Practically Classics Forum

Welcome to #4 in the fleet - and this ones actually NOT a green machine!!

Way back in the 1990's I bought a 1963 Saab Sport as a non-runner for the bargain price of £00. Since then it has sat in my garage and it thing its time the old bus was finally put back on the road.

Apart from a split in the roof where a previous owner dripped something rather heavy on it which will need welding up the only major problem I know of is that the box is stuck in gear - no amount of moving the gear leaver will free it. So the first question is - can anyone recommend a good repairer of 2-stroke 4 speed gear boxes here in the UK??

Plan right now is to strip the engine down and rebuild using a hybrid crank, modified con rods and Waesco pistons from Tom Donney over in the USA. Whilst going that the more or less stripped body shell can get rubbed down, treated with rust killer where necessary and any major issues identified for repair by a suitable specialist. It;s going to take a while but will be worth it in the end.
Below are some photos of when it came home all those years ago.

















The first hurdle to overcome is shown in the photo below - can anyone actually SEE a car in the garage???

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Love them Saabs, Dad had a lime green version.

Garage needs some general tidying up Id say, other than that its fine

kev

That is one rusty mamma jamma!

After a days solid work - we managed to clear one side of the garage!! Fortunately I picked the side with the visible damage. unfortunately the damage from rust is more extensive than I remembered.





Looking at the next sequence of photos you can see the base of the A pillar basically does not exist any more and there are some unexplained holes in the inner wing at the bottom:







Conversely the damage to the roof is not as bad as I remembered and the rest of the corrosion does appear to be only surface.







Next step for now is to have a look and see what replacement panels are available for inner wings etc. That A pillar really worry worries me though as I think it will have to be rebuilt from scratch - and that is a bit outside my skill sets.
I do have a surfeit of riches in spare wings and bumpers though - as well as a bull nose bonnet without the tropical vents and a two-strokle engine block.

Good luck with that one!

It's nice to see a long forgotten car get another lease of life, all too often these stories don't have a happy ending

jpsh120 wrote:Good luck with that one!

It's nice to see a long forgotten car get another lease of life, all too often these stories don't have a happy ending

Thanks For sure where the bottom of that A pillar is concerned I think I am going to need it.