I then moved onto dropping the front subframe. It was time to do the subframe bushings completely with PowerFlex, upgrade the sway bar to 21mm, do a service on the transmission, change out a bunch of various things and fix any leaks I may see, couple of hose clamp changes, I forget everything I did but there was a lot of work in 3 days time. Along the way 2 sway bar bolts snapped, drilled and tapped.















Trans service...eeeeeeek



Put it all back together and take some pics





For fun, I got these stickers to put on the blank buttons in both cars, I let my daughter pick out which ones went where.





All done, time to haul about 200lbs, self leveling FTW!

 

Nice job of staying on top of stuff, sucks you had to replace all your shocks like that.

Did you wrap your dash in this car with the aluminum-look vinyl? I'm considering doing something similar but on a much smaller scale in my E36. I'm also considering wrapping the whole exterior of the E36 myself like you did. What did you use as resources/guides on the process? I've found a bunch of youtube videos but haven't gone through them all yet. What brand did you go with, and approximately what did you spend? Where did you purchase from? Got any specialty tools you'd recommend I pick up to make things easier? Is this something one person can do, or is a helper always needed?

 

That dash is actually factory.

I used CKwraps on youtube, he has tons of work on wrapping.

I used 3M but that is hit or miss with them. 2080 is better but I've had bad section in a roll and it sucks when its a crappy piece. If I had to do it over again, I'd go Avery. My first full roll was $550 then I needed more for mistakes so another $300. Then the tools were around $100.

Get knifeless tape, vvivid knives for final trimming, cheap knives for cutting off the roll, good buffers (monkey stripes), magnets, heat gun with instant on/off switch, edge tuckers, gloves.

It is good to have a 2nd hand on big pieces like bumpers and hood.

Practice on Fenders first, then doors and roof. Trimming is the hardest part. Practice practice practice. You'll get it, vinyl has gotten even easier since I've been playing with it.

 

Shining up the cars. Getting ready for Saab Owners Convention. Sedan will be seeing its first track day





Wagon

 

The cars looks great as usual. What do you do to "shine" the wrapped sedan? That's a nice looking steering wheel too!

 

wraps "self heal" heat gun and sun light helps bring back the shine and helps eliminate swirls. I also ceramic coated it and clean it weekly with a top coat (chemical guys synthetic quick detailer or turtle wax hybrid ceramic wet wax).

 

Took 3rd at the Convention.
Planning a couple changes to it this winter
-Cutout for the exhaust since the new catback made this thing whisper quiet
-Going to try my hand at combining 2 bumpers into one custom front bumper (9-5 Aero upper/08+ 9-3 Aero lower; its been done once or twice)
-No one has even made "Ice Block" tail lights for the 9-5; so I'm going to give a try with making a silicone mold, pretty sure I can do it

Last thing I am considering:
I want the Hirsch 19" 3 spoke wheels...but I'm looking at 50lbs per wheel and tire now, right now I'm about 43lbs. If I went to RPF1s again I could get it down to 38lbs. 50lbs is alot.
for reference, these are the wheels and lower half of the bumper I want to fit:




Wagon:
I put in the Hirsch replica steering wheel and I don't really like it; they put the bolster for the hand grips in the wrong place. The one in the Sedan is better built (I've reached out to the maker of that steering wheel to see if they will make another one)
This winter
-Find the anniversary roof rails (they are silver instead of black)
-Find less dented black hood
-Repaint front and rear bumpers (and hood maybe?)
-body color door handles and trim
-Quad projector retrofit with more LEDs
-Light walnut wood dash and rare interior pieces (I'm on the hunt for them)
-Debating replicating the the Sport tech black and tan interior (dash swap, door cards and seats)
-Dual exhaust by spring
-Vinyl wrap roof in a satin midnight/shadow black camo (cover up my horrible cat damaged roof)
-More sound deadening the wheel wells
-Retrofit the reverse sensors (easy job)
-Retrofit rain sensing wipers (hard job)



That's all for now.

 

Congrats on 3rd place! I wish there were still things like that for Maximas. You sure have some ambitious projects lined up. I get the appeal of those wheels, but aren't 19s a little too big? And what are ice block tail lights? How the the sedan hold up on the track, got any video?

I did some sound deadening in my wheel wells a long time ago. What's your plan? I just used some Dynamat-type stuff on the back of the fender liners and a tad on the body behind them. If the paint is in good condition on the hood, you may want to consider getting it PDR'ed. I just had my whole car done and it's incredible. And dual exhaust? Was that ever a factory thing?

 

good questions 95maxrider =) and congrats Drunkie on placing 3rd !

and by PDR'ed do you mean powder coated?

 

Paintless dent removal

 

19s would be 35 series tires so yeah a little big. The weight is the killer...then the price of $3,900 is also a killer. I'm going to probably stay with what I got.
As for the track day....well not as planned. Drove the hour and half out, then my ignition jammed up and I couldn't turn the car back on after I had tech inspection. Took about an hour of working on it, our ignitions are down in the center console. You can pull the tumbler with an Allen key and jamming it in the right spot while turning and pulling the key. I got it in and it just flicked over and the car started. Well, I decided to bail because I didn't want to tow home (more on that in a minute). So it sucks it happened. I got home and fixed the ignition switch which is a job and a half to do, but its fixed now.

I was planning on doing sound deadener on the back of the liners and maybe lizard skin up in the wells themselves, the front fender has an area where I can add mass loaded vinyl. The car on the highway at 75 is 70-71db, I want to get it in the 60s. The car has hail/acorn dents all over, new hood was $100 and the rear passenger door was hit with a larger than football dent damage that I did pull back out and touch up paint. I would like to just replace it

Dual exhaust was never an option but these cars look so much better with the dual tips, I have dual black chrome tips.


Now as for the mention on towing. This happened to the truck the other day, this would've happened while towing the sedan home and the oil went everywhere, which would've been all over my sedan.


Transmission line blew off the cooler, emptied the trans. I reseated the line and refilled. I got it home, haven't had time to look/fix it permanently yet. The line slid back in the cooler and locked in, so no idea what the hell happened. I was 5 miles from home.

 

Oh and this is ice block tail lights

 

Saab was going to do it with the 2006+ 9-5, it was on the concept car.

 

Yeah, those wheels are not $3,900 worth of cool, and they're too heavy IMO. Just like a 4th gen, I think 17s or 18s are the sweet spot for wheel size on that car. I'm a 17s man myself, and am quite happy with my 40.0 pounds per corner. Sucks about the ignition switch issue. I take it you didn't have to replace the whole thing? Now I need to do a db reading on the highway and see where my car is at. It sure seems quiet to me. Is that dual exhaust setup something you can just buy or do you need to fab it up? Ice block = altezza? Got it.

 

I can buy a prefab setup for dual, but I have my welder now, I think I can do it myself.

haha yeah I know how the maxima community feels about altezzas.

 

I've been sleeping. I could make a long update of all the things I've been doing or I could just show you.

 

Neat! How'd ya do it?

 

Cut them open. Designed a bunch of stuff in 3D. 3D printed things. Soldered up some LEDs, made some circuits. Glued everything together and stuffed it back in the car.

It took me around 8 months to complete this project working on it in my spare time.

I've been doing a bunch of other stuff too. I'll have an update on it all some day soon.

 

I'll just leave this here:

 

props dude being solo and.... doing such a project. ! you love these SAABs

 

I put the car back together.

Made a video of the daily wagon too

And the wife's whip too

I've been busy with so many things. And the car runs great.