[Saab_c900] Additions to the discussion forums page on www.saab900classic.net

in article mailman.0.1099200062.579.saab snipped-for-privacy@lios.apana.org.au, Craig's C900 Site at snipped-for-privacy@lios.apana.org.au wrote on 31/10/2004 06:21:

If you take digital photos of Cirrus White, it appears quite blue on a calibrated computer screen. Cirrus White SAABs rule - is yours a T8?

Paul

1989 900 Turbo S

That would be a negative. My running C900's both have non-turbo'd 8V powerplants but that doesn't stop me fiddling. Today I pulled off the front bumper and concocted a way to fit foglights using two different types of Saab light mounting brackets to get the correct location for the lights under the bumper. I'm yet to run the wiring kit for them but just having them mounted makes the front of the car look more mean (I've replaced the stock clear lenses with yellow ones also).

I don't have a digital cam (yet) but I might hold off using pure gloss white for the paint repairs until I can get a reference card for Cirrus White to compare against.

Craig.

in article cm56nm$lfr$ snipped-for-privacy@yoda.apana.org.au, Craig's C900 Site at snipped-for-privacy@lios.apana.org.au wrote on 01/11/2004 12:29:

Nice 8) I have a pair of rectangular Hellas (with lens caps) to fit at some point. I'd like mine to work thought, so I'll do the job all in one go. The white caps look really good against the black bumper on white C900s.

I have a soft spot for the NA B201 - they're not as slow as you might imagine. Certainly the turbos leave them behind on the uphill and from the traffic lights, but give 'em a little while and they soon catch up.

When we had a NA B201 and a T8 in the family, we used to go "racing" - I always plumped for the NA, since I found I could fling that around more easily. My other half was quite adept at keeping the turbo up around the twisties, so it was quite a job keeping up.

You could always pop off a bit of bodywork that's not too big to take into the paint store for comparison ... No, not a wing! I was thinking more of the fuel flap?

Paul

1989 900 Turbo S

I've completed the job today! The yellow foglights look great with the black of the bumper and the white paint on the car. 8-) I obtained a set of foglight 'grilles' too, so they make the lights look like the mean business! I discovered a few interesting things too:

- the car *has* wiring for the rear foglights (inner-most red light on each rear light cluster) and I found a connector in the dash wiring which was hanging free with no switch on it. Plugged in a spare switch and hey presto! Switchable rear foglights. As per the instructions for the foglight wiring kit I connected the new switch for the front foglights to the wiring for the rear ones but I think the light in the 'extra' switch from the wiring kit isn't working as the switch head doesn't light up.

- since my car is a 1982/83 build, the fuse panel is different to 1984 and up cars. It took a bit of circuit tracing to figure out which side of the ceramic fuse connectors for the two headlight low-beam circuits to use but I used the brown wire coming from the 12 volt input side to fuse 3 (RH low-beam).

- There isn't enough wiring under the fuse panel to lift it out quite far enough to get easy access to everything so some bodgying to keep it propped in position when working out which terminals/wires to connect the loom for the foglights to was employed.

- Removing the fasteners for the lower dash valence was a challenge, esp. on the fuse-panel side. 8-) Hopefully I can get them back in when I put the dash back together tomorrow morning.

Now the foglights can be turned on whenever the low-beam headlights are on, and if I switch to high-beams, the foglights go off. Bit silly to use high beams if it's foggy anyway, so the way it's working now is how I'll leave it. The rear 'foglights' switch independently of the front ones but only come on when the headlights are on.

I didn't see anything for rear foglights in the wiring diagrams for the 1982 C900's (in the Bentley manual) but I might have missed it as the diagrams are quite small scale.

From 3500 rpm up (roughly when the car is doing 100 kph or faster) it has masses of top-end torque and I can keep the car doing 110+ kpb up some fairly steep hills on the main highway just south of where I live (the legal road speed is 110 kph). The fact that the auto tranmission is doing direct

1:1 coupling at that speed helps too! But the auto is eating too much of the engine power for my liking to feed the torque converter.

I'm very interested to work out if it's possible to add a turbo to the car and once I do a tranmission swap (gotta get a manual to replace that auto!), either retro-fitting a turbo, or doing a full engine swap for a B201 with a turbo (and a 1985+ block) would be the way to go.

I'm going to a SCCA meeting at Alec Mildren's tomorrow evening so I'll be sure to bring up the paint issue then while I'm the presence of some true Saab Guru's! 8-) I have a few tech questions about the engine too (like while it's idling so roughly - perhaps needing a head strip-down and rebuild).

You should look at adding your website to the two webrings I have set up!

8-) The Saab C900 Webring is at "" and the Saab NG900 Webringis at ""!