and bent. This of course will not stand, enter my newly created bending chock. I measure the dimensions of a section that wasn't warped and sawed a 2x4 to the proper dimensions. Popped in into place under a warped section and beat the hell out of it with the flat side of a 2 pound hammer.

looking warped AF

Implement of constructive destruction

Chock in place

it's not perfect, but it's level and a lot better than it was.

Brake Master Cylinder

The brakes on the first few test drives were very very spongy, I had to stomp the pedal to the floor the get the car to stop, especially down my steep driveway. Obviously I want the car to stop as well as it goes so I don't have to rebuild the car everyday after I crash into the back of a late braking truck.

Upon further inspection I found that brake fluid was leaking from the master cylinder into the boot behind the pedal when the system was under pressure, so I knew some seal in there was bad. I ordered a master cylinder rebuild kit and got to work disassembling the cylinder.

Removing it from the car was a lot easier than the clutch master, don't know if it was location or experience but I had it out in under 30 minutes this time. I took it apart a little to just get the thing out of the car. I disassembled the old cylinder preparing to clean and replace the seals inside. It's a relatively simple process of pulling and tapping things out of the bore.

This is the only tricky part, the "Guide Bearing" it's basically hammered tight into the cylinder, so to get it out the only option is to either drill screws into it and try to walk it out (which is what I did obviously) or supposedly you can melt through it with a soldering iron, if you go that route use a respirator. My only lesson I can pass on is when you choose your screws make sure you go for a small diameter coarse thread, and be very careful of your angle, you don't want to scratch the piston if you can avoid it. You aren't worried about salvaging the bearing because a new one is included in the rebuild kit. Once the guide bearing is out the only tricky part is a circlip way down the bore, but with a pair of circlip pliers and a good light source it shouldn't be too tough. Once everything was out I had a bag full of parts.

 Now everything was out, time to start cleaning up the cylinder. I know it's a hydraulic component deep in the bowels of the engine bay that nobody can see and surface peeling or rust makes no difference to it's functionality. I'm just fanatical about making everything shiny and new, sorry.

Now doesn't that look so much better? Once all the gunk and rust was removed I took a bottle of brake cleaner to the whole bore and all the ports, using small wire to clean all the passages too. The aluminum (I'm assuming it's aluminum since it was so soft) was really pitted under the paint, so Instead of clear coating it I decided on a thick valve-cover paint to hide the flaws. Taped up the important parts, primed and painted. While all that was drying I set to work on the internals, the seals, springs, and rings.

The primary piston, pulled from the bore (it takes some force)

close up of the front piston, notice the directionality of the seals, very important

all the circlips, washers and spacers from inside the bore.

The paint dried, I'm very very pleased with the results, my tape job could have been better but the paint did exactly what It was intended to and covered up the pitting nicely.

Just set on top, the gasket between the reservoir cap and cylinder was obliterated in the removal process, and the rebuild kit didn't include one. So I made my own, I had to end up doubling up because one layer was too think.

bought 6 new bolts and locking washers, stainless steel this time.

The exterior done it was time to put the piston assembly back in. This is a difficult process, and I had to literally hammer in the new guide bearing using a deep well socket to go around the piston.

In the process of getting the piston back into the bore I chipped the paint. I'm still cursing myself, I may sand the area and try to repaint it later.

During the reconstruction somehow the primary piston got jammed and wouldn't return, we used a syringe to inject a small amount of brake fluid into each of the valves and both my dad and I pulled on the piston trying to break the seal. 30 minutes of forcing fluid into the system and pulling on the piston we got it to break free. Once it was fully extended we put back on the reservoir bottle and hose, plugged up the valves with random bolts and filled the cylinder. I'm letting it sit still, giving the fluid time to percolate into all the places that it was cleaned from before trying to get it to pump fluid again.